Cold steeping grains for a stout

[LoganO]

I am looking to brew my first AG stout next weekend. I have heard talk on the show about cold steeping the roasted grains overnight to avoid issues with your water profile during the mash. Can I just steep the Chocolate malt and Roasted Barley overnight and add it to the last few minutes of the boil? Will this mess with my OG as I am expecting 7 point from these grains? Or am better of trying to make water adjustments for the brew? If so are there any starting point recommendations? I was just going to add some calcium chloride and then adjust the mash PH with acid malt if I went the cold steep direction. Any advice you might have would be greatly appreciated!

Milk Stout recipe:
15gallons at flame out

23LB 2row
3.0LB Roasted Barley 300L
2.3LB C60
2.3LB Chocolate 350L
2.3LB Munich
2.0LB Flaked Barley
1.5LB Flaked Oats
3.0lb Lactose

My current water profile per Ward Labs:
NA 40
CA 32
MG 5
CACO3 101
Sulfate 45(report shows 15ppm adjusted as report reads so4-s)
CL 9
Co3 9
HCO3 121
CACO3 99

[ajdelange]

You probably don't need to steep the black stuff separately or make any adjustments to the water chemistry as you have a fair amount of alkalinity. Your wording suggests that you have a means for checking mash pH and given that you should have some alkali (calcium carbonate, pickling lime or sodium bicarbonate) handy to raise mash pH a bit should it come in too low. It probably won't but it is possible that it will depending on the distilled water mash pH of the base malt and the titratable acidity of the chocolate, cara, and roast barley.

I don't know whether cold steeping over night will extract the flavors in the same way that mashing them would as I have never tried it. Doesn't seem right intuitively but it might work out OK. I wouldn't count on much extract from the black malt or rost barley in any case. Most of the extractable stuff has been destroyed in kilning to those color levels.

[LoganO]

Thanks for the reply AJ. I do have a PH meter and I also have some pickling lime that I can use if needed. Would you target a 5.6 - 5.7 Room temp PH so that would put the mash PH around 5.3 - 5.4? As I usually brew amber to pale beers I have not had to use the pickling lime yet. Is there any sort of suggestion on how much is needed per .1 increase needed?

[ajdelange]

My guess is that you will come in between 5.4 and 5.5. Anything in that range should be OK. Even if it goes as low as 5.2 that's probably not going to be a problem. I assume you will be doughing in to protein rest temperature. That's not as high above room temperature as saccharification temperature and actual pH rollback with temperature seems to be somewhat exaggerated. If pH goes to 5.1 then I'd take action. Now as you have the lime handy you can easily adjust from 5.2 or 5.3 if you want to. I think (note the use of the verb think as opposed to know) that the best pH is around 5.4 (at room temp).

I don't have a recommendation about amounts of lime. I'd just advise making the first addition very small (a pinch to use the scientific term) followed by a pH check. That should give you an idea of how much a pinch shifts your mash pH. Lime should work pretty quickly but give it a minute or 2 to react and be sure it is evenly distributed throughout the mash.

[BrewerJ]

Most people cold steep the dark grains for the flavor impact. If you want a softer but still bold dark roast character cold steeping is a popular way to go. It is similar to the effect of cold steeping coffee. I am pretty sure your not going to get 7 gravity points out of your chocolate or roast. Just cold steep overnight and add the last few minutes of the boil. Also there is no need to worry so much about your mash ph. It will be fine even if you don't do any water treatments. Thats one of the last things you should worry about. Fermentation is much more important!

[biertourist]

For what it's worth Gordon Strong seems to be a HUGE proponent of either cold steeping dark grains or adding them during either the vorlauf or lautering steps in "Brewing Better Beer": http://www.amazon.com/Brewing-Better-Be ... 0937381985

I'd say the three strongest recommendations in the book are actually (in no particular order):
1. "Hop bomb" really hoppy beers
2. Add dark grains late or cold steep them
3. Become a beer judge so you can train your pallet and identify issues early


He comes back to these things over and over again and hints that the other home brewers bringing home NHC gold do the same.

(If only we had an updated version of "Designing Great Beers" that reflected the NHC winners over the last 7-8 years, we'd know for sure... -Seriously an update is long over due...)


Adam

[brewinhard]

(If only we had an updated version of "Designing Great Beers" that reflected the NHC winners over the last 7-8 years, we'd know for sure... -Seriously an update is long over due...)


Adam

+1 Agreed....