Cold steep vs. normal

[Trough Lolly]

[KEG]

feel the love

[Kevnlis]

Anyone else a bit teary?

HTFU guys, this is a HB forum after all!

[ryan]

I sent flowers too.

[drtom]

Hi All

(Nice to be back after missing most of last year! )

If I can dip my nerdy oar in on the subject to the tea analogy....

When you're brewing tea, you're deliberately try to get the tannins out of the tea leaves. Cold steeping would simply not get them. When steeping specialty grains, you're getting a bunch of more soluble carbohydrates out of the grains, and trying to leave most of the tannins behind. Therefore it makes perfect sense that cold steeping should work, even though it's no way to make a cup of tea! There is one more important thing going on in steeping (depending on the grain) - which is the chomping up of long-chain carbohydrates (e.g. starch) by enzymes in the malted grains. While this is usually done in particular temperature ranges that optimize the performance of the alpha and beta amylase enzymes, the enzymes will still work at room temperature, just much more slowly, which is again okay if you're doing a 24hr steeping.

So I'm not a bioscientist, or an expert brewer, but the foregoing seems reasonable based on what I do know of biochemistry.

cheers, happy new year, and isn't it a bummer about all this hot weather,
dT.

[KEG]

HTFU

mwahahahaha, it made an imprint

[ryan]

Hi All

(Nice to be back after missing most of last year! )

If I can dip my nerdy oar in on the subject to the tea analogy....

When you're brewing tea, you're deliberately try to get the tannins out of the tea leaves. Cold steeping would simply not get them. When steeping specialty grains, you're getting a bunch of more soluble carbohydrates out of the grains, and trying to leave most of the tannins behind. Therefore it makes perfect sense that cold steeping should work, even though it's no way to make a cup of tea! There is one more important thing going on in steeping (depending on the grain) - which is the chomping up of long-chain carbohydrates (e.g. starch) by enzymes in the malted grains. While this is usually done in particular temperature ranges that optimize the performance of the alpha and beta amylase enzymes, the enzymes will still work at room temperature, just much more slowly, which is again okay if you're doing a 24hr steeping.

So I'm not a bioscientist, or an expert brewer, but the foregoing seems reasonable based on what I do know of biochemistry.

cheers, happy new year, and isn't it a bummer about all this hot weather,
dT.

Also, according to Zymurgy, when you cold steep, you can do a larger steep than you need on the day, and once it`s strained off, the remainder can be kept in sealed container in frig. for up to a month.
Which is something I didn`t know. So instead of doing 4 cold steeps in a month, say, you could just do one big one and reserve what you didn`t use.
But can someone else test that please? I don`t feel like buggering up $30 worth of beer just cos Zymurgy says so

[Boonie]

Hi All

(Nice to be back after missing most of last year! )

If I can dip my nerdy oar in on the subject to the tea analogy....

When you're brewing tea, you're deliberately try to get the tannins out of the tea leaves. Cold steeping would simply not get them. When steeping specialty grains, you're getting a bunch of more soluble carbohydrates out of the grains, and trying to leave most of the tannins behind. Therefore it makes perfect sense that cold steeping should work, even though it's no way to make a cup of tea! There is one more important thing going on in steeping (depending on the grain) - which is the chomping up of long-chain carbohydrates (e.g. starch) by enzymes in the malted grains. While this is usually done in particular temperature ranges that optimize the performance of the alpha and beta amylase enzymes, the enzymes will still work at room temperature, just much more slowly, which is again okay if you're doing a 24hr steeping.

So I'm not a bioscientist, or an expert brewer, but the foregoing seems reasonable based on what I do know of biochemistry.

cheers, happy new year, and isn't it a bummer about all this hot weather,
dT.

Also, according to Zymurgy, when you cold steep, you can do a larger steep than you need on the day, and once it`s strained off, the remainder can be kept in sealed container in frig. for up to a month.
Which is something I didn`t know. So instead of doing 4 cold steeps in a month, say, you could just do one big one and reserve what you didn`t use.
But can someone else test that please? I don`t feel like buggering up $30 worth of beer just cos Zymurgy says so

Get TL to do it, you sent him flowers, surely he can do that for you?


And welcome back drtom. I'm off to buy some grain

EDIT....got it, now to search for a recipe

Cheers

Boonie

[ryan]

Trough?

[Ross]

I switched to cold steeping for all my brews back in my extract days.
I can't swear that the beers were smoother as such, but the results were more consistant with what i was trying to achieve with no harshness, certainly no tannin extraction either.
With mash brewing these days, I add the dark malts after 30 minutes. This works well with my low ph tank water & gives me better efficiency.

cheers Ross

[ryan]

If you remember, Ross, we talked about this on Grumpy`s OLD forum long ago. That`s when I changed from hot to cold steeps. I was hoping you`d see this thread

[Boonie]

Which is something I didn`t know. So instead of doing 4 cold steeps in a month, say, you could just do one big one and reserve what you didn`t use.
But can someone else test that please? I don`t feel like buggering up $30 worth of beer just cos Zymurgy says so

Ok ryan, I have cold steeped .5kg of crystal and will halve and save in fridge. It is going into a LCPA. (How's your LCPA going?.....sorry that's a little off topic)

Cheers

Boonie

[drsmurto]

Boonie

You are adding crystal to yur LCPA now. You must be on your 10th onbe by now, might be nice for all the newer brewers if you posted some comments about its evolution, a la the great hoegarden thread..... your LCPA recipe is a crowd favourite.

[ryan]

Which is something I didn`t know. So instead of doing 4 cold steeps in a month, say, you could just do one big one and reserve what you didn`t use.
But can someone else test that please? I don`t feel like buggering up $30 worth of beer just cos Zymurgy says so

Ok ryan, I have cold steeped .5kg of crystal and will halve and save in fridge. It is going into a LCPA. (How's your LCPA going?.....sorry that's a little off topic)

Cheers

Boonie

yep, have all the neccesary here, will have an empty fermenter tomorrow arv so it will be LCPA AT 6AM Sunday.
{that`s only a 15 min. boil, right?}

and I have resisted the urge to add carapils- want to try it au natural first

[Boonie]

Boonie

You are adding crystal to yur LCPA now. You must be on your 10th onbe by now, might be nice for all the newer brewers if you posted some comments about its evolution, a la the great hoegarden thread..... your LCPA recipe is a crowd favourite.

Will let you know doc. I am going to dry hop the hops in the primary for this one..........just to see what happens. I've added crystal before and it was pretty good.

{that`s only a 15 min. boil, right?}

Yep, 15 minutes max.

I've made a few different batches doc, but it still is work in progress. I've made 8 batches FWIW but still looking to improve. I had a couple of very bitter batches which I can put down to my "liberal" use of the hops

Cheers

Boonie

PS. I will add the results on your original thread doc.....It will be interesting with the "cold steep" I think..........sorry fellas too for going off topic, just keen to hear ryans thoughts.

[Pale_Ale]

Well I'm convinced, I suspected as much and I will give cold steeping a go!

[Trough Lolly]

Hi All

(Nice to be back after missing most of last year! )

If I can dip my nerdy oar in on the subject to the tea analogy....

When you're brewing tea, you're deliberately try to get the tannins out of the tea leaves. Cold steeping would simply not get them. When steeping specialty grains, you're getting a bunch of more soluble carbohydrates out of the grains, and trying to leave most of the tannins behind. Therefore it makes perfect sense that cold steeping should work, even though it's no way to make a cup of tea! There is one more important thing going on in steeping (depending on the grain) - which is the chomping up of long-chain carbohydrates (e.g. starch) by enzymes in the malted grains. While this is usually done in particular temperature ranges that optimize the performance of the alpha and beta amylase enzymes, the enzymes will still work at room temperature, just much more slowly, which is again okay if you're doing a 24hr steeping.

So I'm not a bioscientist, or an expert brewer, but the foregoing seems reasonable based on what I do know of biochemistry.

cheers, happy new year, and isn't it a bummer about all this hot weather,
dT.

Good point dT re the temp ranges of the amylase enzymes - too many brewers get fixated on having exactly the right mash temp and fear a dough-in with their grains in 74C strike water to achieve a 66C rest will result in killing all the low temp beta-amylase enzymes at the start of the mash. Sure, the enzymes have an upper limit, which is one reason why we do a boil, but enzymes are a reasonably hardy lot...

Also, according to Zymurgy, when you cold steep, you can do a larger steep than you need on the day, and once it`s strained off, the remainder can be kept in sealed container in frig. for up to a month.
Which is something I didn`t know. So instead of doing 4 cold steeps in a month, say, you could just do one big one and reserve what you didn`t use.
But can someone else test that please? I don`t feel like buggering up $30 worth of beer just cos Zymurgy says so

Two points: I no longer steep grains (the crystal and other "Steeping" category grains get mashed in along with the base malt in the mash tun) and as Ross did, when I bothered to steep grains back in the kit days, I used to steep cold and slowly bring the steep up to 70C before removing the grain bag, rinsing (sparging if you will) and then boiling the resultant sweet liquor with hop additions. In my earlier post, I guess I got sidetracked on the overnight topic and focussed on that rather than the steeping temp, but it's good to see that science confirms practice, and after all, isn't science simply a set of rules based on experience and learning?

Cheers,
TL