Steeping Uncrushed Specialty Grain

[MrC]

This may sound like a strange idea but I've thinking about steeping some uncrushed grain along with my crushed grain.  Why would I want do do that?  

 

When brewing extract beers with specialty grains you are often advised to avoid certain grains that need to be mashed such as Brown Malt and Smoked Malt.  My theory is that due to the way these grains are produced, a lot of the characteristic flavour that the specialty malt will be contained in the husk and that simply steeping the grain uncrushed will be sufficient to release the desired flavours without adding the unwanted starch.

 

For various reasons I have brewed a couple of extract beers lately and I am currently planning on brewing an Ordinary Bitter using extract + specialty grain.  As part of the recipe I would like to steep some Brown Malt along with a couple of Crystal Malts and I am thinking of not crushing the Brown Malt.

 

Now, I know that I could steep at 67C and effectively mash the brown malt, but I can't help but wonder whether steeping uncrushed grain can achieve the same result without having to worry so much about temp control, starch conversion and cloudy wort.  Which to me is the whole point of brewing an extract based beer.

 

Has anyone else thought about or perhaps tried this technique?

 

 

 

[JoKing]

I don't think that it would add that much flavour to be honest. I agree that some flavour would be added to the wort - but I dont think it would be the same... As with any malt, the contents of the grain is what adds the sweetness and body to the beer - and indeed with Brown malt, the contents are what adds the colour. So, if it is the contents of the grain that adds the colour - what else would it be adding?

 

I think it'd be wort a small scale try - like 2 - 5 Litres or so, but that's all I'd commit to it.

[MrC]

I'm going to try it this weekend with an Ordinary Bitter.  The main reason for brewing this beer is to introduce myself to the combination of Wyeast 1968 and NZ Goldings so if the Brown Malt flavour is lost I won't be upset.  I'm not concerned with the color contribution of the Brown Malt, I'll let the Crystal 120L take care of that.

 

It'll be interesting either way as it is something I've wondered about for a while.  It's question that quite often comes up for extract brewers that want to brew with grains such as this and it always makes me wonder...

[Mike Neilson]

Crack it open if you want the endocum to cum in contact with the brewing liquar, thats where all the flavour is, not the husk. much stuff goes through the husk but not much stuff comes out of the husk its like osmosis but without the scientist fucking up my theory with reverse osmosis.

[MrC]

Just thought I'd provide an update on this.  

 

I brewed an extract & specialty grains Ordinary Bitter using 125g of uncrushed Brown malt.  The results were good and pretty much as expected.  The brown malt flavour came through but only lightly which was exactly what I was after in this case.  

 

In conclusion, yes you can successfully steep uncrushed brown malt with good results, you just need to increase the amount of grain that your steeping to cater for it.  Approximately double what the recipe calls for should do the trick.