Brewing Master

Question:

Being new to brewing (only 4 batches made,all good so far)I have 2 questions. First, I have come across several recipies that only call for malt extract and hops, with no mention of using any adjunct grains. I’m under the impression that grains add to body,color and head retention of the beer. Does not using them produce a lighter,flatter beer? Second, a friend who use to brew in England, said that he never used malt extracts. All he ever did was crush the grains, put them in a muslin bag, then steep them at 180F for about 45 min, removed the bag,bring to a boil, add hops, boil for 40 min, cool, then put it in the fermenter and pitched the yeast. He said that he steeped and boiled in 2 gal. of water and then added enough water in the fermenter to get 5 gal. Does this make sense? I know they seem somewhat opposite of each other, but I’m easily confused.

Response:

Not sure what you mean by lighter. Flatter – no. Flatness usually refers to carbonation and that is up to you. I’m glad I never tasted one of your friends beers. – Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Being new to brewing (only 4 batches made,all good so far)I have 2 questions. First, I have come across several recipies that only call for malt extract and hops, with no mention of using any adjunct grains. I’m under the impression that grains add to body,color and head retention of the beer. Does not using them produce a lighter,flatter beer? Second, a friend who use to brew in England, said that he never used malt extracts. All he ever did was crush the grains, put them in a muslin bag, then steep them at 180F for about 45 min, removed the bag,bring to a boil, add hops, boil for 40 min, cool, then put it in the fermenter and pitched the yeast. He said that he steeped and boiled in 2 gal. of water and then added enough water in the fermenter to get 5 gal. Does this make sense? I know they seem somewhat opposite of each other, but I’m easily confused.

Medford, NY swap net.optonline to reply via e-mail

Response:

Hi Twano, Those are not stupid questions. You can make beer without using adjunct grain but the grain recipes go a step beyond just extract brewing. It gives you a chance to alter the basic extract brew and have some fun learning. As for your friends recipe (method), It will make beer. Read some about mashing and what it does and you will understand more about how your friend’s method will compare. Cheers, Tom

– Hide quoted text — Show quoted text – Being new to brewing (only 4 batches made,all good so far)I have 2 questions. First, I have come across several recipies that only call for malt extract and hops, with no mention of using any adjunct grains. I’m under the impression that grains add to body,color and head retention of the beer. Does not using them produce a lighter,flatter beer? Second, a friend who use to brew in England, said that he never used malt extracts. All he ever did was crush the grains, put them in a muslin bag, then steep them at 180F for about 45 min, removed the bag,bring to a boil, add hops, boil for 40 min, cool, then put it in the fermenter and pitched the yeast. He said that he steeped and boiled in 2 gal. of water and then added enough water in the fermenter to get 5 gal. Does this make sense? I know they seem somewhat opposite of each other, but I’m easily confused.

Response:

Here goes. Firstly, malt is not an adjunct. Malt is the main ingredient of beer.  An adjunct is something fermentable added to beer other than malted barley. These are things like corn sugar,  honey, molasses etc. and in the case of  beer made by using a mash process, things like rice, rye and other cereals/grains etc. Using adjuncts would therefore produce a lighter beer in terms of body and color. They can also be used to increase the alcohol content  particularly honey which is almost 100% fermentable contrary to malt which is not therefore leaving things behind like body, color and head retention. I don’t want to down on adjuncts because people use them for various reasons but big breweries use them to save money because adjuncts area cheaper than having to use 100% malt. Think for example of malt liquor–very little actual beer and lots of other stuff to boost alcohol–also, very little color or body to malt liquor. Therefore, if you are making beers from extracts or kits, you would indeed improve the quality of your beer by adding specialty grain (chocolate, crystal etc.) which do not need to be mashed in order to benefit from their use. Steep them at about 140 degrees (20/25 min)  as opposed to near boiling temperatures. This is better than adjuncts because nothing beats a beer made with 100% good malt. As for your friend in the UK, the information is confusing a little. If he says he never used extract, then he had to be doing a mash. However the process described is not exactly a perfect mash. I would think that his conversions rate (i.e. from starch to fermentable sugars) was really low. The temperature is also way too high. So to answer your question, yes the process described makes sense but would need to be improved upon. If you want to learn how a mash is done, go to www.howtobrew.com Plenty of other good information there also. BestOLuck and enjoy your new hobby

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PS    There is no such thing as a stupid questions regarding beer making. The questions simply prove that you are interested in making better beer.

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