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Steeping question
I am going to be brewing the Black Gold Stout from the Ultimate Home Brewers Recipe Collection. I have a few questions, hopefully someone could give me some guidance. The recipe procedure did not specify the steeping water volume or temp. Should I assume this is for a 5 gal batch so maybe 2 gal? And if so, one last question....when I dillute the wort to bring up to the 5 gallon mark, is it a bad idea to add some additional water to bring the volume up such that when I transfer from primary to secondary and to the bottling bucket, I still have enough to bottle 2 full cases? Lastly, any idea on original and final gravities I should be shooting for?
I tried to email the author in the past but got no response, so I thought here might be successful.
I appreciate any help!!!
If your recipe does not list the target OG, it is really difficult to guide you to what you need exactly, most pre-packed recipes call for an exact 5 gallon finished batch, but some sources will base their calculations on 5.5 or 6 gallon volume, but should tell you that. If you post exactly all of the ingredients, we can put them into a calculator and figure out the yield for a 5 or 5.5 gallon finish.
As far as steeping, your brewpot can pretty much determinr your volume, trying to get as close to a full boil as possible. If your pot can handle 3 gallons, keeping in mind you will need room for the volume of extract as well as boil expansion, I would steep the grains at 150-152 in 1 gallon of water, then place grain bag in a collander and rinse the grain bag with another gallon of 170 degree water. then start your boil and add extract and hops according to your process. If your pot is bigger, try fitting more volume of water in.
If you top off the fermenter with an extra half gallon it will just dillute the sugar concentration and have you starting at a lower OG. Seeing we do not know what that is supposed to be, we do not know if that is an issue to flavor or not.
Thirsty...thank you for your reply...
My ingredients are from the Book "Ultimate Home Brewers Recipe Collection" which I bought so they might not want me posting the exact recipe. I do know of a site that I can calculate my boil amount now that you mentioned it. I will find out that and let you know, maybe that will help. I just don't want to get into any copyright infringements. Stand by....
Ok...I calculated my efficiencies based on a (3 gal boil and 5.5 gal final) versus a (3 gal boil and 5 gal final). The difference was an OG of 1.054 and 1.059 respectively, and a FG of 1.011 and 1.012 respectively, and an alcohol content of 5.7% and 6.2% respectively.
Is it safe to assume I can go with a 5.5 gal? I'm cool with the %AV being lower as long as the taste isn't comprimised.
You would be fine to do that, the 3 points will not even be noticable, most of the flavor in your stout is coming from the roasted barley that is probably included in your steeping grains, and just a little bit goes a looooong way. There may also be some black patent in there as well, which also only needs very little. So your flavor should be fine if you want to top off to 5.5 gallons.
You should check that book though, if it dosnt say the volumes in each recipe, it probably mentions it somewhere in the forward or introduction and assumes that volume throughout.
For the future, it is impossible to copyright 2 things, a recipe and a joke. you will find out as you dive into this more and more, the brewing community is proud of their recipes, and the book author would probably be more flattered of sharing the recipe than not- if it is a good one, it would encourage more people to by that book! Even armed with the knowledge of a recipe, the finished product can vary greatly from each brewer, process contributes to this, water chemistry, as well as yeast volume and health and fermentation temps. I wouldnt sweat a lawsuit.
Tons of help!!!! thanks a lot!
Copyright thing was funny
FYI regarding the book from this site.
It is a collection of recipes from public sources, there is not secret to it. Aside from it being a single collection of recipes that the original designer of this site (webby), its fine to post a recipe here or there. I wouldn't post the whole damn book thought. I don't even know of the current owner of the site is using the book for sales anymore.
Lastly, I helped organize that book a couple years back. I saw many errors in some of the recipes, so you probably should just post the recipe and we can look it over.
But I'd agree with Thirsty's advice.
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