kato said:
I just started a batch of newcastle style brown ale. The airlock is bubbling away in the studio.
Anyone know what happens when you boil your specialty grains?
The I noticed the instruction sheets said "DO NOT BOIL YOUR SPECIALTY GRAINS!" just after the water came to a boil. I quickly turned the temperature down but they probably boiled for about a minute. Can't really start over at that point.
If you're talking about the adjuncts like roasted barley and dark malts, there can be a chemical change similar to leaving coffee on the heat too long, when it turns nasty.
I use a slightly different technique for dealing with this. I usually brew 5 gallon batches, so I boil one gallon of water separately from the rest of the wort. Remove it from the heat, and then stir in the pound or two of crushed roasted barley or dark malts. I then cover and set aside to cool (so this brew is never boiled, similar to pour over coffee brewing). Real serious coffee brewers actually warn about over extraction from leaving coffee grounds in the hot water too long but my experience is that it cools quickly enough. I suspect there may be further subtle differences from limiting the rest time, but for sanitation reasons prefer to keep it covered until the final steps. I guess I could force cool it similar to the wort, to stop extraction, but I don't.
I boil the rest of the wort with two typical (early and finishing) hop infusions.
After the wort has cooled sufficiently I first strain the 1 gallon of "brewed" adjuncts into the primary fermenter through a colander with a muslin boiling bag stretched across is. I pour some clear water into the grounds to get the last drops of brew, then discard. Then I strain the wort through this same muslin strainer to remove the hops from the trub. A little more water cleans the last of the wort from the hops. Then I top up the fermenter to 5 gallons and seal (I use two gallons of water in wort boil).
I actually pitch the yeast into the primary before I strain the roast adjuncts. I get a good fast start and less loose hops in the fermenter. I perceive a subtle difference between brewing separately and boiling the adjuncts in the wort using boiling bags. YMMV
Life is too short to drink inferior beverages.
JR