Using grain

[MattR]

Hi Everyone,

I'm about to try another brew this time using some grain and I wanted to run it past the forum before starting to avoid any errors. I was not sure how much should be used and how much malt to take out to retain balance. I will be using a small mortal & pestle to crack the grain.

Any comments or thoughts appreciated.

Ingredients
- Muntons Connoisseur's Range Export Pilsner
- 1.0kg Extra dry light malt
- 100g Crystal Grain
- 20g Northern Brewer hops
- 20g Saaz hops
- Saflager W-34/70 yeast

Directions
1. Crack 100g grain and steep in 2L water at 68° C for 30 minutes
2. Add 20g Northern Brewer hops, boil for 30 minutes
3. Add 20g Saaz hops, boil for 15 minutes
4. Add malt and extract and take off heat

Fermentation
- Primary 7 days, Secondary 7 days. Lagering.. A few months

[Wassa]

Matt,

Steep the grain.
Dissolve the LDME in 2 ltrs of water
Add 20g Northern Brewer hops, boil for 30 minutes
Add 20g Saaz hops, boil for 15 minutes
Add liquid from steeped grain

Add to this the kit mix and then add to fermenter and top up to desired level.

Also check and see if grain is already cracked. It may not need further cracking

[yardglass]

i agree with wassa but i've got to say that my brews improved when i started boiling both the kit and the result of the grains, just mho.

cheers

yard

[Lebowski]

If you dont have a grain mill an easy way to crack grain is to put it in a plastic bag or a tea towel and run a rolling pin over it. (you dont want to turn it into flour, just crack the grain open)

My understanding with using grain is you steep it in 70 degree water for about 20 minutes, strain out the grain then boil the liquid for about another 20 minutes to remove any nastys that may have been in the grain.

I recently made the Muntons Connoisseur's Pilsner (not the export one)
with 1kg LDME 10g willamette and 15g saaz and US-56 yeast and it turned out really good. I think the extra hops, lager yeast and grain will make a really nice beer.

[Stangas]

yeah i crushed my grain today with the rolling pin

not too bad for small batches.

i used just malted grain about 250g
i also added some maize (corn) to the grain 100g.. should be interesting to see how it turns out

i added to Black Rock Dry Lager and about 500g dex

[MattR]

Thanks for your input. I'm suprised, using the grain was really easy.

Out of interest, how much grain would to need to use to replace 1Kg of dry malt?

Cheers,
Matt

[gregb]

Ball park of 1.3 kg of grain to replace 1 kg of LDME. HOWEVER - note that this is based on a reasonably efficient mash.

Dry extract will put about 42 ppg. In an (impressive) 85% efficient system Pale base malt will give you about 32 ppg.

These figures I've taken from Palmers book. 'ppg' is gravity points per pound per US gallon.

Cheers,
Greg

[ACTbrewer]

Use the steeped water in the boil, just don't boil the grains with it.