Yup, I am going to take the plunge and start using steeping grains for my brews. It is supposed to make my beers better, so I guess why not try it. Especially since the next 2 brews are completely paid by my friends and they are always pushing for better tasting beers. Those whiners!

Anyways, it should not be too difficult. In fact, there is only one additional step from my normal brewing. Well, in order to steep grains, you add the grains (in a muslin bag) to your water and starting heating it up. Just before it starts boiling, you remove the grains and “sparge” it. That is you add some warm water to the muslin bag full of grains and let it rinse off the goodies from the grains. And surprisingly, that’s about it. You then continue to do your thing with the weak wort like adding the malt extract or hops and stuff. Yes, it is that easy. You don’t need to mash it because usually it has been done for you already. We normally use speciality grains to do the steeping. Of course, you need to pay attention and not let the water boil with the grains in them as this will extract tannins to your beer, making it …er….not nice.

The reason why we add those steeping grains is mainly to add some body, a little flavour and even some sweetness to the beer. Body and flavour comes directly from the grains. Roasted grains will of course give out roasted flavours while lightly roasted ones will give off nutty flavours. Furthermore, some grains contribute unfermentable sugars to the wort, hence impart a little sweetness to the beer. Some people even use the steeping grains to add colour to their beer.

I will be looking for something which can add some flavours to the beer. Seems that my previous brew was a bit low on the flavours side, so that has to be corrected. In fact, they taste like lagers. And the grains should not add any colour to the beer as my friends are very choosy when it comes to colours of their beer. Well, let’s see what my local supplier has to recommend.