I am used to using steeping grains with for my extract brewing, but this method seems a little different than what I have done in the past.

I found an extract recipe for Scotch Ale in which the directions say:

" mash grains in 4 qts of 156F water for 1 hour, sparge with 4 qts of 170F water."

"To do the mash on my stove, I just heat up the mash water to ~165F (in my kettle) then drop in the grain bag containing the crushed grains...at the end of the 1 hour, I lift the grain bag just above the surface of the wort and sparge by pouring the sparge water over the grains gently with a measuring cup."

"I'm not trying to get the max possible extraction from the grains, only the flavor/body that was missing before I started doing these partial mashes."

So is this really a partial mash recipe and not an extract recipe? Never done one before. Looks fairly easy though. Right?
Could I just steep the grains and be done with it?

That's actually how I did my first full mash! It tasted great, but the extraction was very low and I think it ended up around 3% ABV. As long as you're not counting on a lot of fermentables from it, it should work fine. You'll get plenty of the flavor that the recipe is shooting for. If you just steep it, you'll get some flavor and some color, but not quite as much.

Hey, this is homebrewing! Try it, if it doesn't work you'll be forced to make a another batch...

I'd say it's partial mash if there is conversion going on. steeping grains usually don't have the ability to convert themselves. Some do however.

What were the grains involved? I was guessing it's a mash since there was a specific volume of water listed.

Here's the ingredient list and directions:

Ingredients:
* 6.6 lb Ireks munich light LME
* 2.0 lb Ireks munich malt (10L ?)
* 0.5 lb M&F crystal malt (60L)
* 0.5 lb Ireks crystal malt (20L)
* 3.0 oz M&F chocolate malt (350L)
* 4.0 oz white wheat malt (2L)
* 2.0 oz Hugh Baird peat smoked malt (2L)
* 1.0 oz East Kent Goldings (whole, 60 min boil)
* 1.0 oz Fuggles (whole, 15 min boil)
* 1 tsp Irish moss (rehydrated, 15 min boil)
* Wyeast 1338 (european ale, 1 qt starter)
* 4.5 oz corn sugar (primimg)

Procedure:
- mashed all the grains in 4 qts of 156F water for 1 hr
- sparged with 4 qts of 170F water
- SG of runnings: 1.036 in ~7 qts
- added LME, made volume up to 3 gal, boiled for 1 hr
- chilled with immersion chiller, aerated, made volume up to 5 gal, aerated some more, pitched 1 qt starter
- fermented at 65 - 68F

I found a neat method at http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/easy-partial-mash-brewing-pics-75231/ in which I am going to steep the grains in one pot. Then I will have a second pot ready at 170F and tea bag/sparge the grain bag for another 15-30 minutes.

However, this recipe I'm working off of calls for the sparge water to be gently poured over the steeped grain bag. Both ways should work - right? Sure...that's why they call it homebrewing!

Since the majority of your fermentables are coming from the LME, you'll be fine.

You did an extract and partial mash batch of beer.

Congratulations!

Munch malt, wheat malt all require mashing to extract sugars.

Crystal and chocolate malts do not require mashing and may simply be steeped.

One could probably extract the smoked flavor from the smoked malt by steeping as well. However, I don't believe smoked malt is actually roasted so to actually extract sugars one would need to mash it as well.

- Scott