Murphy brew

If it can go wrong it did! I'm brewing up a hefeweizen tonight and so far I've managed to overfill my kettle, creating sticky mess on the garage floor when I added my grains. Next up is a thermometer that looks to be reading 30 degrees high.

After an hour mash the wort was looking very pale and tasted way too thin compared to all my other brews. I don't have any iodine to check starch conversion. But, I took a gravity reading and it came out at 1.024. After that I checked my thermometer in a cup of ice water and it read 75 degrees. The dumb thing read 128 when I shoved it in my mouth.

So, here's my question. Can I salvage this batch by mashing again at the right temp or are the grains done for at this point? If this batch makes it to bottling I'll dance a jig.

The grains still have the right sugars/starches in them. As long as you don't/didn't denature the enzymes you should be able to get the mash done. Right now it sounds just like you did a protein rest at around 120F. Might be the perfect time to try a decoction mash!

Sweet, thanks for the reassurance. I guess as long as I don't drop a carboy on my foot and end up in the er, tonight might not be a failure.

If you're still at it, try calibrating your thermometer using ice water and boiling water to get an idea of how it reads. Then use your new found knowledge to raise your mash temp to 148 for at least 30 min and you could have a very fermentable wort and a beer with an interesting story.

It might just work out. I used my wife's candy thermometer when heating my mash temp back up. After the boil my og was right on at 1.052. If it ferments well I might have to do this every time. The thermometer seems to be a lost cause. It starts out reading right, but keeps gaining temperature the longer I leave it on. My 32 degree cup of ice water ended up at 75 after about a half hour.

Looks like it's going to make it. WL300 yeast took off like crazy. Thanks for the advice everyone.

It will be the best beer you have ever made and you will forever be trying to duplicate it but without success. That's the end result of Murphy's law.

ChuckO said:

It will be the best beer you have ever made and you will forever be trying to duplicate it but without success. That's the end result of Murphy's law.

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This!

My first brew after going electric was a mess. I undershot the mash temp by 20 deg. I tried all I could to raise the temp. Once I got up to 144, I said f-this and prayed to the Beer Gods. To this day, that was the best beer I've ever made and will never be able to replicate!