horrible partial mash

i just did my first partial mash today, and i have to say it was horrible. I was using cooked rice and pilsner barley, i steeped at a temp of 155 degrees for 60 minutes, and when it was done, i had lost 3 degrees, but i got NO conversion, i basically had starchy water nothing more, but i finished the rest of hte recipe figuring i can always add amylase later... just before i threw out the grain, i figured id taste the barley, it was now sweet.... WTF?! did i not wait long enough? i added the wort to the bucket and threw the grain in with it once it was near steeping temp, i figure maybee ill get lucky and get some conversion once its in the bucket.... but now i gotta wait for the temp to drop 90 degrees before i can pitch GRRRRR imma stay way from partail mash for a while, this has totally put me off of pm for a while
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What makes you say you had no conversion? did you test with iodine?

i used my tounge, there was no sweetness at all. tasted like used rice water, starchy as heck but thats all

The other thing that strikes me- if you put grains in your nice sanitized wort, you just contaminated your wort with lacto bacteria.

That's why you boil AFTER you use the grains- to kill the bacteria. You don't steep them after the boil.

well whats done is done, i havent pitched yet, if neseccary i have enough pots to do a full 5 gallon boil

Well, you'll have to reboil, but unless you have more hops, your hopping will be all screwed up.

i reserved .25 oz out of the 1 oz i bought

Gildog said:

i used my tounge, there was no sweetness at all. tasted like used rice water, starchy as heck but thats all

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I'm not an expert on mashing rice, but that seems like what you would get from mashing rice. Without an iodine test, you have no way of knowing if you had conversion or not. You probably did and just tasted the "ricy" portion of the mash.

does starch show up on a sg test, cause it tested at the right sg, adjusted for temp

starch is sugar

Kronin said:

starch is sugar

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Care to explain this in more detail?

Kronin said:

starch is sugar

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actually starch is a long chain molecule made up of multiple sugars bonded together, and yeast cant eat that.

but as an update, i let it sit with an airlock on it overnight to cool, and this morning i had no activity, so i pitched the yeast in.

2 hours later ive got activity in the airlock, so at least im going to have something alchoholic when im done.

ill keep you guys updated.

So you didn't reboil after you added the grains to the wort? i dunno. Goodluck, but I'm pretty sure Yoopers right about all the nasties in the grain. It only takes a few days for wet grain to start growning stuff, and that's usually cuz there's already stuff in it.

well ill see what happens i jsut couldnt justify reboiling the whole thing to my wife, now that ive got the kitchen all cleaned up. Im just gonna be positive and hope for the best,

smells like beer so far.

are you bottling or kegging. I guess if I were kegging , I'd drink it young. If you're bottling, well you'll have to be careful.

gravity reading wayyyyy to low, down around 1.035, supposed to be 1.05, looks like if it does work im gonna have a sissy beer on my hands

UPDATE

Looks like the mash finished in my colander cause im getting great fermentaion now, good clean beer smell, no funk at all, thick brown krausen covering the whole thing, cant take any other readings im too afriad to screw up the fermenting... looks like i may have a decent brew... Man screwing up can be so much fun.

BTW I know i have to secondary this, any suggestions on an adjunct to use when i secondary? if im going to go through all the effort of secondary i want ot do something to it.... guess i have to try it first... oh well RDWAHAHB

Gildog said:

i used my tounge, there was no sweetness at all. tasted like used rice water, starchy as heck but thats all

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I'm not sure how much you can trust your sense of taste for this. I did a PM for my choco porter and was disappointed when the grain didn't taste very sweet after the mash (especially since I had used a fair amount of honey malt). However, I continued with the brew and I pretty much hit my estimated OG. So, clearly the mash did its thing, even though my tongue suggested otherwise.

update,

Fermentaion has slowed to about 1/2 of its peak now, got a sg of 1.011 far lower than predicted by brewsmith, its supposed to bottom out at a min of 1.011 and its still going quite strong.

as for the beer itself.... WONDERFULL! its got a good malt flavor, with a great balance of hops at the end, its WAY darker than i expected (think brown ale), but the flavor is more like a premium american lager almost (and this is an ale). very happy with the results of this.. sometimes the best things come from major screw ups

I have a question about the rice you used. Did you use flaked or Minute Rice, or did you use plain uncooked rice? If you used the flaked or Minute rice, you should have gotten conversion because these are processed in such a way that they are ready to mash normally. If you used regular rice, you need to do a cereal mash first. This maybe why you didn't hit your OD.

Something else jumped out at me. You said your grain tasted sweet. Perhaps you didn't sparge enough and you left a bunch of sugars attached to your grains. Just a couple of thoughts that might help.

i think ive figured it out. Looks like i totally did not break up the grain enough. Looking at some of the grain i see that its just barely broken up.. That would explain the long time to get conversion going.... low surface to mass ratio and all.

as for the rice, i took normal rice ran it through a blender till it was pulverized, then i followed the package instructions for cooking, i then threw the whole thing in the mash pot.

im pretty sure it was becuase of the innadequate crushing of the grain. I never actually looked at a close up of what properly crushed grain looks like. Mine is way coarser than it should have been.

FINAL UPDATE

well after racking to a secondary AND tertiary fermentor to settle out the particulate.

and 3 days bottle conditioning, i have to say this horrible mash experience turned into an awsome glass of beer.

reminds me of magic hats not quite pale ale

think ill call it Gildogs Not Quite Failed Ale

i guess its true, you have to try really hard to screw up a homebrew.

im on to my third brew second partail mash already. it went perfectly this time and i had about an 80% efficiency on it so im happy. its bubbling away nicely in its bucket as we speak. i also threw together an edworts apfelwein to boot.

Hi Gildog

I have been asking about mashing rice and also planning on doing my first PM.
see
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f36/how-much-rice-can-i-mash-1-5kg-base-119648/

Can you tell me your grain bill.
What % of rice to base malt that you used.
If you got time can you publish your recipe?

Thanks

Voskar said:

Hi Gildog

I have been asking about mashing rice and also planning on doing my first PM.
see
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f36/how-much-rice-can-i-mash-1-5kg-base-119648/

Can you tell me your grain bill.
What % of rice to base malt that you used.
If you got time can you publish your recipe?

Thanks

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more than happy too, but be warned i didnt get conversion till wayyyy into the mash

3.25 lb Amber Liquid Extract (12.5 SRM) Extract 44.83 %
2.00 lb Pilsner (2 Row) Bel (2.0 SRM) Grain 27.59 %
2.00 lb Rice, Flaked (1.0 SRM) Grain 27.59 %
0.75 oz palisade [7.40 %] (60 min) Hops 13.3 IBU
5.00 gal New York, NY Water
1 Pkgs American Ale (Wyeast Labs #1056) Yeast-Ale

the amber extract was the lightest thing my LHBS had and i wanted to brew the next day so i made do, i would have preffered a light or extra light extract

i way underground the grain for my first mash that was why i had a problem. it came out great. the rice really does lower the body alot, it tastes like a blonde, or pale ale but is much darker. i recomend using it again

my current batch has 2 lbs of grits in it instead of the rice, just to see the difference in taste between the two. heres that recipe if youd like it

2.00 lb Grits (1.0 SRM) Adjunct 12.90 %
3.25 lb Pale Liquid Extract (8.0 SRM) Extract 41.94 %
2.00 lb Pilsner (2 Row) UK (1.0 SRM) Grain 25.81 %
1.00 lb Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 12.90 %
1.50 oz palisade [7.40 %] (60 min) Hops 27 IBU

A critical point about sweetness, the sugars in wort are nowhere near as sweet as table sugar. Tasting the wort is highly misleading.

david_42 said:

A critical point about sweetness, the sugars in wort are nowhere near as sweet as table sugar. Tasting the wort is highly misleading.

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it tasted like rice starch after sparging, but the grain finally turned sweet about 15 mins after draining so i threw it in the primary (i know lacto infection was a major worry but turned out fine).

as far as how much rice to use, you said you were using pale malt, it has alot to do with where its from, and 2 or 6 row.

all grains can support a certain amound of adjunct grain,

pale malt can be 35% for 2row, or 60% for 6row.

that means you can add 35% of the wieght of malt in rice for 2 row or 60% the wieght of 6row

hmmmm doing a 60% rice 40% 6row pale malt and make sake-beer?