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**WildGingerBrewing** · 10-08-2012, 02:21 AM

I have an update for you! As insaid last week gravity reading after 2 weeks was 1.029. And the taste was not good. Went ahead and racked to secondary and pitched another packet of S-05. I am not one to say "did i screw it up" ive been brewing for years and no better. But when i posted the update last week, i really thought i had done something wrong. Fast forward to today. I took a reading just to see. Gravity is still at 1.029. Then it hit me. When i mashed in, i was way hot. Took a few minutes to cool it down. It is possible that the higher temp mash for a short time broke down enough enzymes to create unfermentable sugars. I then tasted it. Wow. Not bad. Actually pretty good. With a heavy chocolate aftertaste. Very interesting. No cherry flavor though. So i am cold crashing it for a few days then i am going to bottle half of it and rack the other half into some mini kegs i have. It may turn out better than i thought. I have already tweaked the recipe and made some changes and i think i am going to brew this again on Nov 3, the next brew day. I'll keep you posted.

D_Nyholm · 10-08-2012, 01:51 PM

What temp did you mash at? I'm having a similar problem with an oatmeal stout that is stuck at 1.030. I mashed at 158-160. 160 was for at least 10 minutes.

DagoBrewer · 10-08-2012, 01:58 PM

My mash held at 153-154. My FG was 1.018.

**OCBrewin** · 10-08-2012, 02:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by D_Nyholm

What temp did you mash at? I'm having a similar problem with an oatmeal stout that is stuck at 1.030. I mashed at 158-160. 160 was for at least 10 minutes.

158-160 seems really high to me, I'm not surprised that.you can't get below 1.030 with the amount of unfermentables you produced in that high mash.

I forgot what the OP mashed at, but I rarely exceed 155 if ever. I think I mashed at 154 for my last porter and it was awesome.

Question to you all - where are you finding this concentrate? I've looked at my three closest stores (Vons, Albertsons .and Ralphs) with no luck. Do you think they just don't stalk this product in SoCal? Any tips?

D_Nyholm · 10-08-2012, 03:09 PM

Yeah, I was actually asking wildgingerbrewing since he seems to be stuck where I am. I should have mashed at 155 but my new thermometer was off and I didn't check it before using it. I have 2 batches that were mashed at this temperature and I hope I am not screwed.

**OCBrewin** · 10-08-2012, 04:57 PM

Yeah, I know you were asking wildginerbrewing, but oh well

...

I've had the same thing happen to me when a thermometer when crazy... took me about three batches to notice, but mine was the other way around and I kept getting beers that finished at like 1.005 or so.... not bad, but just not what I was looking for - now I use like 3-4 different thermometers for the mash and always compare them to one that I really trust and know is calibrated.

D_Nyholm · 10-08-2012, 05:46 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by OCBrewin

Yeah, I know you were asking wildginerbrewing, but oh well

...

I've had the same thing happen to me when a thermometer when crazy... took me about three batches to notice, but mine was the other way around and I kept getting beers that finished at like 1.005 or so.... not bad, but just not what I was looking for - now I use like 3-4 different thermometers for the mash and always compare them to one that I really trust and know is calibrated.

Lol, I may have to start doing that. You would think these things would be more accurate! My old one read almost a full 10 degrees too high!

**WildGingerBrewing** · 10-08-2012, 06:34 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by D_Nyholm

What temp did you mash at? I'm having a similar problem with an oatmeal stout that is stuck at 1.030. I mashed at 158-160. 160 was for at least 10 minutes.

I honestly don't remember. Mostly I remember that my strike water was waaaaay high, so I know that my mash was. I heated the strike water, checked the temp and it was about 195*. So i was letting it cool down. I got busy doing something for about 4 minutes and then remembered that I needed to add my strike water, not thinking that I was supposed to be letting it cool. It was a rough brew day. So I dumped it in and just as I was emptying the pot, I remembered it was too hot. I dumped some ice in but it took close to 10 min to get down to 158*. So I'm pretty sure this was my issue. I usually mash at 152-154. So I would bet that is your problem as well.

**WildGingerBrewing** · 10-08-2012, 06:35 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by D_Nyholm

What temp did you mash at? I'm having a similar problem with an oatmeal stout that is stuck at 1.030. I mashed at 158-160. 160 was for at least 10 minutes.

Quote:

Originally Posted by OCBrewin

158-160 seems really high to me, I'm not surprised that.you can't get below 1.030 with the amount of unfermentables you produced in that high mash.

I forgot what the OP mashed at, but I rarely exceed 155 if ever. I think I mashed at 154 for my last porter and it was awesome.

Question to you all - where are you finding this concentrate? I've looked at my three closest stores (Vons, Albertsons .and Ralphs) with no luck. Do you think they just don't stalk this product in SoCal? Any tips?

I got mine at my LHBS. It's not the same as what the OP used but it works. It's for wine making. It was a cherry puree basically. It came in a 3 lbs, 1 oz can. I have no idea how many fluid ounces it was.

hopyard · 10-09-2012, 02:22 PM

I got my concentrate at Sprouts grocery. They only had 3 of the 8 oz bottles so then I got the Lakewood organic black cherry 12 oz bottles.