I brewed a batch last night and had some problems that I should have avoided but didn't.
I use a cooler as a mashtun. I added my strike water 10 degrees hotter than beersmith calculated and let it drop down to the desired dough in temp as I always do. This method that I learned here on HBT works great for me. I added my grain, started my hour timer, stirred and took my temp, 155, so I stirred for about 5 minutes and got down to 154 where I wanted to be. I closed the cooler and left the therm probe in the cooler as I normally do to monitor temp.
I went to clean my carboys. After 15 minutes passed I went to check and the temp was up to 162? Whats going on here? So I panicked and added some cold water to bring it down to 154 again, 5 mins later is back up to 168!!!! So FINALLY I realize that this is impossible and did what I shoudl have done in the first place. I got my back up thermometer, and sure enough my original one had gone haywire. Actual mash temp was now down to 146.
So, this is an IPA I wanted to mash at 154 for 60 minutes. I am pretty confident that I mashed at 154ish for about 20 minutes before I stupidly added the cold water and dropped the temp into the 145-146 range.
How dry do you think this batch will turn out??
Thanks in advance.
Alan
I use a cooler as a mashtun. I added my strike water 10 degrees hotter than beersmith calculated and let it drop down to the desired dough in temp as I always do. This method that I learned here on HBT works great for me. I added my grain, started my hour timer, stirred and took my temp, 155, so I stirred for about 5 minutes and got down to 154 where I wanted to be. I closed the cooler and left the therm probe in the cooler as I normally do to monitor temp.
I went to clean my carboys. After 15 minutes passed I went to check and the temp was up to 162? Whats going on here? So I panicked and added some cold water to bring it down to 154 again, 5 mins later is back up to 168!!!! So FINALLY I realize that this is impossible and did what I shoudl have done in the first place. I got my back up thermometer, and sure enough my original one had gone haywire. Actual mash temp was now down to 146.
So, this is an IPA I wanted to mash at 154 for 60 minutes. I am pretty confident that I mashed at 154ish for about 20 minutes before I stupidly added the cold water and dropped the temp into the 145-146 range.
How dry do you think this batch will turn out??
Thanks in advance.
Alan