Adding H2O to increase mash temp. How does it effect color and tannin?

My last AG was an American Pale Ale and BeerSmith called for 3.44 gal to get my target mash temperature. I was 5 degrees below my target when I doughed in so I used BeerSmith to calculate the amount of 212F. H2O needed to get to my target. It called for 1qt of 212F. to increase, but that did not get it there. I added another 1qt. and achieved my target of 150F.

Anyway, my Pre-Boil gravity was 1.055 and I was expecting to get 1.044. In addition, my color appears to way darker than I had initially expected.

Does adding additional H2O @ 212F in the amount indicated above cause higher extraction of tannin and color from the grain? Have I changed the overall numbers significantly on the initial beer calculation and shouldn't BeerSmith have some sort of calculation inside to re-adjust the numbers based upon the addition of H2O during the mash process?

Any help here is greatly appreciated.

Salute!

It's hard to say what happened because you didn't include your grain bill. Without that we can't calculate your mash consistency. I don't think tannin extraction should be impacted by this if you didn't get your mash or sparge temperatures above 170F, also assuming you didn't have too fine of a grind on your grist.

You've certainly ended up with a thinner mash, but you certainly didn't ruin your beer over it. Relax! Have a Beer!

Addition: One thing just occurred to me. While I don't use it, I understand BeerSmith is pretty good for calculating strike temperaturs. If you missed it by that much you need to determine what went wrong. Some possibilities 1) MT sucked up too much heat...maybe you need to preheat it. 2) Grain temperature off. 3) Other influence due to MT design.

I use a false bottom in mine and have issues with the accuracy of the strike calculations. I usually end up having to use more water than is normally called for. You might want to look at that possibility.

I do not have the recipe here at work with me, so I can't provide any exact info at this time regarding grain bill. Here is what I think it was though:

Mash in with 3.44 gal of 167F. Water to achieve 150F mash temp for 75 minutes.

8.25 lb Muntons Pale Malt - 2 Row - 2.0 SRM
.5 lb Carapils/Dextrine
.5 lb Crystal 20
1 oz Centenial (Pellets) @ 60 min
1 tsp Yeast nutrient @ 25 min
.5 oz of Centenial (Pellets) @ 15 min
1 Whirloc Tab @ 15 min
1 oz Kent Golding Leaf Hops @ 0 min

Use a chiller to drop temp to 75 degrees before transfering to fermenter

I did pre-heat my mash tun to 120 degrees for 15 minutes and I use a 5 gallon igloo cooler with a 1/2 valve and screen from (Northern Brewer). My grain temp. was 68F. and both numbers above were used in the calculation by BS

My OG into the boiler was 1.055 when I was expecting 1.044

Final gravity was 1.060 into the fermenter

My grain mill does a real fine job (maybe to fine of a grind at that) but is not flour when I am done grinding. No problems with drainage at all.

So do you think it could be the grind consistency and the fact that my mash tun was not sufficiently pre-heated? All temp sensors are in calibration range.

jjyoung said:

It's hard to say what happened because you didn't include your grain bill. Without that we can't calculate your mash consistency. I don't think tannin extraction should be impacted by this if you didn't get your mash or sparge temperatures above 170F, also assuming you didn't have too fine of a grind on your grist.

You've certainly ended up with a thinner mash, but you certainly didn't ruin your beer over it. Relax! Have a Beer!

Addition: One thing just occurred to me. While I don't use it, I understand BeerSmith is pretty good for calculating strike temperaturs. If you missed it by that much you need to determine what went wrong. Some possibilities 1) MT sucked up too much heat...maybe you need to preheat it. 2) Grain temperature off. 3) Other influence due to MT design.

I use a false bottom in mine and have issues with the accuracy of the strike calculations. I usually end up having to use more water than is normally called for. You might want to look at that possibility.

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So your initial strike gave you a 1.5 qt/lb ratio which is fine. Adding the additional 1/2 gal would have have raised it to 1.7 qt/lb, which is still fine. So I don't think it should make a significant, or even detectable difference in the outcome.

As far as your OG is concerned, calculating based on 5gal into the fermenter you achieved a 90% efficiency. This is pretty high for home brewing. If it doesn't taste astringent, then congratulations! If you did get some astringency through and you controlled your sparge temperatures pretty well you might want to look at adjusting your grind to make it coarser. You basically want just enough of a grind to split the husk. The more you shred it the higher your efficiency will be, but at the cost of possibly leaching undesirable elements from the husk.