Any suggestions on what to do if i was supposed to hit a mash temp of 154 and missed low at 145, then had to boil more water and added it and then missed high at 165 and it took about 20 mins of stirring to then reach the correct mash temp of 154?
missed mash temp
- Thread starter ackgod
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FishinDave07
Well-Known Member
First make sure to RDWHAHB, what are you using as a mash tun? do you preheat? i normally strike 13 degrees above my desired mash temp, then mix everything together and it comes out right. It is VERY important to stir like a madman! Stir stir stir. You want to make sure that the temp is uniform and you dont have any hot/cold spots.
I'm not freaking out too bad, obviously my first all-grain. Using a 10gal cooler to mash, my grain was colder than i thought after I preheated my mash tun which is why it ended up colder than I expected. I tried to stir my best but my crappy mash paddle kept bending, but I think I stirred it pretty well.
First off, what are you using to calculate the strike temp, and what vessel are you mashing in?
Some of these mash calculators online do not allow for thermal loss adjustments. That means what ever vessel you are using as a mash tun has to be pre-heated or else it will absorb some heat lowering the mashes target temp.
try this calculator out to see if you can see how much thermal loss you had.
you need to:
Measure grain temp just prior to dough in
how much grain in pounds and how much water in either qts or gals, and desired temp
by tracing what your last brew was off by you can bump up the thermal loss to adjust the strike temperature needed.
http://www.brewheads.com/strike.php
Sorry didn't see this before my posting
When I over shoot I'll put a bit of cold water in. I'd rather stir it in, then beat oxygen into the mash
Well 145 is pretty close to the lower bound of where you will get enzymatic conversion, and it won't happen very quickly at that temp. So, once you get it up to your target mash temp, just keep it there for the full 60 minutes or whatever you had planned for. Your beer *may* end up a bit drier than normal, but probably not enough to really notice.
Thanks for the tip, couldn't add any extra (cold) water as I was already at the brim of my 10gal mash tun. Few more small mistakes through the boil, but cooled and yeast is pitched. May not be the best ever, but im sure it will be drinkable. Coming from extract and not being about to get my beers to dry out i'll welcome the dryness.
