How to badly miss your mash temp

So this past weekend I was all eager to brew an American Brown Ale and try out my shiny new home-made copper manifold in my mash tun. I had a few things to do on Saturday so I thought I'd get all set up Friday night so I could jump right in Saturday morning. Mind you, I was well into the Troeg's Double Bocks at this point.

I dutifully set up my mash tun, measured my water into the pot which was perched eagerly on the banjo burner, and ground my grains and poured them into my tun.

Did I mention that this was all in my garage and it was bitterly cold that night?

So Saturday I eagerly start heating the water to the prescribed temperature, pour it into the tun in great anticipation of the forthcoming conversion and scratch my head as my mash temp tops out a full 30 degrees below target. Approximately 5 seconds later I figured out that I was an idiot who started out with a bitter cold cooler and pile of grains.

A couple quarts of boiling water and I'm back to the (almost) correct temp. The melodious fermenter is bubbling contentedly under my desk and all seems well.

The manifold worked great and I hopefully learned a lesson.

I did the same thing once. I bought grains a couple days before brew day and I left the bag of crushed grains in my car. I live in northern MN so the grains were cold to say the least. I realized this as I started brewing though so luckily i brought the grains inside to warm up a bit but I also took into consideration the fact that i can add the temp of the grains into my strike temp calculations. good thing I did though.

I accidentally ground my grain into a bucket that had a gallon of cold water in it. That was an interesting mash

Beer came out great, btw. So don't stress too much.

-Joe

Live and learn... I always grind my grains the night before and leave them inside overnight so they are at 72 degrees. Always account foe this in your brewing software. Im sure it will turn out fine! Brew on!

Sounds like you salvaged it. Good work!

A can also do a decoction if you have limited room in your mash tun.

I had two brews this weekend that I missed my initial temps, and I used calculators to get the temps. Wondering how long you have to get the right temperatures. On the first mash I was a few degrees lower, and decocted to get temps up, no big problem, probably sat cool for maybe 10 minutes.

The second batch was a joke, over temp by 5 degrees, cooled it down too much, low by 10 degrees, decoction to get the close temperature. Probably took 20 minutes to get temperature.

Last Sunday, I woke up at 2 a.m. Probably wasn't related to the brewday, but I got the grain bag out of the freezer.

Unfortunately, I neglected to get the second bag of dark grains out; so, the porter is more of a bitter. I plan on steeping the specialty grains this week and add them to the fermenter.

lurker18 said:

Wondering how long you have to get the right temperatures. On the first mash I was a few degrees lower, and decocted to get temps up, no big problem, probably sat cool for maybe 10 minutes.

Click to expand...

The amount of time to get conversion depends on the crush of your grain. It takes time for the water to wet the grain to the middle and time for the enzyme to work and time for the sugars to be dissolved back out of the grain. With a really fine crush or grind, conversion can happen in 15 minutes but with a conventional mash tun, you are almost certain to get a stuck sparge. The fineness of the crush then is a trade between conversion time, efficiency and the stuck sparge.

The sad thing, Deuce, is that I use BrewSmith and always enjoy with amazement how the mash temp is spot on if you follow directions. I just spaced on this one. I blame it on the Troeg's.

From now on the grains will sit in the house overnight. I'll try to remember to do that before any consumption begins but I can't promise

Oh, and just to be clear, I'm not the slightest bit worried about this. I laughed at myself. The character of the beer might be a little different but I'm sure it's going to satisfy going down.
I got over worrying about a hobby a long time ago

Did the same on my last brew..seems to me, as long as you can get the temp close to the target temp quickly, the brew turns out fine. Cheers!

So to wrap this one up: I kegged this batch last weekend. SWMBO, who is not a beer drinker, loves it. I say she's not a beer drinker but she IS becoming one. She likes a nice hoppy pale ale and she loves Guinness Stout and Young's Double Chocolate Stout.

I have to say that it's one of the best batches I've ever made. Nice dark but transparent brown with a light, creamy head and just the right amount of maltiness that I was craving.

What's the moral of the story? Everyone say it together now......