Worst brew day ever, trying to save it

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

mhochman

Well-Known Member
Joined
Dec 26, 2009
Messages
354
Reaction score
16
Location
Long Island
Morning,

Brewing More Beer's Shark Bite kit.

Didn't hit my mash temp (cooler), was at 146 at mash in. Slowly tried to bring up temp with extra water, wasn't working. I was getting worried about too off of a grist ratio, and I think that same problem had an impact on my last brew. So I panicked and drained all of the wort (15 min of mash) into my kettle, which is has a brewmometer. Then scooped the grains in. At 25 min I was at 152. Turned my back and within less than 2 minutes the mash temp hit 180! Quickly uncovered the mash tun and stirred like mad. It's currently sitting at 162, no cover, no flame.

I think at this point I have over-oxygenated wort, with all-over the place mash temps, tannins leaching, and no good plan as to how to sparge (maybe sparge in kettle and let all the wort flow to the cooler as a holding tank, then drain from the cooler to the empty kettle?). I have no false bottom or strainer of any kind in the kettle, just a valve.

Any thoughts? I am so close to dumping this mess and brewing my arrogant extract kit I have sitting here.

UPDATE: With 11 min left in the mash I was at 156.
 
It's such a loose mash that I think I can just pour it back into the cooler. I realize I will have no grain bed established at that point, so I will have to recirculate for awhile. I'm curious to see how this bad boy turns out.
 
It's such a loose mash that I think I can just pour it back into the cooler. I realize I will have no grain bed established at that point, so I will have to recirculate for awhile. I'm curious to see how this bad boy turns out.

I was thinking the same thing
 
based on you gravity and volume of your first runnings you may be able to go straight into your kettle and just top of with some water, skipping sparging.
 
so no false bottom and you are not Brewing in a Bag (BIAB)?

No BIAB because the cooler has a false bottom. It was the one major issue I knew I'd have when I moved the mash to the kettle from the cooler.

Here's what I've done now. I've drained about half the wort back to the cooler. I gently poured the rest, with all of the grains, back to the cooler. I recirculated, though it was pretty clear right away. I just let it flow after that. Sparge got stuck once but freed up easily. I think I will do a quick batch sparge.
 
You could probably dump into your cooler & mash out/ do you have enough hot water to raise grain bed temp to 170?
It will still make beer.... but grain is relatively cheap, so you could save yeast/ hops & try again-- but only after you figure out how to hit your temps in a cooler (my mlt is a pot w/ fb so I can't help).
Good luck!
 
lol, what was the grav of 1st runnings? i'd just trudge on, collect your pre-boil volume, check the gravity, and figure out how much you'll have boil off to get a decent gravity beer.
 
You could probably dump into your cooler & mash out/ do you have enough hot water to raise grain bed temp to 170?
It will still make beer.... but grain is relatively cheap, so you could save yeast/ hops & try again-- but only after you figure out how to hit your temps in a cooler (my mlt is a pot w/ fb so I can't help).
Good luck!

Didn't get grain bed to 170, but got it to 150 with the water I had, so it's really just mashing more, I guess. Only batch sparging (as it were) for 5 minutes, so I don't think it will mess it up too much more one way or the other at this point.

I don't mind buying more grain, it's the time issue. I took today off to brew. Won't have another chance for some time.
 
Didn't get grain bed to 170, but got it to 150 with the water I had, so it's really just mashing more, I guess. Only batch sparging (as it were) for 5 minutes, so I don't think it will mess it up too much more one way or the other at this point.

I don't mind buying more grain, it's the time issue. I took today off to brew. Won't have another chance for some time.

Are you going to brew the AB Clone as well today?
 
lol, what was the grav of 1st runnings? i'd just trudge on, collect your pre-boil volume, check the gravity, and figure out how much you'll have boil off to get a decent gravity beer.

lol, I love that you have the faith in me to think I was calm enough to get gravity readings at any point! Cheers to faith! :mug:

Heating to my boil now. I did grab a sample for a pre-boil gravity, but it needs to cool a bit. Will update in a few minutes.

So much for a relaxing brew day at home!
 
If you were at 146 for a decent amount of time you probably got some conversion. I think you should just trudge on with it and see how it turns out. As far as tannins are concerned I don't think you should be worried. Decoction brewers boil parts of their mash. I think a lot of the thought now is that tannins are leeched from pH not temperature.
 
At 112 degrees my sample is at 1.030. Corrected that's 1.039. Not even close to the 1.061 pre-boil I expected. Maybe as it cools it will get more accurate. :mad:
 
At 112 degrees my sample is at 1.030. Corrected that's 1.039. Not even close to the 1.061 pre-boil I expected. Maybe as it cools it will get more accurate. :mad:

it will, a bit. just correct your hopping rate to account for the lower grav
 
it will, a bit. just correct your hopping rate to account for the lower grav

Well......
here's the other problem.


In short, more beer has screwed up the hop schedule in the instructions, and with an expected IBU of 28-31 (per their instructions), two brewing programs put the expected IBU's at about 80. I've already made adjustments to bring it down to around 50. Guess I'll have to even more.

This is getting ridiculous.:(
 
whats your preboil volume? You might have been able to hit 170 and get better efficiency if you sparged with more water and just did a longer boil.
 
if you boil down to 5.5 gal, 1.5 lbs DME should get you around 1.061. What is the final volume you were looking for?
 
And keep the hop schedule as I planned, I assume.

The beer will be lighter, but at this point who cares? And it's no like I've even tried the original. I get to call this one my own! :ban:

yeah, i'd keep the planned hop schedule if you're gonna add dme.
 
And keep the hop schedule as I planned, I assume.

The beer will be lighter, but at this point who cares? And it's no like I've even tried the original. I get to call this one my own! :ban:

Unfortunately, you'll NEVER be able to reproduce it! (And even if it's good, you may not WANT to go through all this again!)
 
Alright, 1.5 lbs of DME added, along with my first hop addition (.75 of magnum).

I am calling this brew (Since it is no longer a shark bite clone) "BJ's Mustache," since so many people say M*A*S*H got ruined as soon as BJ grew his mustache.
 
I was in a similar position 2 weeks ago. I was doing BIAB but failed epically and let the nylon bag sit on the kettle bottom and burn a hole in it. I planned to so a pseudo spare after removing the mash water, but had to skip that step and lost a lot of efficiency. I ended up saving the batch, but only made 2 gallons instead of 3.5. My fermentation got stuck at 1.03 because there was also unmashed starch, I suspect a faulty thermometer was to blame and my mash temp was about 10 degrees higher. I added amylase to secondary fermentation to get the gravity down to 1.02. But in the end the taste turn out great.

TL;DR: Go on ebay buy amylase, add during secondary.
 
Back
Top