Still working out the kinks

I did my second 1 gallon SMaSH batch today, with mixed results. On the plus side, the brew day went WAY smoother- I knew what I needed to do and even had a bunch of time during mashing/boiling to get some other stuff done around the house.

On the down side, my gravity is much lower than I wanted (Was aiming for 1.052, I got 1.034). A thermometer miscalculation showed that I added my grains at a much higher temp than I'd wanted, and they were mashing at about 30 degrees higher than intended for the majority of the hour.

Is the low gravity due directly to the higher mash temperature, or do you think theres something else I could do to increase the efficiency? I did a small BIAB batch (1.5 gallons of water) and added another .5 gallon which I added by pouring it into the grain bag and letting it drain out.

All in all, I still learned a lot from this 1g batch, and using this process I'm brewing on every day off I have, which is awesome! Just need to work out the problems that are in it.

I had the same problem with my first partial mash.

Practice makes perfect right? That's what I love about brewing, if you screw up, it gives you a good excuse to brew in the near future.

After my mistake I am always going to have some DME in order to add to the boil to help bring me closer to my expected OG.

Keep brewing it will get better with time.

30 degrees higher? Is that a typo, or were you really mashing at like 180 degrees? Pretty sure that would explain the lack of conversion as I would assume it would kill all enzymes.

histo320 said:

I had the same problem with my first partial mash.

Practice makes perfect right? That's what I love about brewing, if you screw up, it gives you a good excuse to brew in the near future.

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Amen!

chickypad said:

30 degrees higher? Is that a typo, or were you really mashing at like 180 degrees? Pretty sure that would explain the lack of conversion as I would assume it would kill all enzymes.

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Yeah, I took the reading and either read the temp wrong or the thermometer wasn't in the mash far enough to get an accurate reading. Never really realized how important temperature is to the whole process, y'know? But I'm glad to have a confirmation that the high temp is the reason I didn't get the gravity I was going for.

Brewed another SMaSH 1gal again yesterday. I was watching the temp like a hawk during the mash and maintained it in the 149-152*F range for 60 minutes, but the gravity still came up low (1.038, aiming for 1.056), therefore I clearly have an efficiency problem. On the upside, It's fermenting infinitely better than the last batch.

Next time I know I need to manage my water better, and I've read I need to crush my grains more finely since it's a BIAB batch. Also, I think I'm done with floating thermometers (2nd one I've gone through in 5 batches), I'm gonna give these probe thermos a try.