Forgot to clean bags..

I forgot to clean my paint straining bags before using them in my first all-grain brew. I notice that it has kind of a weird smell as it is starting to reach mash temps.

Will this be ok since its being boiled for 60 mins anyway? Or should I dump the water, wash the straining bag, and replace with new water and try again?

I bought the spring water, so I'd hate to waste it...

Thanks in advance!

Back when I used paint straining bags, I never washed them pre-use. But, it's up to you. If you can smell something funky........

IMO they are being boiled so there is nothing further that needs to be done

If you were to say, use them to dry hop then yes, they need to be cleaned and sanitized prior to use.

I used paint strainer bags a couple times for brews with large amounts of hops, and the first time, I got a big chemical smell when the bag hit the boil, so now, if I have to use one, I always pre-boil it and that takes care of the smell and the possibility of leaching off tastes. Extra work but better safe than sorry.

Thanks for the input!

I finished my mashing, and I got quite a bit of a lower pre boil gravity than I expected...

My recipe was as follows:

Malted Oats: 8 oz
Flaked Barley: 8 oz
Pale Malt 2 Row US: 4 lbs 14 oz
Wilamette 9.3% Alpha [60 minutes]: 1.2 oz
Wilamette 9.3% Alpha [15 minutes] 1.8 oz
Irish Ale Yeast

Its a 5 Gallon batch recipe that I cut in half to 2.5 gallons. It said my estimated calculated pre boil gravity should be 1.047 whereas my actual pre-boil gravity was 1.029.

I mashed the grains at 152 F for 60 minutes, then I moved the grains into 170 F water for about 5-6 minutes and then poured the sparged water in with the mashed water. I've had good results with this method before. Unsure what went wrong.

Anyone have any ideas? Is there anyway to fix this? I have no more grains or extract on hand to add to it.

The good news is that beer is unlikely to impair your ability to drive.

No fix for that one. It's going to seem really thin I think. Perhaps overcarb it and add some lime or something to make it interesting.

passedpawn said:

The good news is that beer is unlikely to impair your ability to drive.

Click to expand...

Not if I drink it all in one sitting!

:cross:

So the estimated Measured OG for the recipe was 1.059, and what I actually got was fairly close to that at 1.055...

So how come my OG ended up almost dead on, but the pre-boil gravity was so off?

and also since your ABV is actually measured from the OG - FG, shouldn't I still end up around the 5.5 - 6.0 percentage that I was supposed to be at?

(estimated FG is 1.014)

Thanks!

Did you adjust your pre-boil and/or OG based on the temperature? That could be one reason. The second is if you boiled down your pre boil volume pretty significantly and "concentrated" the gravity points.

A two questions:

What were the respective temperatures you read your pre-boil gravity and OG at?

What was your target volume and (actual) final volume?

My target pre boil volume was 3.41, and the actual preboil volume was 3.41 right on. The target post-boil volume was 2.5 gallons, and the actual volume was 2.4 gallons.

I read both gravity's at around 80 degrees, and used an online calculator to adjust the reading based on the temperature and configuration of my hydrometer. So the readings were both accurate.

So I don't understand why my pre-boil gravity was so off, but then the final measured OG wasn't very far off.