DISASTER? Too low mash temp....

It turns out my thermometer somehow took a crap and I mashed only at 142 instead of 152 for an hour. (I didn't find this out until my thermometer read 212 but my wort wasn't at a boil yet).

I am making a big Christmas Ale (20.5 lbs of grain).

Am I screwed for mashing at too low a temp? What's my prognosis? I'm bummed.... it's in the brewpot right now, but....

DAMNIT!

How'd your gravity turn out? In general, lower mash temps will produce a drier beer leaving you with a lower FG. Depending on the style, this may or may not be "to style", but regardless you'll still have beer. As long as your starting gravity wasn't too off, I would not really worry about it. It is what it is now...

I'm in the middle of my boil right now, so I'll know what my gravity is soon enough....thanks for the quick reply.

Also, a note on calibrating your thermometer: it's pure water that boils at 212 degrees (and at sea level). Beer wort is going to have varying boiling points (the more concentrated malt extract, the higher the boil point). To get a real sense of how off your thermometer is, go by boiling distilled water.

The starches in barley fully gelatinize at 149F. Fortunately, you can get 90% as low as 130F. Your gravity will probably be a little low and you'll have less body. But with that big a grain bill, I doubt the latter will be a problem.

david_42 said:

The starches in barley fully gelatinize at 149F.

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It's funny that you mention gelatinize....my boil has all kinds of "flaky stuff" floating in there....stuff I've never had before. Would this be the effects of the gelatinizing?

most likly your seeing a hotbreak. All the proteins will coagulate and unravel which sometimes looks as your describing.

scinerd3000 said:

most likly your seeing a hotbreak. All the proteins will coagulate and unravel which sometimes looks as your describing.

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Ahhh...that's exactly what it is. My neighbor was just over looking at it and said it looked like Egg Drop Soup. Then I read in Palmer's book where he describes the hot break and said it will look like Egg Drop Soup. Hilarious!

But I don't remember seeing this before...perhaps I wasn't looking close enough.

Thanks so much to everyone for their help. This forum is unbelievable!!

rsmith179 said:

How'd your gravity turn out? In general, lower mash temps will produce a drier beer leaving you with a lower FG. Depending on the style, this may or may not be "to style", but regardless you'll still have beer. As long as your starting gravity wasn't too off, I would not really worry about it. It is what it is now...

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Well, it turns out my gravity was pretty off - was supposed to be 1.090 and it came it at only 1.056.

HOWEVER, it is a Christmas ale and I added cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, and ginger...and it tasted AWESOME. That's the main thing, I guess (trying to make myself feel better)

If you find your body is going to be thinner because of low mash temp, add some malto-dextrin to the boil. It will at least help with the mouthfeel.

why not just add a few more gal of hotter water and mash out some more wort if your gavity is low sonds like a bad spage too, and then do a 90 to 120 min boil to get your volume back down and gravity up.

when some one said the beer will be dryer , thay sould point out it will be more fermintable (more alcohol), ie more of the starch was cleaved in to fermintable mono and di sacarides.
the hotter the mash the more dextrins you get thay are less brok down suger chains (uncompleate emzine action ) that yeast cant eat so thay stay in the beer and add body , thay do taste sweetness but just bairly and per weight are no way as sweet as when thay are cleaven in to there smaller parts (glucose, fructose, sucrose, maltose, and maltotriose)

davesrose said:

Also, a note on calibrating your thermometer: it's pure water that boils at 212 degrees (and at sea level). Beer wort is going to have varying boiling points (the more concentrated malt extract, the higher the boil point). To get a real sense of how off your thermometer is, go by boiling distilled water.

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Better yet, fill a glass with ice, then top it up with water. Put your thermo in and walk away for ten or so minutes. The ice water should be right at 32F (at sea level).

KayaBrew said:

Better yet, fill a glass with ice, then top it up with water. Put your thermo in and walk away for ten or so minutes. The ice water should be right at 32F (at sea level).

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how is that better why would you not want to check calabration in the temp reange you are going to use the instrument at.
what if its right on a 32 but of 1.1 every 10 abouve that
test the meter at boiling that is a much more sound test
unless you are checking how cold your kegerator gets.

Or you could go out and buy some DME/LME and add it to the fermentation to keep the hops and spices balanced. I don't mind being .05 off, but outside of that it can change the result more than I want. (Really I'm not anal, but when I want a style, da.. it I want it).