Advice Quick!!

I poured my strike water in and the temperature was too high... 160, I added some cold water.. 158, a little more 144!!!!! SHEIZER!!!

I just added some hot water, 147 been about 15 minutes... gonna add some more... should I start counting my 60 minute mash after my next addition (in about 5 minutes)? Should pull it up to 152. Or, should I start counting my 60 minutes now?!?!

thanks!!!!!

first, relax



start it whenever you want. its perfectly ok to go over the 60 minute mark. hell you can do 90 and call it good. Now try and take the temp up just a bit if you can, drink a beer....then go ahead and start your 60 minute timer

So, as long as I'm below the 152 mark, I'm not killin any enzymes? Nothing's messing up because its real hot, but not quite hot enough..

pouring a caramel cream ale, relaxing

Dude, this is what happenned to me yesterday! Strike temp was 162, I added a quart of cold water and BAM! 133!
Cold in small quantities, it's alot harder to add water to heat it up than cool it down especially as the more water you add, the more water you need to heat it up.
I think my total mash time yesterday was around 90 minutes or so because I kept having to add hot water to raise the temp.

Dan

Now remember guys.......

Mash Temperature affects the outcome of your beer, as well as the thickness of your mash. So adding water makes your mash a bit thinner each time. You will extract more, but have a less fermentable wort

Are you doing a good job stirring the mash up? Big temp drops/changes like that make me think you've got hot/cold spots lurking in there. No prob with the time of mash, and there should be no bad effects from dipping a bit low to start. Jsut hit your 15? range and let 'er rip. Are you going to do a starch test to ultimately determine mash activity or just wing it?

But if you use less sparge water, won't thing's balance out?

Actually I don't think they are actually alive to begin with . But I think (not 100% on this) but I think that you can get them pretty hot before they are destroyed (denatured). Not sure what the cutoff is though but I think it is a bit higher than what you went to.

Yeah, I found a good article on the enzymes and temps:

http://byo.com/mrwizard/1391.html

The bottom one is pertinent.

How do you do a starch test?

seefresh said:

But if you use less sparge water, won't thing's balance out?

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no.....sparging is rinsing the sugars that the enzymes produced. You sparge with water thats hot enough to stop enzyme conversion.

seefresh said:

How do you do a starch test?

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From Palmer:

The brewer can use iodine (or iodophor) to check a sample of the wort to see whether the starches have been completely converted to sugars. As you may remember from high school chemistry, iodine causes starch to turn black. The mash enzymes should convert all of the starches, resulting in no color change when a couple drops of iodine are added to a sample of the wort. (The wort sample should not have any grain particles in it.) The iodine will only add a slight tan or reddish color as opposed to the flash of heavy black color if starch is present. Worts high in dextrins will yield a strong reddish color when iodine is added.

I've never done a starch test - I don't think it's anything you need to stress about. When I've played around with it, it was really difficult to interpret what I was seeing. If you're in the 150s for an hour, you WILL almost certainly be fully converted (usually within forty minutes), so personally I wouldn't worry about doing the starch test.

Thanks everyone.. I got it up to 151.5 and shut the lid.... it was expected to be a pretty high OG, so I'll be ok if its a little less. Only had to add about 1 gal of water, and I was doing a 1.25qt/lb ration... so, 1.5ish I guess now, that should be cool.

Thanks again , I'll update my other post with pictures.

seefresh said:

so, 1.5ish I guess now, that should be cool.
.

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you're going to have a bit of residual sweetness once your beer is finished. What are you making anyways?

The temp won't impact the OG - temp impacts the fermentability of the wort. You might say that it's impact is on the final gravity, not the original. For a big beer, a low temp is usually preferred to keep the beer from getting too full-bodied. Sounds like you're fine.

Also - don't stress about putting more water in there. A thin mash does have some impact on fermentability, but it's much, much less of a factor than the mash temp.

How do you do a starch test?

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Have you ever gone camping and used iodine to sanitize your dish water?

Starch + iodine turns the water blueish. Don't return the test water to your mash.

the_bird said:

Also - don't stress about putting more water in there. A thin mash does have some impact on fermentability, but it's much, much less of a factor than the mash temp.

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The two do sort of go hand in hand with each other. Temp and thickness. I wouldnt say its much, much less though

Chimone said:

well not that much less of an impact. The two do sort of go hand in hand with each other. Temp and thickness

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I know you're studying this stuff in a lot of detail, but my impression from some of the experts around here was that temp was a much bigger factor than thickness....

Besides, I'm not sure that I would consider 1.5 to be all that thin, anyway.... can't you go up to 2qts/lb?

the_bird said:

I've never done a starch test - I don't think it's anything you need to stress about. When I've played around with it, it was really difficult to interpret what I was seeing. If you're in the 150s for an hour, you WILL almost certainly be fully converted (usually within forty minutes), so personally I wouldn't worry about doing the starch test.

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While I agree thematically with what you are saying, I started religiously starch-testing when I made the AG switch. My thought was that the safety net of the extract addition while PM'ing was removed and the entire process hinged on the saccharification rest going smoothly. To get used to interpreting the color change, I did it throughout the mash, sometime purposely including some husks to exaggerate the outcome. Once I was used to reading the results, it is a quick and easy failsafe to confirm you are done with the mash.

Now I just need to develop a similar comfort with using those damn pH strips.

.....and yes, don't return the iodine/wort mix to the batch!!!!!

the_bird said:

I know you're studying this stuff in a lot of detail, but my impression from some of the experts around here was that temp was a much bigger factor than thickness....

Besides, I'm not sure that I would consider 1.5 to be all that thin, anyway.... can't you go up to 2qts/lb?

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I was under the same understanding abut temp vs. thickness.

....but 1.5qts/gal is pretty thin. 2qts/gal id mad thin.....you'd definitely need a big mashtun (my 5gal wouldn't cut it....DAMN that thing!!!!)

I making a foreign extra stout... the OG was supposed to be 1.077, I'll be happy with 1.055ish. I like sweetness ina stout too, so not a big deal if its a bit sweet.

The thickness of the mash i.e., the ratio of grist to brewing liquor, has a similar albeit less dramatic effect on the extract yields and wort fermentability as temperature. A thicker mash protects more fragile enzymes (beta amylase and any prtoeolytic enzymes still present) and so increases fermentability and FAN. A thinner more watery mash results in higher extract and less fermentability.


2:1(very thick) High Fermentability - Low Extract
2:1 - 3:1 Moderate Fermentability- Moderate Extract
3:1 - 4:1(thin) Low Fermentability - High Extract

Chimone said:

The thickness of the mash i.e., the ratio of grist to brewing liquor, has a similar albeit less dramatic effect on the extract yields and wort fermentability as temperature. A thicker mash protects more fragile enzymes (beta amylase and any prtoeolytic enzymes still present) and so increases fermentability and FAN. A thinner more watery mash results in higher extract and less fermentability.


2:1(very thick) High Fermentability - Low Extract
2:1 - 3:1 Moderate Fermentability- Moderate Extract
3:1 - 4:1(thin) Low Fermentability - High Extract

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I wouldn't disagree with that; I suppose the question is how much less dramatic?

Practically speaking, I've always shot for about the same thickness and tried to vary temp, but I also only have probably eight or nine mashes under my belt.

the_bird said:

Practically speaking, I've always shot for about the same thickness and tried to vary temp, but I also only have probably eight or nine mashes under my belt.

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thats what Im trying to do now. Ive always adjusted temp to try and change up the final outcome. Now Im trying to change up thickness and leave the temp the same and note the changes

I always keep my water volume the same. I adjust the temps a bit from around 152f to 148f to get my mash profile.
I started doing a iodine test when I first started AG and for the time it takes to do, I'll keep on keeping on.

How do you do an iodine test with a stout or a porter?

seefresh said:

How do you do an iodine test with a stout or a porter?

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Same as I do with any beer. It isn't totally black when you put a few drops on a white plate.