Christmas Disaster! Stuck thermometer mash temp high

Ok... so I treated myself to a Xmas Eve day brew day... and my thermometer got stuck.

I'm doing a mini-mash and started soaking the grains right at 155 degrees. I put in my term, and let it sit. Came back to check and was down under 150, so upped the temp a bit.

Came back to check- still just under 150... upped the temp a bit more.

Same thing again- and I got curious... so I grabbed another thermometer and it immediately jumped up to 160... then 170... almost to 190. I immediately took the pot off the burner... but am now at a loss for what to do.

Any help would be so, so appreciate. My guess is that it started at 155... the got up near 190 over the coarse of 15-20 minutes.

You are probably just going to end up with less fermentable sugars. How much was your mash compared to the extract your using. You may just adjust by adding a little for extract.

3 lbs grain

5 lbs extract

it is hard to tell your fermentable level from your grains so it is a guessing game from here. What OG are you trying to hit?

1.051

I'm fine w/ guessing games... anything that will help sort this out I'm willing to try!

without knowing the sugar potential of the grains you used you will be close to 1.051 I think. If anything, you can take a gravity ready with 15 left in the boil, correct for temp and if you need to add more malt, put it in then, I would say you may only need .25 - .5 lbs of DME. That is just a guess though.

Thank ya sir.

the grains were 2lb 2-Row malt & 1 lb Crystal malt.

My LHBS is closed today so I'm pretty stuck w/ what I got. Oh well... house still smells good.

I basically did the same thing with my last two batches. I thought my thermometer was broken, so I bought another one and the same thing still happened. I learned a very valuable lesson.

I have a metal thermometer that attaches to the pot. The water level goes about 1/4 of the way up the thermometer. This is NOT sufficient for a proper reading. This will read 150F when it's actually 170F. My plan is to get a decent piece of cork and spear the thermometer though that to make it float.

I have a gauge thermometer that does that on occasion. My guess is that some steam from the water seeped through the gauge and made the arrow rust or something in some spots and it has a hard time moving past a certain point. But that's just my experience lol.

Since most of your fermentables are from extract, I wouldn't be too worried. You could get some iodine and check for starches. If there is starch present, you can use some alpha amylase in the fermenter to break them down at time during the ferment.

david_42 said:

Since most of your fermentables are from extract, I wouldn't be too worried. You could get some iodine and check for starches. If there is starch present, you can use some alpha amylase in the fermenter to break them down at time during the ferment.

Click to expand...

That sounds fancy

I just went through w/ it, pitched the yeast, etc. I won't be home til the 30th... is that even worth the effort to do the starch check?