Did I ruin my pale ale

Somehow I managed to run completely out of homebrew. I picked up all the ingredients to do 5 gallons of my house pale ale and 5 gallons of cream ale to brew this past Saturday. I started heating strike water and ran out of gas. Off to the store I went to trade a tank. Cool. Back to heating strike water. I usually heat my strike water until the kettle thermometer gets to 180, add to mash tun, and then stir and adjust to desired strike temp. I wanted to target 154-155 because I like my pale a little malty. I grabbed my digital thermometer and it was dead. With two brews to complete on the day I decided to guess. I know, stupid! I cooled the water in the tun by stirring in a little cold water and then added the grain. I put the lid on and made a mad dash to Wally World to get a thermometer and then rushed back. This took about 75 minutes. I checked my mash tun and it was at 148. So I ended up mashing it about an hour and twenty minutes at 148-149. Is this going to make this brew extremely dry?

My grist:
9 lb 2 row
1 lb C40
2 lb munich
S-04 yeast

Extremely is a very, well, extreme word....dry yes...I dunno if your lips will pucker though.

it will be more dry than if you mashed at 155.....but like Biscuits said...extremely...highly doubtful...you might even like it!

With a full pound of crystal and 2 pounds of Munich I think you'll still have plenty of malty goodness. But I'm a bit biased, I tend to mash my pale ale around 145ish.

And surely you lost a few degrees over an hour and a half. Don't they say most of the convention is in the firtst 20 mins?

First, I have to commend the OP for getting so freaky close just by using "The Force"
Second, I agree with the previous post re: surely there were at least a few degrees lost in that run to the store, so the most important minutes of the mash were (again, amazingly) right in the ballpark for a passable Pale.

Cheers!

It's going to be fine.

day_trippr said:

First, I have to commend the OP for getting so freaky close just by using "The Force"

Second, I agree with the previous post re: surely there were at least a few degrees lost in that run to the store, so the most important minutes of the mash were (again, amazingly) right in the ballpark for a passable Pale.



Cheers!

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I agree. Hitting the temps by feel! Wow!

IMO this one is likely to be better at the WAG temperature that if you did go with 155 degrees. But that is me. I think you will get plenty of "malty" from the recipe.


WAG = Wild A$$ Guess.

This ended up being my best brew to date. It is fantastic! Sometimes luck is better than skill.

kh54s10 said:

IMO this one is likely to be better at the WAG temperature that if you did go with 155 degrees. But that is me. I think you will get plenty of "malty" from the recipe.


WAG = Wild A$$ Guess.

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snail71 said:

This ended up being my best brew to date. It is fantastic! Sometimes luck is better than skill.

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I guess you should just forgo the use of a thermometer! :rockin:

snail71 said:

This ended up being my best brew to date. It is fantastic! Sometimes luck is better than skill.

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I'd rather be lucky than good.

catdaddy66 said:

I'd rather be lucky than good.

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I dunno, not using a thermometer might land him in some hot water.








I'll see myself out
:fro: