First all grain brew session - how bad did I screw it up?

[Brochubrew]

Today I had my first brew day brewing all grain. I have been building up a 3 vessel system, all using keggles. I decided for my first all-grain batch I'd brew the Sip of Sunshine clone recipe from July/August Zymurgy magazine.

Keeping temp in the mash tun (152) was difficult. I was trying to continuous spare, but the temp fluctuated too low. I used direct heat to bring the temp up, but overshot by quite a bit. I was at about 162-164 for 5 mins or so. Was able to get the temp down by removing insulation on tun and cover, and going back to the continuous sparge. To make up for the missed temp, I let the mash sit about 5 more mins at 150 before I started lauetring at 168.

On top of this, when I tried to cool my wort to 65, my pump/plate chiller had some sort of malfunction where wort wasnt circulating. I ran inside and grabbed a small immersion wort chiller from my extract days. I didn't have time to clean it thoroughly, but did rinse it off and sprayed it with StarSan prior to putting in the hot wort (about 200 degrees at the time)

My two questions are:
1) How much will not hitting my temp in the mash throw things off? For what its worth, the targeted OG was supposed to be 1.076, but somehow I got it at 1.078.
2) Without a proper cleaning of the wort chiller, do I need to be concerned about possible infection? I did sanitize quickly, but not sure if that will be enough.

 

[Gytaryst]

I'm confused by "continuous sparging." It sounds more like you were recirculating the mash, not sparging, but maybe I missed something. If you only got up to 164 degrees then there was still alpha amylase activity going on. I don't think it starts deactivating til around 175 degrees, (but I'm no scientist). As far as the immersion chiller, as long as it wasn't disgustingly filthy with old dried wort mixed with dirt and dust and cobwebs... you said you rinsed it, sanitized it and then stuck in 200 degree wort? I'm thinking that was probably sufficient to kill anything that might cause problems.

As far as getting a higher OG than anticipated, I can't speak to that. I've never had that problem. If anything your beer is probably going to have a fuller body and be a little heavier than you wanted. Throw some cinnamon sticks in the fermenter, set it aside until November and call it a Holiday Ale?

 

[FirstAidBrewing]

The attenuation will not be what you expect. Because of the temperature swings the beta amylase likely suffered, so it will be difficult to determine how much of that sugar is convertible. Probably not terrible though.

I wouldn't worry about the IC. With starsan and a 200 degree wort, I don't think you'll suffer too much. RDWHAHB

 

[Brochubrew]

I'm confused by "continuous sparging." It sounds more like you were recirculating the mash, not sparging, but maybe I missed something. If you only got up to 164 degrees then there was still alpha amylase activity going on. I don't think it starts deactivating til around 175 degrees, (but I'm no scientist). As far as the immersion chiller, as long as it wasn't disgustingly filthy with old dried wort mixed with dirt and dust and cobwebs... you said you rinsed it, sanitized it and then stuck in 200 degree wort? I'm thinking that was probably sufficient to kill anything that might cause problems.

As far as getting a higher OG than anticipated, I can't speak to that. I've never had that problem. If anything your beer is probably going to have a fuller body and be a little heavier than you wanted. Throw some cinnamon sticks in the fermenter, set it aside until November and call it a Holiday Ale?

Sorry - you are correct. I meant recirculating the mast