ESPY
Well-Known Member
I'm just about ready to follow Janx's advice and throw away my hydrometer. I have yet to hit any OG targets. Although my latest result was off in the opposite direction of all my others...it was way high.
After performing several mini mashes by heating the grain on the stove and sparging through a strainer, yesterday was my first attempt to use my 5-gal cooler as a mash/lauter tun. I was brewing a dry stout from 4.5 lbs of grain and 3.3 lbs LME and OG was supposed to be about 1.045. I measured 1.076!!!
I hit my target mash temp (153), but after about 40 minutes it had dropped to about 150. I tried to mash out by adding boiling water, but that didn't do a very good job of raising temp and I don't think it ever reached past 165. Then I tried batch sparging with 185° water and that didn't seem to bring the temp any higher either. I'm thinking that my temp control problems means that I overmashed and thus the high OG. Sound right? What else could have caused such a high gravity?
Thanks,
SP
After performing several mini mashes by heating the grain on the stove and sparging through a strainer, yesterday was my first attempt to use my 5-gal cooler as a mash/lauter tun. I was brewing a dry stout from 4.5 lbs of grain and 3.3 lbs LME and OG was supposed to be about 1.045. I measured 1.076!!!
I hit my target mash temp (153), but after about 40 minutes it had dropped to about 150. I tried to mash out by adding boiling water, but that didn't do a very good job of raising temp and I don't think it ever reached past 165. Then I tried batch sparging with 185° water and that didn't seem to bring the temp any higher either. I'm thinking that my temp control problems means that I overmashed and thus the high OG. Sound right? What else could have caused such a high gravity?
Thanks,
SP