New to igloo mash tun ... Think I blew my mash?

[jph2275]

Hey HBT,

I recently acquired a 5 gallon igloo mash tun and decided to break her in Saturday. My recipe was a DIPA from the lhbs. Grain bill was

- 4 lbs marris otter
- 3/4 amber malt
- 3/4 crystal 60
- 1/2 lb torrified wheat

And extracts

- 3.3 lbs golden light lme
- 2 lbs golden light dme
- 1 lb candi sugar



I was under the assumption that your water temperature will drop 15 degrees from your kettle transfer and during the mashing process with a mash tun. I wanted to mash at 155 so I used 170 degree water. I poured my grains into the tun, topped off with 2 1/2 gallons of 170 degree water, stirred it, and closed the lid for 90 minutes.

What concerned me was that when I checked at 90 minutes there seemed to be heat pockets in the mash tun in various places that I would probe with the thermomter. Some areas were at 165 degrees, some at 155, some at 180, it just didn't make sense. Did I get the best insulated cooler in the world or is something wrong here?

I am concerned I blew my mash and didn't get full conversion. With the above said recipe my og was 1.060. Would this be considered on the low side for a DIPA? Does it seem like my efficiency is low or normal?

Any advice/ thoughts on the mash tun use and techniques?

I really appreciate all feedback

 

[jph2275]

The igloo

 

[jph2275]

Another

 

[jph2275]

Setup

 

[stpug]

Awesome! Doublepost! Delete

 

[stpug]

Your grain:water ratio looks good, and your strike temperature looks good (however, you should calculate your strike temperature better than assuming 15F drop). Try here: http://www.yeastcalc.co/sparge-water-and-strike-temp-calculator

I can't think of a way that you would ever gain temperature so your 180 reading must be off which makes all of your readings suspect. HOWEVER, an unstirred mash in a cooler WILL give different readings based on where you put your probe. You need to stir it up and get a reading to have an accurate reading for the true mash temperature. I suspect your were probably in the 145-155 range at the end of mash.

I don't think you ruined your mash at all. I suspect you were in a conversion zone the whole time, and probably got full or near-full conversion.

As to your OG, off the top of my head it seems like your extract alone should have given your batch nearly a 1.060 reading not including the wort from the mash. 1.060 WOULD be considered low for a DIPA, but perfect for an IPA.

 

[xcdarrel17]

Random comment. Sweet Camaro! I had one but had to sell it to buy a house after we had a kid. on selling the car, but on the house and kid.

 

[jph2275]

Your grain:water ratio looks good, and your strike temperature looks good (however, you should calculate your strike temperature better than assuming 15F drop). Try here: http://www.yeastcalc.co/sparge-water-and-strike-temp-calculator

I can't think of a way that you would ever gain temperature so your 180 reading must be off which makes all of your readings suspect. HOWEVER, an unstirred mash in a cooler WILL give different readings based on where you put your probe. You need to stir it up and get a reading to have an accurate reading for the true mash temperature. I suspect your were probably in the 145-155 range at the end of mash.

I don't think you ruined your mash at all. I suspect you were in a conversion zone the whole time, and probably got full or near-full conversion.

As to your OG, off the top of my head it seems like your extract alone should have given your batch nearly a 1.060 reading not including the wort from the mash. 1.060 WOULD be considered low for a DIPA, but perfect for an IPA.

St. Pug,

Thanks for the quick reply. I cannot explain the 180 degree reading either, I had two brand new thermometers, different brands, but they both always reflected the same temperature. I was doing this since I was paranoid about making sure my temps were correct, first time mash tun jitters.

I think I must not have stirred it enough, I'm sure it would have helped. Thanks for that suggestion.

Glad to hear you think I got conversion and that most of my ratios were good.

But ...

If all those extracts made up the 1.060 and I had conversion on the grains ... Shouldn't my og have been higher?

 

[jph2275]

Random comment. Sweet Camaro! I had one but had to sell it to buy a house after we had a kid. on selling the car, but on the house and kid.

Haha thanks! I know, I'm knocking on mini vans door if I gain another expense as I have an 11 month old daughter and wife. Congrats on the child and house, they sure are great aren't they

 

[JimRausch]

I'd recheck the accuracy of your thermometer. After all, you added 170* water and after 90 minutes measured 180* in spots? Impossible unless you added more heat somehow.
Using the brewtoad mash calculator(not sure how accurate it is, but it has worked for me) adding 2.5G of 170* water to 6 lb of grain should yield a mashtemp. of about 159*. That's not taking into account the temp. of the grain and the temp. of the igloo, so it'll probably be a little cooler than that. Maybe a little high for an IPA unless you were looking for a more malty character.
In answer to a similar Q in the past, Yooper said something like: after mashing in, stir like your life depended on it(although she put it more eloquently). If you mixed it well you shouldn't be getting pockets of different temps.
Did you do an iodine test to check for complete conversion? I'm sure you were fine after 90 minutes, but you can't know for sure if you don't check.
All in all, you may have a wort with a few more unfermentable dextrins than you were expecting(if your temps. were truly high), but you made beer, and have just a few tweaks to lockin your process. Good luck, and keepon brewing!

 

[jph2275]

Any idea how much gravity would be created in a partial mash batch with


- 3.3 lbs golden light lme
- 2 lbs golden light dme
- 1 lb candi sugar

This question is bugging me.

 

[jfk69]

Just as an aside, you want to add the water to your tun FIRST, and then add the grains to the water. Not the other way around, which it appears that you did.

 

[stpug]

In a 5 gallon batch, the three items you list above should yield right around 1.049.

 

[stpug]

With the grain, about 1.080 with a 70% efficiency, or about 30 gravity points from the grain.

 

[jph2275]

thanks!

I need to do more homework on understanding all of this. I really appreciate your time calculating that.

 

[stpug]

No problem. I entered this into beersmith and then double-checked with brewtoad, and brewtoad agreed very well. It's free and easy to use. Give it a shot (you don't have to create an account but it's to your benefit to do so):
www.brewtoad.com

 

[sky4meplease]

When you heat your strike water make sure you stir it before checking the temp. I made the mistake of not stirring and because the thermometer only probes down 4" my mash temp went high I believe because the water temp at the surface of the kettle was much lower than down near the heat source. I figured convection would stir the water for me but apparently that wasn't the case. Once I figured this out I hit the mash temp much closer.


Sent from my iPhone using Home Brew