Some questions about my first all grain recipe

[madkap_78]

I just did my first all grain recipe today it was a left hand milk stout clone. I heated my mash water to 173 and somehow with the mash tun and grain temp dropped to 148. mashed at 148 degrees for 60 mins. Then I heated my sparge water to 190 and ended up with a temp of 160 in the tun. I sparged160 degrees for 15 mins.

I took a gravity reading before boiling and it was 1.045. at 6.5 gal. I was shooting for 1.056 so I added 1lb of dry malt extract to the boil.(think this was a mistake) Boiled down to 5.5 gals after 60 min. my gravity going into fermenter was 1.069

A couple of questions

What will the low mash and sparge temps do to the beer? what effect will it have on it? Is the beer ruined?

Would I have hit my 1.056 gravity by boiling down if I hadn't of used the dry malt extract?

When I put the numbers into beersmith it said my brew house efficiency was 81% why is this? Is it because of the dry malt extract? I would figure that my efficiency would be low cause of the mash temps?


Thanks for your help

 

[Qhrumphf]

Without the DME, you would have been at 1.053. Not perfectly on, but close enough, and far closer than you were with the DME.

Mash temp shouldn't have that much of an effect on efficiency. What that mash temp will do is make much more fermentable wort than you intended. And make for a much dryer beer. Is it ruined? No. Will it still be a Milk Stout? Probably not.

 

[GilSwillBasementBrews]

Yeah your pre boil gravity reading will always be less than post boil. As you boil off water the wort becomes more concentrated as you have same amount of sugars in less water which pushes your OG reading up. You would want to boil then take a reading and add DME near the end if your low. I always kinda felt as long as I was in the ballpark just see how it goes.
As stated above lower mash temps will give more fermentable wort. Higher temps less fermentable wort with more body to it. The sparge temp isn't critical you're technically just rinsing sugars off the grain. Next time heat your strike water 4-5 degreesF hotter and you should come out closer to 150. As long as your in conversion range though you've made beer. 140-160F

 

[BackAlley]

What that mash temp will do is make much more fermentable wort than you intended. And make for a much dryer beer. Is it ruined? No. Will it still be a Milk Stout? Probably not.

How can you say that without knowing if and how much lactose the OP added?

 

[Qhrumphf]

How can you say that without knowing if and how much lactose the OP added?

OP didn't say they added lactose. And it's not a requirement for the style to add lactose (although I certainly use it in mine). And it doesn't change what I said. I don't believe for a second that the target mash for a milk stout is 148, lactose or not, and if the mash temp was lower it will be more fermentable than was was intended.

 

[madkap_78]

I did put in a lb of lactose.

 

[BackAlley]

OP didn't say they added lactose. And it's not a requirement for the style to add lactose (although I certainly use it in mine). And it doesn't change what I said. I don't believe for a second that the target mash for a milk stout is 148, lactose or not, and if the mash temp was lower it will be more fermentable than was was intended.

I agree with your assertion of more fermentable. However, I don't agree with your pronouncement that it probably won't be a milk stout when you had no info about specialty grains, yeast, fermentation profile and adjuncts (including the 1lb of lactose used by the OP) all of which I believe will be more influential to the attenuation and mouthfeel than missing the mash temp by 4 degrees.