Too Low OG, Partial Mash

[daftdraft]

I just brewed my first partial mash beer. Just jumping into it not knowing too much about it, I steeped my mash in 2.5 gallons of water without a thermometer, while keeping a close eye on the mash making sure it was under the boiling point. I let it go for an hour before removing the grains.

After cooling and transferring my wort to my primary, I got a OG reading of about 1.030 (recipe said OG was 1.040).

Is this due to the temperature of the mash being off of 150-160 F?

Would increasing the amount of water I use when steeping the mash or boiling the wort help increase my OG?

Can I salvage what I have in my primary?

 

[ifishsum]

You really do need a thermometer to properly perform a mash, as there is a relatively narrow temperature window for the enzymes to convert fully. It would also help to know exactly how much of which grains you were mashing - some grains mostly contribute color and flavor (but not much sugars), others need base grain added in order to have enough enzymes for conversion.

Just under the boiling point would be way too hot. The enzymes you need for conversion are denatured at 170* F so any hotter than that and your mash won't happen. You can also get tannins leaching out from the hulls at high temperature, causing bitter off flavors.

Posting your full recipe would help.

 

[Orfy]

You need a thermometer to mash. You also need to know the wort is cool enough to pitch the yeast. You can live with a weak beer or add extract if you want to.
You may also need to repitch the yeast if you pitched to hot.

You need to get a thermometer.

 

[daftdraft]

I got my recipe from beertools.com

Here's the link:

BeerTools.com Recipe Library - Blu moon clone

 

[Yooper]

Well, when you mash, as the others said, it HAS to be in the 153 degree range. 150-160 is good, but if you shoot for 153-155, it'll convert fine. Also, the amount of water is important- you should use around 1.5 quarts of water per pound of grain. So, in that recipe, you should mash at 153 with 2.5 QUARTS of water for 45 minutes or so (since there was 2.25 pounds of grain). Anything else can extract tannins, and also not convert (that would explain your low OG). Then, after the mash, you can rinse the grains (sparge) with 1 gallon of 170 degree water. This works well in a grain bag- you can use a big grain bag to hold the grains in the pot while mashing, and then life the grain bag into a strainer over the pot and pour the sparge water over it.

Then, you can add water to get to your boil volume, and proceed with adding the extract and hops in the usual way.

This time, you'll just have a low alcohol beer (just under 3% probably). It should be tasty, though.