Carbon on Heating Element/ burnt wort?- Worth Pitching?

Made a saison today with 82% Belgian Pilsner and 18% White Wheat and I'm thinking I may have scorched my wort. I found some carbon build up on my elements after transfer, wort was darker then expected, and may be a slight off taste to the wort. I am not getting a strong burnt/ ash tray flavor but something seems a little off.

This was my one chance to brew this month and I am unsure if I should just throw the yeast back in the fridge and try again next month. What's your guys experiences ?

 

My experience with elements are, they don't like wheat. So, after every beer with any percentage of wheat the element assembly comes apart and cleaned. Having said that, unless your wort smells like a fire pit, I'd let it ride. Like I said, in my experience some burning to the element is not unusual with wheat. Hopefully that helps.

 

Might add that nice smoky flavor to the beer. Could be a winner!

 

I drank a solid glass of the wort just to make sure but it definitely tasted and smelled like an ash tray. I ended up just dumping the brew and saving the yeast. Had to cut my losses somewhere.

I agree it was probably the wheat. Something I read while putting the system together in that it causes scorching and forgot about this batch. I'm going to try again the next go around with Pilsner and sub in Oats for the wheat.

 

I was going to post what I would have done, but instead I'll just leave you with this horribly recorded youtube video:

[ame]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=opfXmYlTotc[/ame]

 

If it smelled and tasted like that, I'd have done the same thing. I went through with a brew that tasted like you describe. It never went away and had to dump the keg.