High IBU, low alcohol

[epikuryan]

Today I brewed a beer with 1.040 OG, 68 ibu beer accidently. I was targeting 1.054 OG but somehow it resulted 1.040 OG.

The question is will it be a strange and unbalanced beer with high ibu with low alcohol that will not give a good tasting experience? Because generally high ibu beers are high abv beers to balance the alcohol and bitterness.

I am still trying to understand why the brew resulted with such low og. May the reason be a temperature increase in mashing stage? During 20th minute of mashing the temperature rised to 72 celcius accidently. May that stop sugar creation?

Cheers

 

[day_trippr]

Prolonged exposure to 72°C/161.6 is going to denature beta amylase and isn't far from denaturing alpha amylase as well.
Not something one wants to do before mash-out.

As for the concern about IBUs out of balance with the beer: I wouldn't worry about it, it's not hugely out and many folks enjoy a hop-heavy balance...

Cheers!

 

[IslandLizard]

Did you lower it right after you noticed it had climbed up? Could it have been higher than 72C for a longer time?

I've successfully mashed Milds as high as 161F (72C) for an hour yielding normal extraction levels.
Is it possible your grist didn't have enough diastatic power?

I always take a (refractometer) gravity reading of my first runnings to make sure I got the expected extraction, to avoid surprises later on.

 

[epikuryan]

Did you lower it right after you noticed it had climbed up? Could it have been higher than 72C for a longer time?

I've successfully mashed Milds as high as 161F (72C) for an hour yielding normal extraction levels.
Is it possible your grist didn't have enough diastatic power?

I always take a (refractometer) gravity reading of my first runnings to make sure I got the expected extraction, to avoid surprises later on.

I have lowered the temperature to 68 Celcius right after I observed the temp hit 72 (in 30th minute).
I used Weyermann pale ale 2 row malt as base malt. I checked but could not find diastatic power information for it but this is the 2nd time I used the same malt which did not have such problem in the last brew.

 

[bobeer]

Did you mill the grain yourself or have the shop do it? Is this different from what you normally do? Usually when you run into a lower gravity than you were expecting either the grist was ground too course, you mashed way too low or high, or you mis-measured your grain bill.
Typically, as Lizard said above, you can still get enough gravity if you mash too high... it's the the final gravity that will be off because you created a less fermentable wort by mashing at a high temp.

To fix it I would make a small mash to gain back those 14 lost points and add it to the lower gravity beer. If it's fermenting it's ok to add the new wort to it. It'll still continue and probably pick back up to bubbling again.

 

[epikuryan]

Did you mill the grain yourself or have the shop do it? Is this different from what you normally do? Usually when you run into a lower gravity than you were expecting either the grist was ground too course, you mashed way too low or high, or you mis-measured your grain bill.
Typically, as Lizard said above, you can still get enough gravity if you mash too high... it's the the final gravity that will be off because you created a less fermentable wort by mashing at a high temp.

To fix it I would make a small mash to gain back those 14 lost points and add it to the lower gravity beer. If it's fermenting it's ok to add the new wort to it. It'll still continue and probably pick back up to bubbling again.

I milled the grain myself with the usual setting of the mill ( I do not change the setting ).
I did not measure the grain since it was already packaged by the shop with predetermined weight. It would be better if I had measure it.

Thanks for the suggestion, I am not thinking to touch the actively fermenting bucket now, will try how the high ibu low alcohol will taste
But now I think that if I had DME available, I could have add some DME to increase the gravity of the wort before pitching the yeast.