My mash might be ruined.

[dano83]

I made my first one gallon kit saturday. Its midwest supplies all grain hop monster recipe but i just bought the ingredients from a local store. Mashed it BIAB style in a 2 gallon water cooler.

The issue is that I didnt do a test run on the cooler to see if it would hold temp. The water was 160 when i dropped the grain bag in. I put the lid on for 1 hour and when I opened it back up the temp was only about 125. It still felt hot and had steam but i guess the only thing that matters is the temp. Its in a 2 gal fermenter now and it looks like it has stopped bubbling through the airlock.

Do you think that big temmperature drop during the 1 hour mash ruined the batch? If it did i'll just ditch this one and start over.

The cooler i bought was the cheapo $10 coleman from walmart. Igloo makes an industrial 3 gallon cooler for about 35. I think i'll switch to that one.

 

[SirSpectre]

Did you compensate for temperature of the cooler and grains? that will lead to the biggest loss initially.

Otherwise, 160 to 125 in 1 hour violates physics if your room was 68 degrees if uninsulated.

So I'm guessing the issue was your grains and tun were cold.

 

[dano83]

Correct, the grains and the cooler were cold. My question was whether the batch is ruined or not.

 

[gromitdj]

Is it ruined? No. Is it going to be what it was designed to be? No.

You are this far in, so have nothing to lose by letting it finish and follow through on the rest of the process. Drink it and learn what you can from the process.

Now, don't dismiss the questions asked by SirSpectre. You could run out and build new mash tun and have the same problems. The cold tun and grains is likely a larger contributor to the temp drop. I always pre-heat my mash tun and measure the temperature of the grain prior to mashing in, using the temp of the grain to calculate a more accurate strike temp.

 

[dano83]

Thanks for the advice. I'll see what happens with it. I was reading and realized that i should of pre-heated the tun so i did some trials today with just water and that cooler sucks. I heated a gallon up to 180 and put in there for 1 hour. It dropped 30 degrees, down to 150. I didnt see when i bought it that the top is not insulated at all. Its just thin plastic. I plan on sticking with the 1 gallon batches for at least a while so i think the industrial igloo will be worth it.

 

[yewtah-brewha]

cooler might be faulty, but I have seen the old timers use 5 gallon buckets for thier tun, they just wrap it with blankets, As for 125 degrees, In the future just let it sit for 15 minutes at 125, drain and raise to 155 or so and add back into tun do this until you get to 148-154.

 

[SirSpectre]

That temp drop seems way too fast. Thats on par with un-insulated pot with active cooling. Where are you that it drops so fast? What is ambient temperature?

Anyway, I doubt the batch is ruined, Your efficiency may be off,. but usually at like 145, you get some good fermentable sugars, so its not all terrible.


125 is generally a good protein rest temperature and acid rest. Beer may be dry feeling. I'd say go with it and see what happens. Happy accident maybe?

Edit:

Are you using a digital temperature probe by chance? I had one that once the wire got half crimped, suddenly showed the temps 20+ degrees off when compared to a proper laboratory style thermometer.

 

[stuknkrvl]

Definitely preheat your mash tun before you add your mash water. I use a couple 10 gallon igloo coolers for my mash tun and hot liquor tank. I throw four cups of water in the microwave for five minutes and throw that in each of the coolers for a few minutes before I add any water.

Despite preheating you're gonna lose some temp when you add your grains. A good rule of thumb is 16 to 18 degrees.

Good luck!

 

[bigdaddybrew]

I heat my water to 170 or so, put it in the cooler, seal the lid wait 10 minutes or so, open the lid to check the temp, when it reaches my mash in temp, I stir in the grain to hit my mash temp, then seal the lid and wrap then entire cooler in a thick blanket. Using this technique my 5 gallon cooler went from losing almost 10 degrees to less than 2 for an hour mash.

 

[RM-MN]

Most people don't realize but the conversion from starch to sugar during the mash happens pretty quickly. It's too late to check on this batch but for your next batch get a bottle of povidone iodine and use that to test for the presence of starch at various times during your mash. With a moderately decent crush your conversion might be done in as little as 20 minutes, meaning that your temperature drop may not be as important as you think.

If your grains are not crushed well enough it may take longer to get conversion as the conversion won't be complete until the grain particles are wet through. You can partially compensate for a coarse crush by mashing longer if you can maintain the temperature.

The next item to tell you if your conversion did well is a hydrometer reading when your wort is ready to go into the fermenter. If it reads the proper OG, then your conversion was complete. If it is too low, then you need to do something to remediate it on the next batch. Better insulation on your cooler would be the first step. Blankets keep you warm at night and they will keep your mash warm too so wrap the cooler. If you have enough blanket, give the top another layer.

 

[rekoob]

+1 to what has been said.

You can also drill some holes in the cooler top and use some spray foam to insulate it. IF that's really the problem.

Even a crappy cooler would hold temp better than what you posted. PRE-heat... add HOT water to the cooler, when your ready to mash, drain, add your strike water and add grain. your strike water should be higher temp then you want to mash with cuz the room temp grain is going to drop the temp of the strike water a pretty good amount.

Happy mashing.

 

[Brew_G]

You're being asked some good questions in regards to your mash tun and mashing practices, and you'd do well to consider them as you move forward.

I do 5-gallon BIAB, so my mash tun is my stainless steel brew kettle that is completely uninsulated aside from a fleece-lined winter jacket I throw over it during the mash. I lose anywhere from 6-10F when I mash in, then lose about 3F during the course of a one-hour mash. I can't imagine how you'd lose 30F in an hour in a pre-heated mash tun.

 

[IslandLizard]

Use Brew365's mash calculator. I need to mash in 4°F above what that calc tells me to come out at the right mash temp after stirring. Then cover the mash by laying aluminum foil on top and close the lid.

But first you need to find out how to keep the tun from losing too much heat.

Mashing too low is not as devastating as mashing too high, as the latter one will denature all enzymes prematurely while the former can simply be re-heated to the correct temps. It won't be the same, but you'd still make decent beer.

 

[EJay]

You'll have beer, don't sweat it.

In the future - What size is your pot? Just put the whole thing in a preheated over during the mash (oven off, but preheated).

I've made that recipe and its decent.

 

[cannman]

ultimately, I think we'll have a light beer... with grains with potential for a second batch....

 

[dano83]

Thanks for all the great responses. This is a kickass forum.

I transfered the batch to a secondary fermenter today and it smells awesome and has great color. My second reading of 125 during mashing may have been inacurate.