omfg, cant hit my DAMN mash temp

[Thehopguy]

Ive been trying for over a half an hour to hit my mash temp
i need 152. it was low so i added hot water, still low, added hot water

oh great now its too high, added cold water, ok great now its too low again

and now i cant get it back to 152. its at like 142. my beer is gonna suck,

im really starting to get discouraged with AG brewing, my first day had a lot of bumps in the road and this one is no better. SIGHHHH

 

[Hang Glider]

It will mash at 142 (more alcohol, thinner mouthfeel, lower finish gravity) or 158 (less alcohol, more mouthfeel, higher finish gravity)

it's all a learning experience. roll with the punches and learn.
For me, usually about 170F (14 qts or so) into my igloo with my grain gets me close.

A little cold water in a jug in the fridge, a pot of boiling water nearby -and I can balance as I go.

However, stir (I love an electric drill and a paint mixer!) each time to get even distribution before reacting to temp swings.

 

[Thehopguy]

Also, my original strike volume was 3.67 gallons. I know im above 4 gallons in there now after all the water ive added. Im not sure what kind of effect this will have on the beer

 

[mattmcl]

Not a whole lot. You'd be running a sparge through it anyways. It took me about six batches to get my system dialed in, but now it's totally consistent and I can nail it every time. Patience!

 

[terrapinj]

too loow is better than way to high - you can still raise the temp up to 150s and be just fine

just add a little boiling water at a time, stir and repeat as necessary

i've missed a couple mash temps as well and beer turned out just fine - it is frustrating but just 1 aspect of the beer and process

how much grain? 4 gal (16 qt) shouldn't really be too much water unless you have a super small grain bill but even then may not be an issue

some BIAB brewers do full volume mashes which get into the realm of 3qt/lb +

RDWHAHB

 

[shecallsmeblue]

I find it helps to add water to the tun at a higher temp and stir it to the right temp. For example, I plan a recipe to mash at 152 with 10 lbs of grain. Temp of the grain is 70*, so using a calculator on BeerSmith, or online, I find that with 3.75 gallons of water, my strike needs to be at 163. So, I heat water to 175, let it sit in the tun for about ten minutes, then stir and let it sit a while until I get to 163. I haven't missed a mash temp yet!

 

[Lost]

Don't sweat it. A mash at 142 is fine. It will convert. It will be dryer but only to a point.

A thinner mash may also be slightly more fermentable (drier) as well and it will take longer to convert. But in any case I'd be amazed if it took as long as an hour to fully convert.

Get your sparge water real hot to bring the temp back up when you sparge. You can also take a decoction if it's that important but that may be more trouble than it's worth.

Speaking from experience I can't say I notice much difference in step mashing vs. infusion mashing and the mash temp's effect on fermentability is small in comparison to the variation in attenuation across yeast strains.

I've done step mashing using steam, decoction, and heat sticks and I've done infusion mashes as well. My impression has been that it's not as big a deal as others make it seem.

So relax and have a beer!

 

[eastoak]

next time pull a portion of the mash and boil it to raise the temp. no it won't pull tannins out of the husks.

 

[Revvy]

Do you preheat you mash tun? I just dump in a couple gallons of hot tap water and let it sit while I'm heating up my real strike water. I find I hit my numbers much better.

 

[Andy_LV]

hmm... are you using Beersmith to adjust mash temps?
btw, you do need to stir for good 2-3 mins for temps to equal out.

I usually prepare bit more water for dough-in, in case I undershoot temp for some reason, I have a bit of extra hot water to adjust. When I overshoot, I usually just stir little bit longer with open lid - it cools down really fast.

2c - there is a good chart on this page http://www.howtobrew.com/section3/chapter14-1.html you can check if your actual temperature makes that much of a difference.

Well, all and all, I have missed my mash temps by couple degrees both ways - up and down, thinned mashes when compensating and so on. All I can say - I havent had a bad batch of beer because I messed up the mash temp. It usually affected my efficiency tho, thats for sure.

 

[JerseyBrewer]

I spent a LOT of time fussing with the mash temp on my system when I started. I learned a couple things along the way that I'll share...

Assuming you have a cooler style mash tun:

> Add the grain to the water not the other way around. Might be obvious but...
> You should get the mash tun itself to the right temp first. I used to heat my mash water in my boil kettle (BK) and then transferred it to the mash tun... The water would drop by a bunch of degrees... then I'd put the water it back in the BK, re-heat it again and transfer it a second time.
> Take careful notes of where you lose heat... I found that on a cold winter day I would lose 10 - 15 degrees to the mash tun heating up and the act of pumping the water from the BK to the mash tun. If I poured it quickly, I'd only lose 5 -10 degrees. You can use these notes to adjust how hot you heat up the water before adding it to the mash tun.
> I find that it's easier to cool than heat. So, I used to overshoot my target temp and then just stir until it dropped back down to where I wanted it. You can add cold water, but that will dilute the mash and change various aspects of the wort (Grain to Water ratio is a whole 'nother conversation).
> Don't forget to measure the temp of the crushed grain and compensate for it in your strike temp calculations - use BeerSmith, ProMash or one of those software applications to do the calculations for you.

If you upgrade to a kettle style mash tun then things get a little easier... turn on the flame until you get to the right temp. turn on again if it cools, etc.. But there's a couple things to consider here to:
> Shut down the flame 2-3 degrees before your target - you want to creep up on it and it always seems to keep rising for a bit after I shut off the gas.
> Stir! Once you add grain, you want to be real careful of caramelizing the wort so keep stirring until you get to your target.

Keep at it. It took me about 5 brew sessions before I was able to get to my mash temp reliably and I still have days where I can't seem to hit what I want.

If you don't hit your mark it's not a disaster. I always try to keep inside the range of (148 - 159) - within that range the lower the temp the more fermentables will be created thus resulting in a drier, less bodied beer (think Pale Ale). The higher the temp in that range the more non-fermentables will result leading to a more malty beer with more body (think Bock).

And my last piece of advice... relax, this is supposed to be fun! It's kind of cheesy but Charlie Papazian's quote does resonate - relax don't worry, have a home brew!

Good luck!