Temperature Dropped - Is Beer Ruined?

[senfo]

We did our first all-grain last night. Despite the amount of research I did ahead of time, I missed one tip that probably would have helped --preheating the mash tun.

The recipe called for a mash temperature of 154 degrees. We had 12.875 pounds of grain and used the recommended water/grain ratio of 1.25 qt per pound. We came up with an infuse temp of about 167 degrees and about 4 gallons of water. After infusion and stirring the grains, the temperature was a little high at 156 degrees.

About ten minutes into it, I noticed the lid on the Igloo cooler had lifted slightly (probably enough to allow heat to escape), so I put a stack of books and a 6 1/2 gallon glass carboy on the top of the lid to help hold it down, but I think it was too late.

I should note, the recipe also called for some chocolate grains to be added for the last 10 minutes of the mash, so we lost an additional amount of heat when we removed the lid for this step.

At the end of the hour, we were down to about 140 degrees --14 degrees shy of the target mash temperature. Fast forward to the end of the brew (just prior to pitching the yeast) and the OG was only 1.030 --nowhere close to the 1.057 we were expecting.

This is a winter ale with cinnamon, ginger, orange peel, etc. Is there any hope for this beer? It's currently sitting in a carboy and it's too early to tell if fermentation will occur, but I'm suspecting the worst.

UPDATE: I forgot to mention, I believe we screwed up on the sparge process because I didn't know how much water to use or what the temperature of the water should be. I'm estimating we used about 2 gallons of water at 170 degrees and for some reason, I didn't even think about stirring the grains during this process. I'm sure this didn't help with efficiency, either.

 

[beerman0001]

It will be beer it will ferment will it be what you want?? No. After the boil how much wort did you end up with?

 

[zachattack]

I think the poor batch sparge is mostly to blame, but next time definitely preheat the mash tun. Rather than heat a separate pot of water, I just like to add 5-10 degrees to the strike water, put it in the cooler, stir, then wait 5-10 minutes. That should get the cooler warmed up, then just stir like crazy until you're back at 167. Then start the dough in.

 

[TrainSafe]

So, did you take a temp near the end of the mash?

In my experience the cooler will hold within a couple degrees for an hour. I usually leave my lid cracked slightly for the cable on my electronic thermometer probe.

I bet you are fine. Beer mashes just fine at 154, and 152.

 

[senfo]

It will be beer it will ferment will it be what you want?? No. After the boil how much wort did you end up with?

Six gallons...

 

[senfo]

So, did you take a temp near the end of the mash?

In my experience the cooler will hold within a couple degrees for an hour. I usually leave my lid cracked slightly for the cable on my electronic thermometer probe.

I bet you are fine. Beer mashes just fine at 154, and 152.

Yep, took the temperature at the end of the mash.

The more research I've done the more it seems our goof on the sparge may have caused the results we're seeing. Doing another batch tonight and hopefully we'll see better results.