Went to fast

[Laxbrew]

I wanted to venture into lagers, all grain and designing my own recipes. So being adhd I fiqured why not all at once, everything about the mash and recipe is screwy, times temps, so bear with me

5lbs 6 row malt
1lb munich malt
2lbs instant oatmeal
2lbs corn grits
2 lbs instant rice
1/2 lb. rice hulls

i did a cereal mash with the corn, oatmeal and rice, boiled it cooled it. made way to much and i didnt end up adding all of it, around 3/5ths. it was thick as hell.

Started off at 110 worked well enough until i dried to pull off some wart to start my mash got stuck, for the first of many times that day. To get to temps i had to remove all the water and grain from my tun and heat it up on the stove to hit temps, i did this slowly to prevent burning.
Bottom line, I slowly raised the temps to 150 over the course of around 7 hours. I added boiling strike water and started to pull off wort for the boil. pulled 5.5 gallons.

My target O.G. was around 1.05, i ended up with 1.062. mis calculated hop additions, insted of a nice 27 i ended up with 44. I used cascade hops added at 10, 25, 40 and 55 min of a 60 min boil.
Now to where i really screwed it up (well the beggest screw up), i Used an american lager smack pack, no starter, pitched into the fermentor at 60 degrees. Note i had smacked the smack pack around 2pm, i ended up adding it at 1am problem with it sitting to long before adding it?

Fermented around 50-60 degrees over the course of the next week, usually around 52-55 a few swings. I was very suprised how active the ferment was considering it was a lager, it had a good 4 inch krausen for the last two days i let the temp rise to 60 before i transfered the beer to a secondary and put it in my frige.

Did i take a gravity reading, haha no, the first time i haven't. What i am worried about is that my beer will be to sweet, other than the other various factors, can this beer be saved with a long time in the fridge? repitching of yeast and warming it into the low 50s?

I learn best from failure, things i plan to do from now on for any beer, lager or ale;
Use a starter of a good yeast (problems hitting f.g. with ales as well)
always collect gravity readings
make smaller batches when experimenting
don't be stupid in general and plan better.

 

[BigRob]

That's a whole lot of adjuncts for 5lbs of 2-row to convert, did you manage to get a negative iodine test?

 

[VladOfTrub]

All I can say is. Wow! But ya know? The seven hours of mashing may have given the enzymes enough time to chew up a lot of the starch. Especially, if the mash was in the 135 to 150 degree range for a long time. Then, during the time that the mash spent at 110 to 135 degrees, brought it through a bunch of protein rests. Oatmeal will sludge up. Two pounds is a lot. You'd have to be real good in the sparging department, not to have a stuck sparge using that many adjuncts. Even with the six row and hulls.

 

[Laxbrew]

Ya, I will never be using that much adjunct again, ever. I drew off a sample, droped some lugol's in it=no black, red or purple, I sampled a different sample and it tasted very sweet, but pleasantly so if that makes sense. I guess the main thing im worried about is it the fermentation schedule. Will conditioning it for a while allow the yeast to do their business and get a nice low F.G.? Thanks for the help all

 

[McGreen]

Is it still in secondary? After cold crashing, you can test gravity just to see where you are. I have heard people boiling DME and pitching more yeast, but I kind of wanna see how this comes out. I am no scientist, but maybe the sugars were extracted well enough. If it is sweet, maybe you can even pitch again? I am interested in this brew.

 

[Laxbrew]

Yes, its only been in the frige for 4 days. Seem's to be fermenting, kinda hard to watch while its in there but the airlock seems to change position. If possible i'd like to avoid opening it up, exposure to O2, bugs, etc. but there really is no other way to test other than to theave some out, test and taste. i guess to reduce head space i could add in the marbles i bought, and then forgot about until now, after they get sterilized.

On another note, how effective is it to pump CO2 into the hole after i have removed a sample of beer to remove the O2 that may have gotten in?