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midmobrewer

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Doing my first partial mash recipe. I followed the recipe and put 1 gallon 16 oz of water to heat up but my stove only got the temp up to 140. I added my grains ( inside a 24 by 24 bag) anyways. Temp stayed constant at 140 until 20 mins in and all my water was gone.

Needless to say my bag burnt up. In a panic i poured my sparge water from my other pot into the grains.

Any suggestions as to what happened?
 
How many quarts of water per lb., the typical measure of mash thickness? If you were below 1.25 qt / lb, the grains might have sucked up all the water, causing the other issues.
 
How is your stove only getting to 140? Especially with only a couple gallons of water. That seems odd. Plus did you leave the burner on during the mash. Also you need more water for sure. Either a bigger pot or split your batch.


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Recipe was 1 quart of water per pound. Thermometer may of been broken? Never went higher than 142 even during full boil. I did drop my dial thermometer in my swamp cooler earlier today so there was a bit of liquid in the dial. Not sure if it was the cause
 
If at full boil it didn't go above 142 it's broken for sure. 70 degrees of broken


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Great...f you midwest supplies. First time using it. Im gonna boil some water and check with my meat thermometer and see whats up
 
Yup...confirmed with 2 other thermometers. About 35 degrees off the mark. So how ruined is my beer? Gonna take a hydrometer test in a sec to see how off it is.
 
Great...f you midwest supplies. First time using it. Im gonna boil some water and check with my meat thermometer and see whats up

Not Midwest Supplies fault. You DID say you dropped it in water and it got into the dial. That would definitely affect your reading. I like dial thermometers but I check them in ice water before every brew day.
 
And just to put this out there...

Mashing generally takes place a temps between 148 and 158 degrees, well below boiling. so boiling should have been the first red alert

And water boils at 212 Fahrenheit, or 100 Celsius. That should have been your 2nd red alert.
 
As for the question "How ruined is my beer?" I'm guessing you did not add your partial mash to the boil. So your beer now depends on the rest of the recipe. What's the recipe?
 
Boston red ale. Yes i did add the mash to the boil. Og was 1.032, recipe called for 1.40 - 1.042. Like i said, first partial mash only done 5 extracts with mr. Beer kits since i started brewing earlier this year.
 
Well, I'm guessing the color will be a bit dark, hopefully the burned taste wont carry over too much, but with that your looking at a 2.9% beer if it finishes at 1.010.

I say get it bottled and try again! You might be surprised. And I'll bet it's better than Old Milwaukee.
 
Lol at old milwaukee. Gonna bottle and drink it anyways.

Another life lesson learned. Check your equipment before use
 
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