Beer Forum

It is now 9:46am EST and I am in a JAM:

I just mashed in and misread the temp of the Mash Water in my haste... and my ARROGANCE!! Evil or Very Mad

I was over 160f for quite a while, duting which time I kept checking other thermometers in my disbelief.

I have two choices:

1 - Keep going and finish out this brew

2 - Dump it and move on to the next, which I have the ingredients for

Suggestions??

F it. Keep brewing an document it well so you can compare that batch with a proper one. Use it as a scientific experiment.

Yeah, I'm keeping it. Just checked Palmer and it should be OK. My biggest concern is that the enzymes were blasted, but according to Palmer:

-Beta likes temps below 150f and will live at 150f for about 40 - 50 minutes.
-Alpha likes temps up to 162f.
-My temp was below 165f for about 15 minutes tops, so while I am sure I did some damage, I doubt it is a total loss. There should still be enough enzymes for conversion.
I hypothesize that this will be a full bodied, overly sweet Belgian Pale Ale, with quite a bit more unfermentables than intended, but drinkable nonetheless.

I'll keep you all posted. thanks for getting right on this, and thanks Lufah for the support.

It will be fine. If that happens in the future, just get the temp corrected, then toss in another pound of your base malt. It will have enough enzymes to convert everything in most cases.

A large frozen pet bottle of water can bring temps down. Don't leave it in too long, it works pretty fast.

why not just do a check on it with some idophor at the end to see if you got conversion?

Travis recomended the additional base malt but I didn't have any left.

I had a temp problem like this once before. I thought the temp was low and in desperation did a quick decoction and got it where I needed it. I had the same problem on my next session and on a whim, I stirred my Mash for a few more minutes and the temp came up
I figured this time was something like that. I was in disbelief, with the top off, stirring the mash. Frankly, by the time I realized that I had misread the water temp, and had finished freakin' out, the Mash temp had come down.

I hadn't though of the conversion check, but it's too late now

Thanks for the input, and I'll keep it in mind for future fuck ups...

Ice, Ice, Baby.

It's suprisingly effective. I've found with my system, that about a cup of ice - say 6 icemaker 'half moons' - drops a typical 12 lb mash about 1 F. Stir really well to mix it in.