Am i cooking my grain?

[maxashton]

Hi folks.

Long time no speak.

I tried to do a brew not too long ago, it was supposed to be a bitter but came out like a weak lager almost.

I think i cooked my grain.

Had trouble getting the strike temperature right, and lost more heat to the grain than i thought i would. I ended up having to add hot water to the mash to make up the difference.
The mash tasted only slightly sweet, and the sparged wort tasted watery.

It wasn't a light grist either, nearly 5kg. Was supposed to be higher gravity!

Am i right? Cooked grain?

[niall]

Am i right? Cooked grain?

Could be the opposite, if the wort only tasted slightly sweet you probably didn't get good conversion. How long was the mash and what average temperature do you think it was at?

[maxashton]

I mash 90 mins, target was 66-67 degrees, but think the water i added to raise temp was too hot. Don't remember the average, but it wasn't far off.

I think i just stirred in hot water. (Muppet)

I'm going to do a mini-mash to see if i can reproduce the effect. (got a 20kg sack in the spare room )

[maxashton]

Hi DaaB. Never tried an overnight mash before, sounds intriguing. I'd be worried about the whole thing setting into a solid mass of goo before morning! Perhaps i'll give that a go.

Should be getting a temp controlled tun before too long.

[bloodoaf]

When being distracted by son/dog/postman I used 100 deg c strike heat- only realising when I checked the mash tun 10 mins later nearly causing me to feint. Cooled immediately then to 65 deg c and to my amazement the resulting London Pride was perfectly OK with no off taste whatsoever.

[maxashton]

I generally preheat by boiling a full kettle (just shy of 3 litres) and tipping it in the tun with the lid closed tightly. I will leave that in there for 10 minutes or so while i firtle about weighing other ingredients out, like the hops, and making sure i remembered to put the damned hop strainer in the damned boiler!

[maxashton]

I never thought of preheating with the full strike volume before. That's pretty dim of me, i'm afraid.

Thanks for your wisdom, as usual DaaB.

[hoppingMad]

Hi folks.

Long time no speak.

I tried to do a brew not too long ago, it was supposed to be a bitter but came out like a weak lager almost.

I think i cooked my grain.

Had trouble getting the strike temperature right, and lost more heat to the grain than i thought i would. I ended up having to add hot water to the mash to make up the difference.
The mash tasted only slightly sweet, and the sparged wort tasted watery.

It wasn't a light grist either, nearly 5kg. Was supposed to be higher gravity!

Am i right? Cooked grain?

Need a bit more information, what was your actual mash temp because if you wern't far off your 67 degrees then you won't have cooked the grain, and what was your OG.
Did you crush your grain ? ( serious question )

[ECR]

making sure i remembered to put the damned hop strainer in the damned boiler!

[maxashton]

The temperature was effectively brought up to 67 degrees by adding boiling (or rather nearly boiling) water.

This happened because (i think) my grain was too cold, and the strike temp wasn't high enough. I didn't write the grain and strike temps down, or at least i can't find them on my notes.

The OG was around 1042, but tasted watery than i would expect.

I'm going to make a brew up next weekend or the one after, will post recipes etc in the brewday forum.

[maxashton]

Really? Any idea why it happens?

Did you get broadband in the end, DaaB? Your responses are lightning.

[maxashton]

Knew you'd cave eventually, mate. Hope you're still good and paranoid, too!

[maxashton]

If you want something retail, but lighter weight than kaspersky, try nod32 from eset.com.
Designed to minimise impact on performance etc. It's the only AV i use on my gaming/high performance rigs.

[jubby]

Or buy a MAC, which works without all that stuff

[maxashton]

Or install linux, which works without all that stuff and doesn't charge over the odds for a mostly standard x86-64 computer. But I digress.