jmcquesten
Well-Known Member
So I was shooting for 151° mash, but when the mash temp settled it was high (160) so I added a little cool water to bring it down. The thermometer read 151 for over a full hour, so I assumed I was good. Sparged to preboil volume and took gravity sample and let cool. Measured preboil gravity and it's only 1.024 which put my efficiency at around 46%. No way that's right because I just ground grain on brand new monster mill set at 0.038, and the grind was pretty fine. So, before the sample cooled, I started heating to boil and that's where I noticed the problem. Dial thermometer was reading 220, but wort wasn't boiling. Grabbed a small kitchen thermometer to double check and that one read 190ish next to the one reading 220...wtf? So, I'm wondering how far off my mash temp was (low) and how bad it hurt my conversion. Preboil gravity should have been closer to 1.040. Is anything in the 1.024 wort even going to be fermentable if I really mashed around 130°? Did a late iodine test and it confirmed my fears. Will 3 lbs DME in the boil help (11 gallon batch)? That's what I'm about to do, so I hope so. This is bad...really bad.