Dumped a 10 gal. batch yesterday before mashing was complete. Making a hefe-wiezen with a multi step mash. Here’s what I did:
12 lb Pale Wheat
8 lb Pilsner
Acid rest @ 111F 15 min.
Protein rest @ 131F 15 min.
B amylase rest @ 149F 30 min
This is where everything went wrong. When I reached 149 I started the timer and walked away without turning the burner off. The mash temp was 190F when I noticed about 10 min. later. I turned the pump on to circulate and the temp dropped to 170F. I tasted the mash and it wasn’t very sweet so I decided to abort at this point and dump everything instead of proceeding. I’ll give it another go next weekend.
Do you think this was recoverable or did I do the right thing?
I hated to spend more time and precious yeast on a batch that might be just OK a month from now.
I think you could have made some nice dog treats with it but I doubt it would make decent beer. I think you made the right decision before spending money on hops and yeast, wasting hours brewing and having a fermenter full for a couple of weeks.
Probably the right decision. If it didn’t taste sweet then it got too hot faster than the enzymes could convert the starches to sugar. If you had some amylase available you could have added that to convert the starches but even still you may not end up with a beer worth the time and money it took to get something drinkable out of it.
haha I’ve done this before. Except I went and did a bunch of other ‘beer work’ in the basement while I was mashing. Came back and my mash had boiled over. I didn’t have the brains to abort and decided to just make a quick beer out of it… little did I realize under the false bottom was a bunch of burnt malt… the resulting beer was acrid and super burnt tasting.
I would’ve gotten the temp down into a standard mash range and given it a try at least. Maybe added of couple of pounds of crushed grains to get some more enzymes working.
+1 - bring it down to mash temp then add a couple pounds of Pils malt. And since you were brewing a hefe, even if the enzymes from the Pils didn’t convert everything a little starch haze isn’t necessarily a bad thing.
The other option I may have chosen is to just ride it out and pitch some of my house bug culture. The Brett will eat most of it eventually.
