I mashed in at 151 this morning, meant to do 152. Should I mash longer than 60 minutes because of this?
wont make a difference. longer mash times usually for much lower temps or just personal preference.
Not because of that. You can mash longer if you want to, but the difference of 1º is nothing. I like to mash for 90 min for anything under 150 though, and 151 is close enough that I would go 90. There are others who will demand that you only mash 60, or that anything over 45 minutes is a complete waste of time.
I tinkered with a shortened mash for the first time on my last batch. Started vorlauf at 30 min, first runnings into the kettle at 45 minutes. I did notice a small reduction in efficiency.
Agreed, 1 degree difference is nothing. If you really wanted to fix it, which I wouldn’t have, you can use the “mash adjust” tool to figure out how much water to add and at what temp to bring things back in line.
Yeah, I mash 90 mins for sub 150F beers only. And one degree F is within the margin of error on your thermometer, so you may well have mashed at 152F. No worries.
Cheers gents, great to be back.
I doubt your thermometer is accurate enough for that difference to matter.
My Thermapen will take that challenge!
1 degree? Maybe…
The thermometer will be able to tell but your palate won’t. I wouldn’t worry about a 1 degree difference. Some times if I hit too low of a mash temp, I’ll do a step infusion mash to make up for it by taking some of my sparge water, boiling it, and adding it to the mash. Let that rest for a while, sort of doing a Hochkurz step mash instead of single infusion.
Exactly. I doubt anybody here could pick the 151F beer from the 152F beer. Now going from 156F to 148F is another story.
I’d be amazed if anyone in the world could tell that difference. And would they be imagining it? Lying? Making sht up? Half the sht I hear from judges from people who enter comps sound like they’re full of it.
Yeah, I agree totally. Nobody could tell.
No need, the sparging is more important than a longer mashing. 1 deg. is not going to make a bit of difference. Just remember that a lower mash temperature will result in a sweeter wort, which will also be a higher gravity beer. Important to also make sure you have enough yeast to pitch to make sure the attenuation is full and complete.
Lower mash temp can result in more fermentable wort, but OG - FG is what determines ABV. A mash at 152F and mash at 148F with appropriate rest times should have same preboil OG, but may have different post fermentation FG due to fermentability of wort driven by mash temps, % non fermentables in grist.
I don’t worry about hitting my target mash temperature exactly as long as I’m within 2 or 3 degrees; I don’t think it makes all that much difference. If it was 5 or 6 off, then I’d mess with it, but I’ve got my technique down pretty good and usually hit my target within 1 or 2 degrees.