Crappity Crap, what did I screw up?

[web250]

Just finished brewing what I'm calling an american lemon wheat.

OG was only about 1.040 from 3 lbs DME and 4 lbs partial mash.

I heated my mash water to 170 hoping for a post-grains addition temp of around 155, but this damn pot held it's heat wayyy too well. Could my high mash temp have sent my OG down that low?

 

[Yooper]

Just finished brewing what I'm calling an american lemon wheat.

OG was only about 1.040 from 3 lbs DME and 4 lbs partial mash.

I heated my mash water to 170 hoping for a post-grains addition temp of around 155, but this damn pot held it's heat wayyy too well. Could my high mash temp have sent my OG down that low?

Yes, if the mash temp was too high, you wouldn't get much in fermentable sugars from the mash.

How high was the mash temp? What kinds of grains?

 

[JKoravos]

How much water were you using?

 

[web250]

2 lbs white wheat, 2lbs Vienna.

I used like 1.3 gallons or so.

 

[JKoravos]

Sounds about right. What did the mash temp come out as?

 

[Yooper]

2 lbs white wheat, 2lbs Vienna.

I used like 1.3 gallons or so.

Wheat is kind of a bugger to crush- it's hard, and I noticed that I had some trouble crushing it. I assume that your homebrew store crushed it? It may have not been well crushed.

For four pounds of grain, ideally you'd have mashed at 152-154 with 5-8 quarts of water. For mashing, temperature and amount of water is very important and it sounds like you were in the ballpark.

You would have got about 1.026 from 3 pounds of DME in a 5 gallon batch, so you actually did pretty well with your mash. You got 14 gravity points from the mash- which would translate to about 50% efficiency. Not great, but not too bad if you overshot your temperature. If you had the mash over about 162 degrees, the enzymes would get denatured very quickly. So, really, not too bad when you think of it.

 

[web250]

Thanks Yooper that was really helpful. The pot I used was just different than my last. My last mash I got a much better efficiency, and my OG was spot on. I got almost no temperature drop out of it, and I probably stayed around 160 for the whole mash.

When I first took my OG it said 1.032 and I freaked, then realized my hydrometer is set for 60F...whereas my liquid was still a bit warm, like 80.

Eh, it'll still taste good!