Mash temp was too high now what

The higher mash temps will lead to more tanins in your beer and unwanted bitterness. i'm not sure how to solve this. stir in come cold water to get it down to 152? or leave the lid off your mash tun and hope the temp comes down?

 

I don't think tannins will be an issue at all. It's more a fermentability thing. If it's not too late, add 1-2 cups of cool water and everything will be fine. If the mash has been hot for more than like 10 minutes, then fermentability might suffer, i.e., final gravity might be a few points higher than you had intended, and ABV will be a little lower, more body, etc. Not a real big deal depending on your goal. You'll still make decent beer.

 

If you got your mash temperature down to 158° rather quickly, you'll be fine. You're just going to have a higher final gravity than you designed.

 

Mashing for an extra 15-30 minutes should help a bit in making the wort more fermentable

 

For the most part grain temps can be ignored (unless extreme). You can adjust "ambient grain temp" in beersmith but it will do little to change the predicted strike water. More important is how your mash tun reacts to beersmith's predictions. For me, my mash temps are always lower than what the software forecasts . . . after a while you learn your fudge factor.

 

You can fix that by changing your mash tun specific heat value in your equipment profile. The default value gave me consistently wrong mash temperature predictions. Now I get consistently right mash temperature predictions. Typically within 1 degree.

 

No.

 

I'm guessing you are using the default total efficiency of 75% in Beersmith. Change it to 65%. You can have an 80% mash efficiency with a total efficiency in the 60s with Beersmith due to the nonstandard way it calculates total efficiency.

If you brew the same recipe again for the third time, with a predicted 65% total efficiency, you will use a little more grain.

You are also probably draining your sparge too fast. It should take at least 30 minutes to drain the sparge. Draining it more quickly will reduce efficiency.

 

http://beersmith.com/blog/2008/07/04/5-ways-to-improve-your-all-grain-beer-efficiency/

 

Two minutes indicates the time allotted to mix the (batch) sparge water with the mash.

Once mixed ... batch sparging calls for a 10 min rest ... followed by a vorlauf ... then run off.

 

Batch sparge instructions - this approach usually will get me 75% if grains are adequately crushed.

 

It's all about the crush. Crush harder. No need to sparge for 30 minutes with batch sparge, nor even to wait 10 minutes before vorlauf of the sparge, just mix and roll. Denny Conn himself would tell you the same thing. I've used a Dennybrew system in this manner for many years and with good enough crush can get 90% efficiency. In fact I backed off on the crush because there's such a thing as getting too high efficiency. My goal is about 80%. If you're getting 65%, no problem, just plan for it. In theory your beer might even taste better than somebody who gets higher efficiency, so be happy.

 

He may have been referring to a 10 minute mashout as a step in the batch sparge. In which case the 10 minutes would be needed.

 

I don't believe I've heard of mashout as a reason for a 10-minute rest for batch sparging. In any case, it probably takes around 10 minutes if not longer to drain off the sparge water.