So, I got some new equipment. A 15-gallon stainless steel mash tun. On its maiden voyage, I was trying to adjust the temp and made a mistake: the temp shot up to 170. Live and learn. Since it had been about 15 minutes before I overheated, I thought that perhaps I had a lot of good fermentables in the mash so I didn’t just dump it there.
I tossed in a mightly load of California Ale yeast and it fermented to . . . 1.040 or so.
Should I just dump it?
I should note that this is a pretty hoppy IPA.
You could brew a SMaSH IPA, mashed low for fermentability, use US-05 or WLP007 to knock the FG as low as possible, then blend with the first IPA, end up around 1.015 FG for the blend.
I too would blend in this situation. I don’t think most people realize just how much commercial breweries blend for consistency.
Next time you over shoot your mash, you should just add some cold water quickly. I agree with Loopie Beer. Brew another beer and mash low (148.) Put your first beer in a carboy and dry hop it while you wait for your new beer to ferment. Your original beer may also ferment a bit more while you are waiting.
Hard to believe that FG was the result of mashing high. Heck even when I mash at 158 I don’t get that much nonfermentables. Or was this thing a 1.100+ OG brew?
Hm, blending is a splended idea. I’ll have to see what I could do on that score.
@Tom Sawyer: The beer was meant to be sweet; I mashed in at 158. But when I added the heat, it got up over 170. I’m sure I denatured all enzymes at that point.
[quote=“LarryTate”]But when I added the heat, it got up over 170. I’m sure I denatured all enzymes at that point.[/quote]It takes something like 10 minutes at 170F to denature, so if you had added ice immediately, you might have been able to keep them going.
Now you tell me! 
However, if you directly fired this mash, the heat on the bottom was surely much hotter than 170, further supporting denaturing of the enzymes. I’m sure they’ll denature much quicker at near boiling temps. The few brews in a bag I did all finished high, right around 1.020. The only reason I could come up with was that I denatured enzymes by directly firing the mash tun with a thin bottomed kettle, measuring the temp near the top of the mash, so the bottom of the mash was likely much hotter, even with stirring. I aerated well, pitched a ton of yeast, adjusted water…still they stuck at 1.020.
Anyway, where was I going with this…you could try amylase enzyme to finish it out or bring it down further. Do a search on HomeBrewTalk, there’s various thread about it.
I’d blend it with a very light-bodied batch. but since it’s almost 3:00 AM and I can’t sleep, some strange ideas are running around in my head. Such as …
What would happen if you used the beer to mash another batch of grain? Is the small amount of alcohol present going to screw up the enzymes from the fresh grain? Since the alcohol already in the beer will boil off, what would the final beer taste like? Maybe mashing at 145 would counter the accumulated unfermentables.
Yes, it’s a weird idea and I’m not sure it wouldn’t be sending good money after bad.
