Did my first all-grainer over the weekend...

[Smh77]

and I may have royaly f'd it up.
I just got my Blichman Boilermaker with all the bells and whistles and had a nice set up going. It's a wit so I was doing a step mash where I started at 122F and then was heating it up to 152F. Well after 15min at 122F I kicked the heat up and sat back to watch the temp rise. About 10 minutes into the step up I started to stir my mash when I hit what seemed to be a pocket of sorts (there was a noticable burst or shift or movement in my grain) then the thermometer on my kettle began to SKYROCKET. It got up to over 170 and I began to panic. I had already turned off the heat and it was still rising. I began throwing pounds of ice in to try to cool it off. After 5 or 10 minutes the temp went back down. I wasnt sure if I'd ruined the grains or not but I thought RDWHAHB and continued on as planned. I finished the mash, sparged, and boiled and ended up with an SG of 1.044, exactly what I was hoping for. My question is should expect a funky beer here? Since it got so hot in there is it likely I'll be drinking 5 gallons of not good beer?

[MootsLnbKing]

I don't know for sure but the RDWHAHB is the way to go. I'm sure it's fine.

[Mikegobrew]

My guess is that because your temp was high for a short period of time, you're ok. If it went to 170* that fast, you went past the conversion temp quite quickly and you didn't rest at a high mash or a low mash temp long enough to affect the body or fermentability of the wort. Going up to 170* is where crystal malts are steeped so no harm done to the grain. I've done much worse and still got good beer. Congrats on your first all-grain brew going well! (IMO)

[Smh77]

Thanks! Everything seems to be moving along nicely and just like it should so hopefully this will turn out ok.

[corkybstewart]

I'll bet your beer turns out fine.
Once you start raising the temp you pretty much have to stir constantly. I've had this happen to me. I'm watching the mash tun and the entire pile of grain starts to rise like magma. The thermometer hasn't changed but if I stir it right then the thermometer will register a sizable increase in temp. But usually the high temp change is confined to the bottom few inches of the mash, once I stir it everything evens out at just a few degrees higher than before. It takes a few of these episodes to go from 154 to 170F for mashout.
Is your thermometer fixed or do you have one that you just stick in the mash?

[Smh77]

Hi Corky,

It's fixed in there on the side of the pot. After that minor scare I stirred it constantly for the next hour staring at the thermometer. It stayed very steady after that.