Hheeellppp!!!!

I'm doing my first all-grain batch RIGHT NOW. I'm at the re-circulating stage and my false bottom is clogged with grain and no wort is coming out of the mash tun. suggestions???

You can try blowing into the outlet of your mash tun and seeing if that helps displace the grains a bit. Could also try to stir the grins so they aren't so compact

At this point I would stir the shat out of it. There's really no where else to go but up.

^ this

Add more sparge water, stir it up, give it a blast of compressed air through the drain valve, and drain it very slowly.

stirring and blowing air. all im getting is a trickle...efff.

good suggestions.

Last resort. Dump it all out in a fermenting bucket, clean your mash tun and dump the whole mess back in. Continue as normal.

If your recipe has a lot of wheat, you may want to try raising your temp up to 180 by adding some boiling water. If you're batch sparging, you will likely have to cut most of your sparges out, but you should come close to your anticipated gravity with a "thin" mash and only one sparge. It will make your wort less "sticky"

Good luck

tried that twice now. I give up....No clue what I did wrong.

would it be a sin to pour what I have in my MLT into a brew kettle and boil that? I hate to waste this....

You dumped it into a bucket and then added it back into your tun twice and it clogged? Something is absolutely wrong.

Yeah. I'm at a loss of what to do here....Worst part is SWMBO bought me the AG upgrade and this beer was supposed to be for her...curse curse curse curse curse....

If you really can't get it flowing, find a kitchen strainer and dump your mash through it, emptying the grain as needed. You may need to use a big ladle or pitcher if you're working with a large volume. Top up and boil your runnings but you'll likely undershoot your gravity.

If you want to extend an already long brew day, add your sparge water to the saved grain, stir the heck out of it and either repeat or try running it through your mash tun again. You'll come close to your anticipated gravity.

Good luck

if I do the second option, would I just add that to the first runnings and boil it all together?

If you don't have a strainer, something like a dish towel over your kettle may work to strain your wort.

If you're lucky enough to have one on hand, a paint strainer bag is ideal for these types of situations

WHOA,WHOA,WHOA....


I just did my first AG two weeks ago, and had the same problem. It's simple hydrodynamics.


1. Take the tube coming from your MT and hold the end into your wort that's already drained out into a pot.

2. Open up the valve on MT fully open

3. Lift the pot with wort above the valve and allow some wort to flow backwards into the MT, which will unclog the filter/falsebottom.

4. Lower the pot down and let the flow back into the pot.

5. Profit.

jpeebs said:

if I do the second option, would I just add that to the first runnings and boil it all together?

Click to expand...

Yep. Aim for a total of 6.5 gallons in your brew kettle if you want to collect 5.25 gallons of wort post boil.

heckler73 said:

WHOA,WHOA,WHOA....


I just did my first AG two weeks ago, and had the same problem. It's simple hydrodynamics.


1. Take the tube coming from your MT and hold the end into your wort that's already drained out into a pot.

2. Open up the valve on MT fully open

3. Lift the pot with wort above the valve and allow some wort to flow backwards into the MT, which will unclog the filter/falsebottom.

4. Lower the pot down and let the flow back into the pot.

5. Profit.

Click to expand...

this would be an option if anything were actually coming out of the MT....

I picked a fine day to quit smoking....

lol... just drink faster. In the morning you can either marvel at your fermenting beer or the mess on the floor.

Actually, I think you'll have a mess either way

hang on, you're at the recirculating stage? Describe it. What are you trying to do?

You could also do my previous suggestion with sparge water instead of wort.

I don't use a false bottom, so I'm spitballing.

The entire space between false and real bottom is clogged. Dump it all it into something else and clean out that space.

If there's a braid in this, take it out. Continue without it, catching any grain at the spigot with a colander.

Run a coat hanger up the spigot. Maybe some thick weed whacker line.

You tried blowing in. Try sucking out with a shopvac. You may have to tape the suction to the spigot.

well it's far too late now but here's what went down: I hit everything perfect; strike temp, mast temp and so on.I poured boiling water into the tun at the 60 minute mark and let it sit for 10 more minutes. At that point, I opened up the valve as slow as possible to get the minimum flow going, and found it to be all the way open with nothing coming out of it...It has to be something with the false bottom. admittedly I didn't do as much research on false bottoms as I probably should have, so chances are it was installed wrong or something. Though it looked to be the simplest damn thing to install....again with the cursing.

as of right now I've dumped directly from the MT through a strainer into my kettle. I intend to boil this crap and make it beer. I'm in a pretty foul mood right now so anyone who happens to live in Fort Wayne, IN, is willing to brave the snowstorm I'm about to brew in, and wants to bring me a pack of smokes is more than welcome. I have some excellent black IPA homebrew cold and willing to share..

So I boiled, cooled, and pitched and now have fermenting beer. After dumping the tun, I noticed there was a sh*t load if grain under the false bottom. Any idea how this could have happened or been prevented?

Here is what you do I think . Dump it into bucket or pot . Then clean out your filter and valve . Put a nylon paint strainer bag over your false bottom . Pour back in gently perhaps using a small pan or something . If you have any clog problems try stirring while draining . that will stop it from settling and clogging unless you ground real fine and it is just going to be a hassle .
Us a coat hanger to shove up through your valve and try to unblock . Sometimes it is just crap in your valve or a lump in your filter .
My best suggestion is to use this next time for no clogging . https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f85/my-new-mash-tun-filter-376005/
You could get the same results by simply covering your false bottom with the nylon strainer bag ( I went to that instead of the steel screen ). My design just allows more drainage from the longer filter .
Works very well .

I thank everyone for the advice. Just popped a couple bottles of this last night and it turned out AWESOME. Great Color, aroma, and taste. So in having thought it would be screwed up, I was very happy with how it turned out obviously.

As far as what I did wrong, I'm still in the dark a bit but I've narrowed it down to a couple things:

1. I know for a fact I hit the elbow that sits in the top of the false bottom when I was stirring the mash, which very very likely let grain in under it.

2. My elbow fitting only came with one nut, which basically just lets it sit on top of the false bottom. If I can find one to put on the bottom of it as well, it'll fit more securely and won't wobble.

So that's it. It's beer. and good beer at that. Cheers!

jpeebs said:

I thank everyone for the advice. Just popped a couple bottles of this last night and it turned out AWESOME. Great Color, aroma, and taste. So in having thought it would be screwed up, I was very happy with how it turned out obviously.

So that's it. It's beer. and good beer at that. Cheers!

Click to expand...

This is usually how it goes down. Lots of stressing for nothing... ENJOY!