First time AG, first time my bazooka screen clogged! Looking tips to improve process.

Well, I've been extract brewing for quite a few years and made the switch to All grain brewing with batch sparge technique.

Today I did my first AG batch which was a Blue Moon Clone that Wayne1 posted.

My question is, thought I did a great job draining off the wort from the mashtun (it was clear and not real grainy) but tonight after the 90 minute boil for the very first time I got to about 4 gallons drained and my entire bazooka was clogged and the wort stopped flowing through my counterflow chiller. I ended up dumping the remaining 1 1/2 gallon out of my keggle into another sanitized stainless steel pot and then running it through the strainer through my counterflow chiller.

The grain bill looked like the following:
1lb rice hulls
5.75 lb Pale Malt (2 row) us
3 lb White wheat malt
1 lb oaks, flaked

Boil additions
1.5oz of hallertau hops 60min
1.25oz of Coriander 80 min
.3oz of McCormick's Ground Orange Peel 85min

I guess I'm wondering about how to adjust, this was a low weight grain bill and I had all that fallout in my wort and it clogged my bazoooka screen at the bottom! First time this has happened to me.

Any suggestions on how I adjust and/or prevent that from happening again?

Here are my notes I took from today before the boil:
I added 4 gallons of 168F strike temp to mashtun. The mash after stirring grains and lid on 5 minutes was 157F.

After 90 minutes temp was 152F. I added 2 gallons of 195F water , stirred and let soak 10 minutes, vorlauf 3/4 gallon roughly and started to drain kettle. I got about 4.4 gallons from this first runoff.

I added 4 gallons sparge water at 172F, Stirred and let sit 15 minutes.
2nd runoff was 158 after 15 minutes

Boil Volume was slightly over 8 gallons.

Specific Gravity =1.037 with uncooked wort (temp adjusted)
Specific Gravity after boil 90 minute boil at 66F = 1.049

Little over 5 gallons at end of boil. Wort temp in carboy = 65-66.

Pitched the SafAle - 05 yeast
Oxygenated the wort for 1 minute and put the blowoff tube on.

I'm looking for suggestions and ways to avoid the clogged bazooka screen. The screen was pretty much right on the bottom in the center. I can imagine with a larger grain bill that this would have clogged even sooner?!

So I'm assuming you used pellet hops? Bazooka screens clog up on pellet hops. At least, that's what they say. Maybe if you switch over to whole leaf hops then you won't have that problem.

Weight/size of the grainbill shouldn't affect anything after your mash because there are no grains in your boil kettle, right?

Yea I agree with that, after posting this it was all the green hops in the screen. I was using pellet hops. No, very little grains really were in the kettle for the most part because the vorlauf and drain from mashtun went pretty well.

Do most people use leaf hops vs. Pellets? Maybe I should start putting the hops in a hop bag. Certainly don't want this to happen again! I've used pellet hops plenty of other times and never experienced this and at times more than 1.5 oz's.

Appreciate the help.

Same with me but I have a slotted copper pick up tube. Leaf hops only for me. I would use pellets if I knew that they would be contained by a hop sack. Anyone?

I didn't even think of the hop bag; that would be your solution if you want to use pellet hops.

Each brewer is going to be different in terms of what hops they use, and I personally use pellet hops only, but if I found a good deal on some whole leaf hops then I would definitely try those out too!