Tried all grain...but too much sediment?

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srpratt

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Hey all. First time all grain brewer...but I need help diagnosing my pitfall.

Tried a 90 minute Dogfish Imperial IPA recipe. About 18 pounds of grain total that I put in a large grain bag. Mashed at 160 in a cooler. Spargged at 172. When I poured the wort into my kettle from the cooler, I didn't filter because I had a grain bag. Added hops, did the 90 minute boil. Lost .5 gallons or so in the boil. No problem...great SG readings.

Here is where it got weird. After primary fermentation, I could only transfer only 3 gallons of the 4.5 gallons because the bottom 1 1.5 gallons was nothing but sludge. Why was there do much? Do I need to filter? I thought that is what the grain bag does? Where did the sludge come from and how do I avoid it?

Thanks for reading.
 
It's partly what you're asking and partly that you didn't use enough water. One big thing could be whether or not you poured the entire contents of the boil kettle into your fermenter.

If you want 5 gallons at bottling, then you need 5.5ish gallons into the primary and about 6 gallons of boiling wort at the end of the boil. These are all general numbers and will vary by batch and technique. A typical starting boil volume will be 6.5 to 7.5 gallons depending on time and your evaporation conditions. (I do 90 minute boils and start with about 7.5 gallons and end up with 5.5 into the fermenter)

So, if you did throw the entire contents post boil and cooling into your fermenter, then you had a bunch of hops and all the trub in there. Since you said it's a 90 minute IPA, you added a lot of hops.

To remedy this, you can filter or transfer in a method that won't put all this gunk into the fermenter. A colander with a large muslin bag will remove a majority of the trub and hops. A dip tube along with whirlpooling your cooled wort will help to minimize trub and hops getting into the fermenter.

Hope this helps.
 
+1

You'll get quite a bit more protein break material with all grain. Extract had already been boiled once, so you don't get as much.

was 160°F the recommended mash temperature?
 
Chilling and whirl pooling will help immensely...
Brew normally (use a paint strainer or similar for your hops).
Chill normally.
If you are using an immersion chiller, pull it (and anything else still in the BK), use your sanitized spoon to whirl the wort into a fast whirlpool, then cover the pot and let it set for 15 or 20 minutes.
Without disturbing the wort, carefully drain from the side of the kettle, staying off the bottom.
As you get the level down, you will begin to see the trub at the bottom.
Carefully drain as much as you can without sucking up any of the trub.
You just whirl pooled.
 
It's partly what you're asking and partly that you didn't use enough water. One big thing could be whether or not you poured the entire contents of the boil kettle into your fermenter.

If you want 5 gallons at bottling, then you need 5.5ish gallons into the primary and about 6 gallons of boiling wort at the end of the boil. These are all general numbers and will vary by batch and technique. A typical starting boil volume will be 6.5 to 7.5 gallons depending on time and your evaporation conditions. (I do 90 minute boils and start with about 7.5 gallons and end up with 5.5 into the fermenter)

So, if you did throw the entire contents post boil and cooling into your fermenter, then you had a bunch of hops and all the trub in there. Since you said it's a 90 minute IPA, you added a lot of hops.

To remedy this, you can filter or transfer in a method that won't put all this gunk into the fermenter. A colander with a large muslin bag will remove a majority of the trub and hops. A dip tube along with whirlpooling your cooled wort will help to minimize trub and hops getting into the fermenter.

Hope this helps.

Yup! Just make sure to scale any recipes to 6g or whatever volume you intend to have remaining at the end of boil.
 
Mashing at 160 is gonna give you a mighty malty ipa if you didn't destroy all the enzymes. What kind of grain bag did you use? The one that looks like a sock that you get from the lhbs or a paint strainer bag type?
 
I used a grain bag from the LHBS. Small holes but enough for grub to get through. The mash was at 150, I had to check my notes. So malt was high as I was going for a close to 10% ABV.

I agree on using more water...which means I need a larger kettle. And I will try the whirlpool cool method.

Also my cooler lacks a spout so I use the awkward pour a large hot cooler method. It's heavy but helps me on my deadlift max :). Do some folks leave the first gallon of mash out because it doesn't run clear? I have seen that done...even though I forgot the technical term for it. Seems like you reduce Reuben significantly they way but also lose flavor?
 
Also... I don't want to remove hops when filtering into my primary, right? Wouldn't that remove some of the flavor that I want to develop?
 
Once your boil is done and chilled those hops are spent. All they will do is add to the trub in the bottom of your fermenter. You might want to consider putting a valve in the bottom of your cooler so you can drain off some of the liquid into a container and pour it back into the top of the cooler until you get clear runnings. I would atleast get a bag that is finer like a paint strainer bag that will keep more if the finer stuff in it.
 
No one has mentioned it so i will.

Adding findings like Irish moss or whirlfloc at 10 minutes will also help all the proteins and hops coagulate and clump to the bottom

Whirlpooling works well, but my advice is after the stir and wait, drain the kettle slowly because a strong siphon will actually generate a large enough force to suction from the large pile of junk in the middle of the pot.
 
I do have other questions.

If I am reading this correctly, you pick up your mash cooler with all the grain in it and dump it through a bag setup to get your wort?

I agree with the "invest in a ball valve setup for the mash tun and your larger boil kettle (10 or more gallon if you are doing 5 gallon batches)

It makes the job so much easier and efficient. Picking up kettles and coolers is inviting a mess and burn trauma.
 
I'd say definitely use whirlfloc or irish moss in the kettle, and also definitely be careful when siphoning off your wort. I reckon I probably siphoned 95% of my break from my last brew because I just dropped the autosiphon in the kettle and let it do it's thing.
 
Got it. Here are my take- aways:

- install a valve on my mash cooler so that I don't kill myself.
- if wort is cloudy, transfer it to a pitcher and then return to the cooler to wait until it becomes clear runnings.
- use paint strainer bags to get more of the sediment during the BK to fermenter transfer
- hops are done after the boil (unless I drop in the secondary.). So filtering will help make it clearer.

Remaining Questions:

- I pour from my BK to my fermenter (I haven't reach the level of getting a kettle w/ a valve...that sounds like a pricey investment.) it seems to work well if the solids have settled. Would whirl pooling the solution actually hurt this more than help?
 
Got it. Here are my take- aways:

- install a valve on my mash cooler so that I don't kill myself.
- if wort is cloudy, transfer it to a pitcher and then return to the cooler to wait until it becomes clear runnings.
- use paint strainer bags to get more of the sediment during the BK to fermenter transfer
- hops are done after the boil (unless I drop in the secondary.). So filtering will help make it clearer.

Remaining Questions:

- I pour from my BK to my fermenter (I haven't reach the level of getting a kettle w/ a valve...that sounds like a pricey investment.) it seems to work well if the solids have settled. Would whirl pooling the solution actually hurt this more than help?

Whirlpooling won't help- so might as well not bother. You could just let the kettle sit for 10 minutes after chilling, and then pour it as much of the heavy stuff will be on the bottom.

What do you ferment in? If you ferment in buckets, you can line the bucket with a sanitized mesh bag, pour all the wort in and just lift out the mesh bag to get out some of the stuff.

Or, like me, you can not bother straining at all, as it'll all settle out in the bottom anyway.
 
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