Keep getting pieces of grain into boil kettle through FB

I have a SABCO false bottom on a keggle MLT. Any time I have to adjust my flow into the kettle, a bunch of grains come through. How do I fix this?

Also, due to this issue, i assume that I have to strain my wort before I boil it. Is this correct?

Thanks guys.

The fastest, easiest fix for me when I was having that problem was a foil coffee filter.

However, the next batch I put a plastic lid on top of my grain bed, poured my vorlauf onto that and had much better results getting a clean runoff.

Care to elaborate on your mash/sparge technique?

I have this problem with my bucket in a bucket lauter tun especially with pilsner malt it seems. I have always just used a small strainer and stirred my boil kettle through the strainer with a large spoon several times rather than strain the whole kettle and this seems to remove all or enough of the grain that I have not noticed any more hanging around in the kettle afterwards.
I wonder if there is a better way though, I have considered using a layer of rice hulls on the bottom of the lauter tun to stop them from entering the boil kettle but I haven't tried that yet.

I mash in the Keg, so that I can direct fire to keep the temp, or step mash (which I have yet to try).

I vorlauf about 3 gallons. Again, Im a newbie to the AG, so Im still dialing in my system, and still figuring out all the little nuiances (sp?) such as "how cloudy should the wort still be at the end of the vorlauf."

I fly sparge with a copper ring about 7 inches above the grain bed. My sparge takes about a 1/2 hour or longer.

Griffsta said:

I have a SABCO false bottom on a keggle MLT. Any time I have to adjust my flow into the kettle, a bunch of grains come through. How do I fix this?

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Seriously not trying to be a smartass, but... don't do that if it causes grains to come through. Probably most people using false bottoms will have the same problem. Once I start my runoff, I don't mess with the flow until it's done and I shut the valve.

I used to have that same problem with my false bottom, until I started running the HERMS. By the time I get to sparge, the grain bed is set so well that nothing bothers it.

Also, I always intriduce my sparge water, UNDER the surface of the water in the MLT so that there is no "drop"

I know you're not trying to be a smart ass, you are just smart, and if you are anything like me, your probably as ass too! (just kidding, you always have good answers for me lil SParky).

The problem is, eventually the water will stop flowing into my boil kettle. Now, I dont believe this is a stuck sparge, cause I can always get it going again by oopening the valve. I think it has somethig to do with a "siphoning" effect or some sort of couter pressure causeing the wort to not want to travel through the hoses. It is large diameter hose, but sometimes the flow just seems to stop. Sometimes if I jiggle the hose, it will start to flow again, sometime it wont until I open it up.

Also, regarding the "drop", I think I might start feeding a hose to a plastic lid under the water level.

The fact is guys, I have brewed 3 all grain batches, and have not got over 60% efficiency (one was close to 40%). I have so much going wrong, that I have no idea where to start improving. I am either boiling away too much, or not boiling away enough. My first batch, I put 6.5 in the boiler, ended upw ith about 4 gallons, my second batch I boiled 8 gallons, and nailed 5.2 gallons, my 3rd batch I boiled 8 gallons but ended up with 6.5 at the end of the boil. How am I supposed to hit a targe gravity if I cant get my boil volumes to turn out properly? Also, I have no idea if I am getting all the required sugars out of my grain. I keep heating it up too much during the mash (last time only to about 160 at its highest), but then my grain bed is too cold during my sparge (measured it yesterday at 145 while I was sparging with 168 degree water). SHould I heat my MLT during the sparge to get the temp up, and for what exact temp should I be shooting for? SOme say high temps, but then I dont want any tannins... This all confuses the crap out of me. Unfortunately, I havent actually tasted any of my all grain beer yet, so I have no idea what it will be like (im pretty sure the 1st will taste horrible, but the last 2 might be ok).

I know I will get my system dialed in eventually, but for right now, Im pretty sure my techniques SUCK!!! I need to find someone that brews exactly like I do (3 keg gravity system, false bottom, fly sparge, etc.) and pick the hell out of their brain. I built this system because I thought I was supposed to get great efficiency, but so far it has been crap.

Everyone tells me "relax, have a homebrew" and all I want to do when I hear that is scream, because so far, going all grain brewin has been stressful. I want more than anything to have good beer, and so far, im pretty sure Im making something far less than good.

Well, I'm definately an ass. The smart part is still up for debate.

Need a little more info. Using a pump or gravity? Some kind of air bubble getting in the line dorking up the siphon? Is your pickup tube breaking siphon because it's not air tight somewhere?

Are you fly sparging, and needing to limit your flow rate? If you're batch sparging, just open the valve up at the beginning and let the runoff go as fast as it can.

Your cold grainbed during the sparge is certainly related to heating your sparge water to only 168f. If you're fly sparging, it better be at least 175-180 in the HLT. By the time it goes through the tubing, sit on top of the grainbed, and finally works down into the grain it will cool a lot.

Having a direct fire MLT makes it possible to heat to mashout (168F) also. Do you do that?

I no longer do, but used to brew on a system like yours.

#1. I always introduced my sparge water under the surface of the MLT water when I could.

#2. My hose going to my boil kettle goes ALL the way to the bottom of the kettle (syphon)

#3. I always make sure that my hose from the MLT to the bottom of the boil kettle is FULL of wort when I start to lauter, again, syphon. This syphon effect will actually PULL the wort from under your false bottom. If the hose isnt full, it wont do it.

#4. Get the syphon effect by lifting the end of the hose above the fluid level in the MLT. Open the valve and lower the end of the hose until te wort reaches the tip. Close the valve on the MLT. Place the hose in the boil kettle and open the valve, you should have a nice syphon effect.

#5. Boiling... you need to nail down a pre-boil volume, dont use a different volume each time, use the SAME volume a couple times and record your boil off rate. OR put 7 gallons of water in the kettle and boil it like you would do with wort... record the boil off and use this number. You are right, you cannot hit ANY target if you do not know the Pre boil, BOIL off and POST boil volumes precisely. Id start with 1.5 gal./hr as a starting point, it may be a little higher or lower. You only neede a rolling boil, so once you reach that, turn the burner down to maintain it and use that setting for your boils.

This is the problem with propane burners, you cannot measure how much heat is actually going into the boil, you have to just look at it. On a windy day, it will take more heat, on a calm day, less. With electric I can dial in my PID at 70% power on a 5500W element and KNOW that I will get 1.5gal/hr boil off.

Do the syphon thing, put 7 gallons in your kettle and get a nice rolling boil going and take note of what setting it takes to keep it there. Boil for an hour, precisely measure what comes out of the kettle. ALSO remember that you are losing wort to hops, trub and JUNK in the kettle, this will be "lost" too. I plan 5.5 gallon batches so that I can leave as much or as little in the kettle as I want, and still get 5 gallons to my keg in the end.

All good recommendations, Pol. You may not know anything about all electric HERMS, buy you know your stuff when it comes to 3-tier gravity systems that use propane burners!!

Griffsta said:

The problem is, eventually the water will stop flowing into my boil kettle. Now, I dont believe this is a stuck sparge, cause I can always get it going again by oopening the valve. I think it has somethig to do with a "siphoning" effect or some sort of couter pressure causeing the wort to not want to travel through the hoses. It is large diameter hose, but sometimes the flow just seems to stop. Sometimes if I jiggle the hose, it will start to flow again, sometime it wont until I open it up.

Click to expand...

I know what that sounds like to me. The hose from your MLT to your kettle isn't a sealed fit and air is entering the line at the connection to your MLT. The air comes in, breaks the siphon and the wort stops flowing...

I learned about this two weeks ago when I used the wrong hose to rack and the flow stopped about 3-4 times before I realized wtf was going on.

Lil' Sparky said:

All good recommendations, Pol. You may not know anything about all electric HERMS, buy you know your stuff when it comes to 3-tier gravity systems that use propane burners!!

Click to expand...

Ha ha yeah, just wait though, someone who admits to never brewing all grain will come in here and try to prove me wrong. Wait for it... wait for it...

The Pol, your comments are great.

Regarding:

#1 - I will start doing that. I will probably hook a hose up to my copper sparge ring and sit it right on top of the grain bed. Right now, it is all copper from a coupler in the top of the MLT, so it has to fall, but I can fix that.

# 2 - I do. I even started wrapping a paint strainer around the hose to catch any grain run through.

# 3 and 4 - I normally only have a trickle of wort in the hose (1/2"id). I will definitely try that. Do you think that my hose is too big (I could make a great comment here...) I had made a previous post wondering if I was getting any HSA due to the size of the hose, and the fact that it is only a small trickle through it. But, If I fill the hose as you say, then let it flow, it wont be a problem. Genius.

#5 - The burner issue is definitely something I have to get dialed in. When I use my KAB4, even on the low setting, it fires like a rocket, and the wort just boils away like crazy. When I use my SP10, once it is boiling, I can keep it on low, and seeminly, I evaporate far less. It took me 3 batches to figure this simple thing out. I think that my optimum setup will be to use the SP10 for my boil, keep it on low, and will probably need to have a preboil volume of around 7.1 gallons.

The funny thing is, I see your beer list, and the last two that I made (yesterday) were a Centennial Blonde and an Orange/Cascade Pale ale. I guess great minds think alike (though, I think you may have mentioned one of those to me on an earlier post).

Regarding some of the other comments:

3 tier gravity system, no pump.

I dont think that I have a break in the air line. I mean, I dont see water dripping out anyplace. I use sharkbite fittings to transfer from the MLT to the BK, and it seems pretty solid to me. I have never seen one leek. Plus, if the dip tube in the MLT is always under wort, then I cant break siphon, right? It is a copper dip tube fixed with 1/2" ntp into a coupler in my MLT.

Regarding the Mashout, I have done it mistakenly, because I was trying to raise my mash temp once, and let it get too high (180). I tried to do one yesterday, but because I dont have a good feel on fire time vs. rate of increase of heat, I am a little scared, as it seems that I can easily let it get away from me, then next thing I konw my mash is at 180...

So, to confirm, I have 2 options, I can either sparge with 180 degree water, or mash out at 168 and sparge with 170 degree water. Is this correct?

Thanks so much for the help guys. I dont know what I would do without HBT. I will be signing up for the full membership soon. And to think, one day I might be helping out some newbie bonehead first-time all grainer... To think how high I can fly...

Okay, 1/2" ID is not too big, that is a common hose size, that is the same size that I have on my system.

If you have trickling in your hose, something is wrong. Once you have the hose filled to create a syphon effect, the hose end will need to be submerged to keep the hose FULL, until there is enough in the kettle to do this, it may be hard to keep it full.

I would do a boiling water infusion to the mash prior to sparging to bring up my grain bed temp... but this will reduce the ammount of sparge water you use and THUS help to REDUCE your efficiency.

I take some issue with the "hot grain bed" efficiency thing. This is why, when I began gravity brewing I didnt do a mashout, and I only heated my sparge water to 170F. My grain bed would stay about 150-155F during the sparge. I achieved 75% eff. when doing that.

Your HIGH mash temps are hurting you, you need to invest in a good brewing software to better calcualte the temps. I use Promash, but there are others.

I dont know much, but there are a few things that I KNOW because I have done them, repeatedly.

In regards to your original questions...

I also use a Sabco MT and have experienced some of the same issues. I found that adding a drilled rubber stopper to the dip-tube above the screen really helped keep the grain chunks out and helps keep the screen in place (by applying downward pressure to the screen and sealing the gaps on the screen were the hole is for the dip tube). I typically start my run-off very slow and increase the flow rate as I near my target volumes (this has also helped w/ my efficiency). On several occasions I have had the flow rate stop... so I gently open the valve a fraction more and it starts again. In my case I think grain husks clogged the small opening in the valve and by opening it a little it un-clogged it (but it hasn't been an issue since I added the drilled stopper).

As for maintaining temps, I have my MT wrapped in that silver bubble wrap and also use a HERMS etc.