AG - How to lauter without using grain bed?

Hiya,

the title might seem odd i guess, but this is what happend:

this is the first time i brew, and i went AG. So I mashed my grain alright, no major problems, then i went to lauter, but the lauter tun i build was really crappy (bucket with ball valve and a ss braid) and when i dumped the grain and wort into my lauter tun, i opened the valve and no wort came out for whatever reason. After trying to fix it, I kinda panicked and basically took a regular strainer and 'lautered' my wort, and threw the grain away without a proper sparge. So now i'm left with really really really cloudy yet grainless wort.

I've decided that i dont care if the end product tastes funky or whatever, i guess i just feel that i need to truck on ...

I've put it all in water bottles for the moment.

My question is, what can i do to fix this i.e. have a clear wort?

I've thought about simply waiting for the cloudy stuff to settle overnight and then siphon the clear wort and continue to the boil, but if anyone has a better/easier/smart way to tackle this, pls let me know!!!

Cheers

Sounds like you had a stuck sparge. There are ways to fix that while the grain is still in the tun, but obviously that's not going to help you now.

If it were me and I really wanted to keep the wort that was able to be collected, I might let it settle overnight (in a properly sanitized carboy or bucket) and see how things were in the morning.

Just out of curiosity, what kind of efficiency did you manage without the sparge?

I would fix the lauder tun and then do a second smaller mash. Then heat the wort from the previous mash to 150 degrees or whatever your mash temp is then add it to the new mash at the end. Then lauder and sparge as usual.

As far as fixing what's done I don't know the answer.
But most folks mash and lauter in the same vessel.
If you are going to mash in one vessel and then transfer to another for the lauter / sparge. before you add the mash, put a few inches of water in the lauter tun, and gently add the mash so it sort of floats above the false bottom.

Since lautering is filtering the grains out of the wort, any way you can filter will work. I've learned to do BIAB all grain and use the paint strainer bag to filter instead of depending on a braid in the mash tun. You could do similar in your lautering bucket, line it with a paint strainer bag or use Swiss voile to create a bag that fits your bucket. The paint strainer bag doesn't give me perfectly clear wort but whatever comes through into the fermenter seems to settle out because I get some pretty clear beer to drink. I also squeeze the wort out of the bag so I don't have mast tun or lauter tun losses either, it all goes into the fermenter.

another method is to take a 5 gal plastic bucket and drill a lot of small holes in the bottom and then place it in another bucket with a valve in it. (aka zap tap) when i started brewing back in the 90's that's what we used. I still have my old one in the basement. it also comes in handy for straining heavily hopped worts

BattleGoat said:

Sounds like you had a stuck sparge. There are ways to fix that while the grain is still in the tun, but obviously that's not going to help you now.

If it were me and I really wanted to keep the wort that was able to be collected, I might let it settle overnight (in a properly sanitized carboy or bucket) and see how things were in the morning.

Just out of curiosity, what kind of efficiency did you manage without the sparge?

Click to expand...

according to brewsmith the og was 1056 and the graity i measured was 1050 not too bad i guess given the circumstances!

mburnett274 said:

I would fix the lauder tun and then do a second smaller mash. Then heat the wort from the previous mash to 150 degrees or whatever your mash temp is then add it to the new mash at the end. Then lauder and sparge as usual.

Click to expand...

wont this mess up my gravity?

Glynn said:

another method is to take a 5 gal plastic bucket and drill a lot of small holes in the bottom and then place it in another bucket with a valve in it. (aka zap tap) when i started brewing back in the 90's that's what we used. I still have my old one in the basement. it also comes in handy for straining heavily hopped worts

Click to expand...

yea i think im gonna go for the zap tap!