Two AG questions- cloudy wort and slow drain

Hi HBT.

The situation: I'm trying to make something similar to Skotrat's Traquair clone, but in 5 gallons instead of 10. I've been having some efficiency problems; one thing both How To Brew and my local HB store recommended to improve efficiency is a dough-in rest at 104 degrees. Considering that this has a lot of grain in it, I thought I would try it. I started at 0.8 qt/lb at 104 and infused up to 154.

The results: my wort was VERY cloudy for quite some time. I don't know if this is a side-effect of my mash duration (I also held at 154 for 90 minutes, per skotrat, mostly to work on getting more conversion), the amount of grain (nearly 20 lbs), the dough-in rest, or what. After about 2.5 gallons of recirc, it started running a lot clearer. I'd not had this problem before, brewing smaller recipes with no dough-in rest. On the upside, my efficiency was a fair bit higher this time.

Another thing I noticed: if I let my grain sit for 5-10 minutes after I'm done (either with the initial lauter or a sparge) and open the valve again, I get about another cup to pint of wort. I did this today, as the main wort was on the burner climbing to the boil, and threw the rest in- it added approximately a gallon of volume to my boil, which pleased me (I was looking at a 4.5 gallon batch but didn't want to dilute it with tap water).

Is that normal? Could it be a design flaw in my MLT (I'm using a round 10gal cooler with a stainless braid ring manifold), or is that just how it goes? I imagine that most of the lag-drain phenomenon came from liquids falling off the grain due to gravity working on them after there wasn't as much left surrounding them.

Usually with ag batches, you need to recirculate a fair amount in order to get it to clear. I brew 5 gallon batches too and I usually recirculate 2-3 gallons. I doubt the lower dough-in temp had anything to do with the cloudiness.

The extra cup or so you are getting at the end is wort that is settling to the bottom of the tun; perfectly normal.

Sometimes, my first pyrex of collected wort that I'll vorlauf comes out totally clear with a few husks. Other times, I seem to never get anything better than a "slightly cloudy" wort even after returning 2G+ to the top of the mashtun.

I don't know what it is. Maybe the crush, maybe the water pH, maybe some grains do it more than others....?

Yeah, that's what concerned me. This is only my fourth AG brew; my first three were all very similar mashes but for the size- they were 14-16 pounds of 2-row plus a pound of thisandthat. They were running clear from nearly the beginning. I'll chalk it up to "just one of those things. As long as it's not a Totally Weird and Troubling thing, I'm fine.