An S ton of hot break

So it was my first AG, and I didn't stress too much about it, which was nice. I lost a few degrees in my cooler over the 60 min rest, I overshot OG, undershot volume, and splashed the crap out of the runnings when adding batch sparge runoff to the first runnings. I'm fine with all of that and look forward to dialing it in with future brews.

But what really surprised me was the amount of break material I had at the end of boiling and cooling. With previous extract and PM batches, I haven't worried too much about break material and just dumped everything into the fermenter. But this time I clogged my autosiphon and decided to just dump the rest in. By the time it was all in the carboy (5gal) there was probably 3 inches of trub on the bottom. I brew at a friend's house and I haven't laid eyes on it since then so it could have compacted, but sheesh!

Here's the grain bill, any reason to expect this much break?

8.5 lb MO
.5 lb C120
.5 lb Aromatic Malt
.25 lb Special Roast

2 oz (total) EKG pellet hops added to boil in three additions (60, 15, 1)

I have a Coleman (not extreme) 48qt cooler fitted with brass ball valve and ss braid. Drained using vinyl tubing into ss kettles.

Cooled with IC down to 72 deg. F over the course of 25 min or so.

I did vorlauf, but was a little unclear as to when to stop. A few chunks probably made it through to the boil. But I didn't think any more than would normally make it through the grain bag during my extract with specialty grains or PM batches.

Can the degree of crush affect break material? Any other ideas?

Thanks.

The difference is that when you use extract, most of the hot break material is already gone due to the process used to make the extract.

So far as clogging your siphon, whenever I siphon, I'm careful to keep the siphon end just below the surface of the liquid at all times. This allows me to carefully monitor and control the material that goes into the other vessel. If I start seeing a lot of gunk I will either move the siphon to a clear spot, or just stop racking and leave that part behind.

That's just how all grain brewing is. I would suggest brewing 6 gallon batches so you'll end up with about 5.5 gallons going into the carboy and that crap is left behind in the boil kettle. Then when you rack off the yeast cake you'll have a full 5 gallon batch into bottles or keg.

+1 Extract has already had the break removal done for you. Between the break and hops you often times lose a lot of beer in the process. Sometimes 6 gallons still does not leave me with 5 in the keg. I just brewed 10 gallons and have 9 in the fermenter with a lot of trub.

Off topic a bit but that looks like a tasty recipe! Please post results when it's ready. Did you make it up or find it somewhere?

Thanks all, good to hear. I'll add it to the list of things to do differently next time. Now I know what the guy who I bought my 7.5 gal kettle from was getting at, saying it was just barely enough to do full 5gal AG batches. I have read on here folks that just dump it all in there though, no? Not the best, but not the worst is it?

The recipe is from The Jamil Show on the BN, the Best Bitter show. Used Wyeast 1968. I thought it would be a good starter recipe for AG, as it's kinda forgiving as to the OG, and I was unsure what eff I'd get first time out. But I got 72%, so that ain't too bad. I'll be sure to let you know how it turns out!