nightmare brewday!

I knew it had to happen eventually but I didn't think it would be because of my own idiocy!

I brewed - or wanted to brew - a rye IPa with some of my own toasted rye. 3.5 lbs or rye, 1 of wheat + 11 of pale ale + some crystal. I almost added rice hulls...almost! Then I decided to change my mill to a finer setting to increase my efficiency which has been not so great the last few brew days. All in all perfect ingredients for my first stuck sparge - after 100s of easy good tasting gallons I suppose I was due for one really bad day!

Ak what mess. I could not unstick it, I tried everything. Eventually I scooped out the hot sticky brown paste (I think I milled a bit too fine!) and spilled it all over the floor, managed to get some wort out but left the spigot open so it all poured everywhere, god what a mess.

So instead of siting down in the middle of it to cry like I wanted, I got myself a brew and contemplated the situation. I did realize after 10 mins or so that my wanger was clearly not big enough to handle the mechanics of brewing beer. About 30 mins after that and 2 more brews I decided to try again, got about 4 gallons out and then cleaned up the mess.

So what would you have done?!

I ended up adding water and DME and recalculating for bitterness and finishing the day with 5.5 gallons of...what? I am not quite sure! Hoppy definitely but what spilled and what remained is somewhat tricky to figure.

My final gravity was 1.068, my bitterness in the 70s and I pitched at around 72 f.

I call it "Le Sparge est Merde IPA" and I bet it wins a blue ribbon.

Tomorrow I'm putting my barley crusher back to the factory default and living with 60% efficiency, just please god no more stuck sparges, I'd rather eat my own head.

Steve da sleeve

I have a pump. I've only had this happen a couple of times, and each time I just pumped some small amount of water into the "exit" of my mash tun. That fixed it immediatly.

I don't use rice hulls ever, even on wheat beers.

i would've stopped and had a few beers, then used what was left for a smaller, but expected, brew. what crusher?

stevedasleeve said:

I did realize after 10 mins or so that my wanger was clearly not big enough to handle the mechanics of brewing beer.

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Ahhhhhh... new sig for me.

I just had the same problem, here's what I did. First of all I have a keggle and a false bottom made of stainless steel. I took out my high speed power drill and put on the paint stirrer. I put it right next to the false bottom and put it on full speed, about a min. later I got a big plug of flour out of the tap, once the flour stopped it cleared very quickly. so I added the flour to the top.

I use a 10 gallon round cooler and SS false bottom for a MLT. I've had a couple mashes that have been a bit of a nuisance. The last one was 10 gallons worth of an american lager which had rice flakes, that stuff turns the mash into a tightly compacted ball at some point. During my draining of the first running it stuck about 2/3 of the way through. This is where double batch sparging comes in handy. I just dumped in the first sparge waters and stirred the hell out of it. It unstuck immediately. It continued to be a pain but I got my 11.5 gallons of wort out without having to resort to anything too crazy. However when I went to go dump the spent grain it looked more like a block of cement than my ordinary bill of malted barley. Seemed much worse than wheat malt.

Ohh and I got over 84% efficiency. I love my MLT and I always get a 80%+ efficiency with Brewmaster's Warehouse crush.

I have a barley crusher. This was definitely more related to my crush and exasperated by the rye than anything else. The grain was like flour. I even thought "oh ****" when I finished milling but, of course, I assumed all would be fine as the beer gods have always helped me out in the past. This time they decided I was too cocky so they p1ssed all over me laughing like hyenas all the while!

God, that sounds like it sucks.

*knocks on wood*

Just had the same thing happen to me, but during my recirculating of my mash. I am making a Pumpkin recipe and I suspect the pumpkin as this has never happened before. I pumped 1 1/2gallons of 180 degree water in through the bottom of the MT and stirred it up. Then I pumped the same water thru the pump (I have 2 pumps) recirculating my mash tun to clear it and the lines (all was clear and not clogged). Then started over.
It stuck again.

So I dumped the contents into the empty BK and found this "cake" in the bottom.




So I cleaned it all out and thought maybe my dip tube wasn't sealed as my false bottom (Blichmann) didn't look stuck anywhere. Stuck again. So I assume my mash is just way too sticky.

Contemplating on what to do next. Heating my sparge water. I will try to batch sparge and see if I can get it transferred to the BK.

Can't get it. Grrr...

Got about 3 gallons into the BK by adding about a gallon of boiling water to the mash then stirring while continuing to add the boiling water making sure my temp didn' get too high in the mash.

Cannot vorlauf so its a cloudy mess going to the BK. Guess I'm going to have to pull the plug for the first time in almost 3 years!! Smelled so good too. I'm pissed.

Rice hulls are seriously kickass.

bovineblitz said:

Rice hulls are seriously kickass.

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...and hind site is 20/20....

Was able to pull it out. Went old school and dumped all my sparge water in, stirred it up good, let it sit for 15 minutes then did my vorlauf and transfer via gravity in a pitcher until I collected 8 gallons. My last running's were 1.035 (don't know if that's good or bad if someone wants to chime in). Doing a 90 minute boil.

Sorry OP not trying to HJ the thread, just thought it would go better here instead of staring a new thread....

Walker said:

Ahhhhhh... new sig for me.

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Hey I checked just now and my wanger is now a part of your posts. What an honor! You should probably know though that I was "Captain Privates" tonight at a Halloween party and the response ranged from hysterical laughing to terrified whipers about a dude with a fake wanger and a vagina hat scaring the neighbors. FWIW!