Long day with stuck Witbier mash

I had a very long brew day with my first wit. I've done about 30 AG brews, and this is my first stuck mash. I'd be happy to hear suggestions on avoiding this in the future.

The recipe is based on BCS:
4# Flaked Wheat
3/4# Flaked Oats
4.25# Pils

Since the recipe called for 15 minutes at 122F, followed by 60 minutes at 154F, I thought I'd do a a decoction.
I mashed at 1.75 qt/pound, hit 122F, and after 10 minutes pulled off 8 quarts of thick mash. I heated slowly to 160F, let it sit for 15 minutes, then boiled for 5 minutes. Returning to the mash, I hit 158 & added some cold water to get 154.

After 60 minutes, I pulled a thin 6 quarts, boiled for 5 minutes and hit a mash out temp of 160F, which seemed low. I went ahead and tried to drain, but only got 1.75g instead of my expected 2.7g.
For my first sparge, added 2 gallons, let it sit 10 minutes with the temp at 168, but it was completely stuck, did not drain at all.
I happened to have a pound of rice hulls, and added a 1/2# & let sit for 10 minutes. No difference.
Added the other 1/2# of rice hulls, let sit 10 min. No flow.
By now, I noticed the temp had dropped to 160, so I poured the whole mash into my pot to heat back up to 168. I took this opportunity to completely clean out my slotted copper drain tube.
Poured the heated mash back in the cooler, let sit for 5 minutes to settle...still no flow.

At this point, I realized I needed to get on with my day, so I pulled out my strainer & funnel & slowly hand filtered the milky mash.
The rest of the brew day was normal, except the strainer kept clogging as I poured the cooled wort into the fermenter.
My brewhouse efficiency came out at 76%, which is my average for wheat beers. And the wort sample tasted like chai tea, which amused SWMBO, who hates it when I give her wort samples.

Thanks for reading all this. I'd love to hear suggestions on what folks do with wits, or how I screwed up.

well you could add your rice hulls at dough in. Maybe use some 6 row. Cut slots in the mash before run off. blow some co2 through your bulkhead if you mash becomes stuck.

I have used a SS toilet braid w/ a ss spring in it since I moved to all grain and haven't had a stuck sparge yet.Even with high percentages of adjuncts and not using rice hulls.

Since the recipe called for 15 minutes at 122F, followed by 60 minutes at 154F, I thought I'd do a a decoction.

Click to expand...

I could be wrong here, but if you're buying your flaked wheat/oats from a HBS I doubt you needed a protein rest. Would it hurt? Probably not...but it's one less thing to worry about by not doing one (plus you wouldn't have to worry about doing a decoction).

Also, as mentioned already, I'd use a ton of rice hulls w/ that grain bill.

I had this problem too when I did a wit. I didn't add rice hulls until I realized I needed them. In the end, what finally helped me was allowing the mash to settle for 30 minutes prior to sparging and making sure the bed was at 170. I think the bed needs time to compact a bit in order to do its job as a filter. Also, running-off the sparge slowly at first helps.

Thanks for the feedback. I'll definitely have to add the rice hulls at the start next time, and give it more time to settle. And I'll probably skip the decoction.

I do have an additional question. The beer completed fermentation in 4 days, and I removed it from the 72F water bath after a week. After a couple of days at basement temp, 54F, it still has about 3 inches of cloudy trub at the bottom. I assume that will compact down over time? If not, do I rack that into the keg, transfer to a secondary, give it more time?
I'm guessing that the answer is "give it more time", because that always seems to be the answer with my beers. Thankfully, I've just expanded my total system capacity to 135 gallons, so I shouldn't run dry waiting for this beer.

I just had this same problem today. I was doing a dry Irish Stout that rested at 120 for 15 min, then needed to be upped to 150. I decided to do a decoction to raise the temp. I boiled 5 qts of thick mash, then after re-adding it and waiting 45 min there was ZERO flow. I did not use rice hulls.

recipe:
7 lb pale 2-row
2 lb flaked barley (I think this is what got gummy during the decoction)
1 lb roasted barley.

I have a 5 gal gott cooler with a SS braid and the flow was completely blocked. I ended up hand straining as well.... keeping fingers crossed.

Jason