Stuck mash with new setup.

Greetings all. 8 days ago I brewed a Murphy's Stout with about 16 pounds of Two Row and everything went well. Yesterday I brewed a Golden Promise SMASH with 20 pounds of GP and almost instantly got a stuck mash. Grind was set at .032" on both brews.

My setup consists of going from BIAB in a single 18.5 gallon kettle to a two vessel setup with a 30 gallon mash tun. The mash tun is a Blichmann with false bottom and I didn't think I had to worry about a stuck mash. Is this something specific to the Golden Promise or just an unlucky day? I recirculate during the entire mash.

We ended up dumping the mash into my old brew bag and it sat in the bottom of the mash tun just fine. I ended up hitting my pre boil gravity exactly and my post boil gravity was .002 high.

You may have to back off on your grind a bit, but I can't see why .032 would cause a problem. Rice hulls might help. Did you try stirring and then resetting the bed before dumping?

Hi. Agree w/20grit. If I were to guess, I'd say your grind for the GP is too fine for a traditional mash tun with false bottom (it's okay for BIAB where the wort can exit on the sides.) IIR, when I use/grind GP dry, it breaks apart really easily and doesn't leave the hull much intact to ease the sparge. You could try one of two things.

1. Condition your grain 24 hours in advance with 1-2% water (by weight) misting into the grain, thoroughly stirred, then sealing it up to let the hulls absorb the moisture. This should make the hulls a little tougher and help the sparge (like adding rice hulls.)

2. Back off the grind to ~.036-38, and add rice hulls, though you may see a drop in efficiency. Ed

I just dumped the grain in and stirred it. Instantly noticed I got a lot of dough balls and I've never had that happen before. Maybe I should dump it in gradually and stir. Regardless, I think I'll get another brew bag for the mash tun and not worry about it anymore.

sillbeer said:

I just dumped the grain in and stirred it. Instantly noticed I got a lot of dough balls and I've never had that happen before. Maybe I should dump it in gradually and stir. Regardless, I think I'll get another brew bag for the mash tun and not worry about it anymore.

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To be clear, when you condition the grain, it's done before milling (but I'm sure you knew that.) Like I said before, I think the GP tends to be more dry and if you ground it into flour, when you dumped it in, it couldn't separate easily and formed the dough balls. You're on track with a slow pour and stirring. Especially helpful to have someone help you...one pours, the other stirs like crazy, whether or not using a bag. Ed

Thanks Ed. It's a little difficult for two of us to get up where the mash tun is but I suppose we better reorganize the setup and make it happen.

Thanks all.

A whisk breaks up dough balls better than a spoon. You may need a bigger one than normal though.

RM-MN said:

A whisk breaks up dough balls better than a spoon. You may need a bigger one than normal though.

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This works much than a whisk. Potato Masher
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B001J8AY3U/?tag=skimlinks_replacement-20

A buddy and I recently put together a 1 BBL. herms system. We recirculate and had sticking problems at first too.
What we learned is..Make sure the pump is off when you mash in,( or any time you stir to the bottom for some reason)
After mash in, run the pump very slow or not at all for the first 10 minutes while the starch is being broken down. (The only reason we run it
slow, at all is we have 3 gallons under the false bottom and want to get that water into the mash).
After the starch is broken down into sugar, the mash will be alot thinner,
and able to be recirculated easier. You don't need to run the pump full bore,
just a nice steady pace to keep the enzymes dispersed throughout.
We also have the mill at .032 and now have no problems.
The dough balls are from dumping the grain in too fast, if ya cant get 2 of you up there, just stir in a little at a time.