E-Herms DIPA Gone Awry...

[Jeremy9991]

This is the 5th brew on the new system and first time I've had this problem, so I'm hoping you intelligent folks can help me learn from it for the future. Brewing on a 3 vessel E-Herms system with keggles (based on the electricbrewery.com). Fair warning it is a long post but I tried to give all the info needed.

I wrote the recipe and use BrewCipher for all my numbers. Here are the numbers and what happened during the brew.

Fermentables: 29 Pounds
Mash Efficiency: 78%
Total Water Needed: 16.03 Gallons
Pre-Boil: 11.54 Gallons @ 1.071
Boil-Off Rate: 1.24 Gallons/Hr
Post-Boil Volume: 10.3 Gallons
OG: 1.081

Grain bill was 2 row, flaked oats, honey malt, white wheat malt, carapils, acid malt, dextrose, etc. All things I've used before without issue.

How the brew went...

• Strike water was heated to 163 and moved from the HLT to the Mash tun without issue
• Grains were slowly mashed in and allowed the mash to rest for 5 minutes when it appropriately settled out at 152. PH was adjusted using salts to target 5.25. Came out a bit low at 5.15, but I didn't acidify the sparge water later because (water is 6.0 with all non detectable values).
• Started Herms re circulation and everything went smoothly. Great flow and temperature was steady. All the sudden temperature started climbing to 158 and even with the HLT cut down to 135 it wouldn't drop. Cold water addition brought it back down to 150, but it was at 156-158 for about 25 minutes. My ideal mash temp for this brew was 150.
• Mashed for the full 60 minutes regardless and with 10 minutes left started heating the sparge water. Vorlauf and the wort cleared very quickly. Temp was good and sparged with the appropriate volume at 191 degrees for 25-30 minutes.
• Wort in the boil kettle looked good, but was seeing some suspended particulate in my sight gauge that I don't usually get. Once I got my pre-boil volume I took a reading and was under for my pre-boil OG. Should have been at 1.071 and was at 1.061. Adjusted my numbers and rolled with it. Skimmed the foam off the top as it heated and moved on.
• Boiled quickly and right as it was about to boil over I cut the element (209). Turned the element back on after about 15 seconds and the rolling boil started. Hop additions were added (.5 at 60 and .5 at 10). Boiled for 60 minutes. Started to see larger and larger particulate built up in the sight gauge, and I didn't have any whirfloc on hand as I've never had to use it before. Boil temp was 212-214.
• At the end of the boil I cut the element and started whirlpooling through the wort pump (whirlpool valve on the side). Let it naturally come down to 200 and added the first whirlpool hop addition. Then at 185 added the second. Total time from end of boil to end of whirlpool was 40-45 minutes.
• From there I pulled out of the side port to avoid hop and trub, to the wort chiller it went and right into the carboy at 70 degrees. This is when I start noticing significant and large chunks or particulate.
• Filled two carboys and was under my desired volume by about .5 gallons, and gravity sample was 1.079 once cooled.
• Carboys were oxygenated using a stone and pure O2 (purged with CO2 prior to filling), and then yeast starters were added. Within 20 minutes both carboys had at least 1-2 inches of particulate on the bottom and there was clear color separation throughout the beer. Tons and tons of suspended particulate matter in both large and small chunks (protein I assume? )

Both carboys have been sitting since the brewday last night and will be checked today, but any ideas on what happened? I've never gotten such build up before. Yes the recipe is designed to make this a hazier double IPA, but I've brewed several other very similar beers that have never come out anything at all like this. Even in the wort sample for gravity there was a ton of suspended floating ****. Aside from the small mash temp increase, and too speedy of sparge, my numbers ended up pretty close to where I expected.

Big difference from the previous brews I've done are the new whirlpool valve, so usually I just go straight from boil to chill. Did the 45 minute gap to naturally reduce temperature hurt me? The particulate was clearly there before that though. Should I wort chill it immediately down to 170 from 212 for the whirlpool next time?

Any and all feedback is much much appreciated. Cheers and happy brewing!

 

[sandyeggoxj]

That's a wall of words...

Are you referring to cold break? Might want to google some pictures of cold break and see if it looks the same.

 

[Jeremy9991]

I am familiar with cold break, but this was more present throughout the boil which is where I was a bit confused.

 

[ChappysBrewing]

I have a similar type of setup but only use 2 burners (1 under my HLT and 1 for my Boil pot) I wasnt sure if you have coils in your HLT you're running your beers through or not. What type of vessel are you using for your mash tun? I use a keggle with a false bottom and also added a BIAB just to make my cleanup much easier with not having to mess with getting the grains out with my pulley system. My system is pretty new itself and have gotten a little bit of particulates flowing through the lines. For me, they were starting to clog my wort therminator (i was using it on both heat and cold sides) so have taken it out of the mix to not have to deal with that. For me, just making sure my mash tun is working correctly and grains are not able to get through have helped my beers out immensely. It sounds like you have a leak or something allowing a lot of particles through. You could try to strain them while they're in the boil pot before boiling but is a pain. I would focus on your mash tun and just getting the cycle working where you arent pulling in the extra grains. Its all a work in progress and getting your gear to work the way you want it to.

 

[Jeremy9991]

Here is the setup. Ignore that some pieces are still mid-install (i.e. the ventilation system that goes no where as I'm waiting for an inline fan). The mash tun is a good point. I do struggle with that false bottom a bit, but after the vorlauf I was running really clear. One thing I didn't consider is that my flow to the boil kettle and sparge were off. I'm going to focus on making sure I've got sparge water on top of the grain bed so the pump isn't pulling on the grain bed.

 

[John Eberly]

This sounds like protein break that will likely settle out. The oats and wheat could be contributing, they do help beer head but do it by adding protein. Try some Irish moss next time maybe.

The higher mash temp will give your beer more mouthfeel and less alcohol but shouldn't affect clarity.

 

[MrFancyPlants]

So the problem is too much gunk and not enough wart? Isn't it just the extra hops you put in the boil? I don't mind trub and for the most part dump it in the fermentor and let it compact there for more beer later.

Edit:
Could it be trub from a previous brew that didn't get cleaned out and dried all flaky? Call it complexity; I bet the beer is fine.

 

[Jeremy9991]

This sounds like protein break that will likely settle out. The oats and wheat could be contributing, they do help beer head but do it by adding protein. Try some Irish moss next time maybe.

The higher mash temp will give your beer more mouthfeel and less alcohol but shouldn't affect clarity.

Thanks for the info! I did order some whirlfloc for the future, so we'll see. Just haven't ever had to use it before. That info on the mash temp definitely helps.

So the problem is too much gunk and not enough wart? Isn't it just the extra hops you put in the boil? I don't mind trub and for the most part dump it in the fermentor and let it compact there for more beer later.

I ended up moving it all to fermentation, and like you said I know it will settle out a bit in there. With the whirlpool most hop particulate and big gunk was left in the BK. The big chunks have settled, but you can still tell there is quite a bit in suspension today. Here is a short video (all the white specs floating as the bubbles pass by). The pictures don't really show much and the video isn't much better hah. I was short wort, but that was probably my miscalculation for hose and false bottom loss.

View My Video

Edit: Definitely not from a previous brew since I just added a whirlpool valve between this one and had to do a 5-6 cycle cleaning to get out all the cutting oil. That was fun...

 

[ChappysBrewing]

My man, you need to go buy the Pico False bottom or that keg! http://www.homebrewing.org/Stainless-Steel-PICO-style-keg-kettle-false-bottom-wsupports_p_1010.html

Thats what I use and it works like a charm. just be sure to put it in properly and that thing does really well without letting anything through. The other key that may be a good point is are you stirring quite often while its mashing or just let it rest? If you move it around a lot that could very well be the reason alone why so much is getting through.

 

[Jeremy9991]

My man, you need to go buy the Pico False bottom or that keg! http://www.homebrewing.org/Stainless-Steel-PICO-style-keg-kettle-false-bottom-wsupports_p_1010.html

Thats what I use and it works like a charm. just be sure to put it in properly and that thing does really well without letting anything through. The other key that may be a good point is are you stirring quite often while its mashing or just let it rest? If you move it around a lot that could very well be the reason alone why so much is getting through.

Thanks! I'll check out that false bottom. Absolutely no stirring after mashing in and starting the HERMS

 

[ChappysBrewing]

Roger. A good false bottom will go a long ways. The 1 note and I have had no issues with this so far is just that it depends on what type of valves you're using. I have 1/2in for my entire HERMS system and it recommends a max of 3/8. 1 item I did add into my system this last brew and made cleanup a breeze was adding in a BIAB into my mash tun just to hold all the grain even with the false bottom in place. This just holds all the grain and still use the HERMS system (I dont have a sparge arm as it works with just the input connection) and let it roll. When its time to be done, no more picking that damn keg up and dragging it around and dumping as I just use a pulley system and it pulls out all of the entire grains and then can even squeeze the grains and try to get as much wort out as I can. Now by doing that, you will add a haze to your beer so I just create a small batch out of that wort and get around 2-3 gallons so its more or less just a fun project. The pulley system just saves soo much time and makes cleanup a breeze.