First AG, one big mistake but..

[DogFace_Brewing]

Completed my first AG last night. It was AHS Anniversary ESB. This is the first time I used my 10 gallon mash tun also I made from Home Depot(Thanks for the write up on here peeps)

Mash went great...tun only lost 1 degree over 60 min. Then we had a major issue. After making my mash tun I only check it with water for leaks...never checked to see if it would clog and yes sir it clogged big time. The reason was that when I cut the SS braid hose I took out the rubber piece from the braid line and cut a bunch of holes in it and then put it back in the SS braid. I was thinking this extra support would help so the braid would not close up under pressure during sparge. Well it didnt work, so I had to dump the whole mash into my 10 gallon pot and fix the braid by pulling out the interior hose that I never should of put in anyways...what a PITA!!!

Once I got that all figured out which took 45 mintues of messing around I got everything back all setup and started to sparge.

Fly sparged with a collander and realized I should just batch sparge to save time next time.

I missed my SG by .004 but only missed by OG by .001. Pitched last night at 10pm and checked this morning at 8am and it was rocking already. Checked beersmith and hit 79.97% eff, which I think is AWESOME for my first AG with the issue I had

I have to say even though I had a big mistake during the brew I really like the amount of depth you get from AG vs doing just extract, makes me feel like I am really taking part in my hobby now instead of just cooking sugar.

Burner on at 6pm, and final piece of equiptment put away at 11pm. Take out the 45 min of farting around fixing the mash tun I had a 4.25 hour AG brew day for my first time which doesnt seem that bad at all.

Now I get to make some "Beer Cookies" for my dog tonight with the grain :rockin:

 

[ChadRabbit]

Great job.

I had the same problem a while back. We had to dump our entire mash out, replace a false bottom and try to mend the process. It destroyed our FG though. WHAT A NIGHTMARE.

Maybe we'll sell the patent though. Just think, O'douls Double IPA.

 

[JoelRabbit]

Great job.

I had the same problem a while back. We had to dump our entire mash out, replace a false bottom and try to mend the process. It destroyed our FG though. WHAT A NIGHTMARE.

Maybe we'll sell the patent though. Just think, O'douls Double IPA.

Yeah, that was fun.

45 mins isn't too bad of a repair time as long as you were able to maintain temperature. Did you end up reheating your mash?

 

[brewkinger]

I seem to have read somewhere that a stuck sparge could be remedied by blowing air back in the reverse direction.

Is this true?

 

[JoelRabbit]

I seem to have read somewhere that a stuck sparge could be remedied by blowing air back in the reverse direction.

Is this true?

I imagine it would work, but you'd risk disrupting your grain bed.

 

[brewkinger]

Actually investigated and it was pinching the line could possibly free a stuck sparge. But by the same logic, a gentle amount of air might work as well as long as it did not disturb the grain bed.

 

[DogFace_Brewing]

Yeah, that was fun.

45 mins isn't too bad of a repair time as long as you were able to maintain temperature. Did you end up reheating your mash?

No I didn't reheat the mash...when I dumped it in the pot I covered it and by the time I added it back into the mash turn it only lost about 7 degrees...after a couple quarts of sparge water the temp was up and I was good to go.

 

[DogFace_Brewing]

Actually investigated and it was pinching the line could possibly free a stuck sparge. But by the same logic, a gentle amount of air might work as well as long as it did not disturb the grain bed.

Yes this would work..my case was just a bad design in trying to stiffen the braided hose which caused the stuck sparge.

 

[TeaKettle]

Blowing air definately works, I had to this on my first ag batch too.

Two tips:
1) Blow VERY gently, just enough to move the wort, until you get the clog free. I blew hot mash all over my "assistant", oops.
2) Once you clear the clog wait about 5 min to start your pull. Expect to have to vourlof several times. It will settle eventually though.

 

[kylevester]

Air scrubbing will upset the grain bed, the level of which is dependent on the air flow velocity, the nature of the clog, and the manifold.

Given the description here, air scrubbing would probably have upset the bed significantly in his case. But good troubleshooting was employed and the issue addressed.

So, you missed your OG by 0.04 or 0.004? A miss of 40 points is significant, but one of 4 points is negligible.

 

[DogFace_Brewing]

Air scrubbing will upset the grain bed, the level of which is dependent on the air flow velocity, the nature of the clog, and the manifold.

Given the description here, air scrubbing would probably have upset the bed significantly in his case. But good troubleshooting was employed and the issue addressed.

So, you missed your OG by 0.04 or 0.004? A miss of 40 points is significant, but one of 4 points is negligible.

Oh nice catch....004 I meant