Horribly stuck mash results?

[prrriiide]

Brewed rye IPA yesterday. Had problems with my mill gap, it's old and had drifted open, so I had a good % of uncracked grain. I adjusted and re-milled and it looked good. It turned out to be a lot finer crush than I thought. And I foolishly didn't toss in any rice hulls.

So, dough in, all is going well for about 20 minutes, then I heard the tell-tale sound of the pump running dry. This stuff was like a coarse dough, and had infiltrated my slotted manifold, so no amount of stirring loosened it up.

So, while my brew partner emptied the mash tun, I ran to my LHBS and got a 24x26 grain bag. I cleaned out the manifold and zip-tied the bag around the mani. Pour it all back in, re-heat, and it stuck again. So to get the wort out, I was constantly scraping the grain away from the manifold.

What I got into the pot was a cloudy mess. I could have set a half dollar on the break material it was so dense. I don't think a lot of it was husk material, I think it was mostly fine crush particulate. Any thoughts on how this is going to turn out? Anything I can do at this point to improve my chances?

I know...it'll turn out to be the best IPA anyone has ever tasted and I'll never be able to do it again. Yeah...I'll go with that. [emoji41]

I guess worst case I dump some pineapple and mango juice in it and call it a NERIPA.

 

[seatazzz]

It'll probably be cloudy as heck and you'll have a ton of trub in the fermenter, but you're probably good. Crash it good once fermentation is done and you should be fine.

Hang on to that bag, it's worth its weight in platinum. Next brew, line your mash tun with it and it won't matter how fine your crush is. I've been doing MIAB for quite some time and I can't rave enough about it. My mash tun is named "Overkill" because I've got a bazooka, a fancy false bottom, AND I use a bag, but never have a stuck mash. I get a lot less hot break in the kettle too. And the cleanup is so easy it feels like I'm cheating.

 

[RM-MN]

Brewed rye IPA yesterday. Had problems with my mill gap, it's old and had drifted open, so I had a good % of uncracked grain. I adjusted and re-milled and it looked good. It turned out to be a lot finer crush than I thought. And I foolishly didn't toss in any rice hulls.

So, dough in, all is going well for about 20 minutes, then I heard the tell-tale sound of the pump running dry. This stuff was like a coarse dough, and had infiltrated my slotted manifold, so no amount of stirring loosened it up.

So, while my brew partner emptied the mash tun, I ran to my LHBS and got a 24x26 grain bag. I cleaned out the manifold and zip-tied the bag around the mani. Pour it all back in, re-heat, and it stuck again. So to get the wort out, I was constantly scraping the grain away from the manifold.

What I got into the pot was a cloudy mess. I could have set a half dollar on the break material it was so dense. I don't think a lot of it was husk material, I think it was mostly fine crush particulate. Any thoughts on how this is going to turn out? Anything I can do at this point to improve my chances?

I know...it'll turn out to be the best IPA anyone has ever tasted and I'll never be able to do it again. Yeah...I'll go with that. [emoji41]

I guess worst case I dump some pineapple and mango juice in it and call it a NERIPA.

I have a pretty good idea of how it will turn out having done BIAB for several years. My wort is always really cloudy since I mill the grains really fine and squeeze all the wort out of the bag that I can, then dump some water into the bag of grains and stir it up really well, then squeeze it out again. It looks a mess! It makes clear beer. Yours will too.