Worst Fail Yet: False bottom failure

My brother came over and we brewed a Festbier on Sunday. I have a SABCO RIMS - old model. We added grain, stirred the mash, let it settle and started to recirculate. After a few minutes the flow stopped and it soon became clear that the system was clogged. Oh, boy what a mess. I had to take apart the piping section by section and flush each piece. The pump is in a box with the thermostatic HEX control and is not designed to be disconnected, ever, really because you can't do it without pouring a lot of fluid into the box. Yikes. sticky grain all over the place.

I was hoping this was a one-off problem so I reconnected and started the pump. Nope. It clogged immediately again. So I did what I dreaded from the start. I scooped out all the grain and liquid from the mash keggle to reveal this:



Oh, ****. The false bottom had been pushed down to the point that it was below the outflow tube. A couple of the spot welds on the hinges holding the screen had popped, too. "Somebody" pushed down hard with the mash paddle and collapsed the false bottom.(Don't do that) Recriminations and blame were duly assigned. It reminded me of the movie "Apollo 13" where the crew is getting testy and there was something about "stirring the tanks" causing the accident.

I bent the bottom back into shape and used a spare barbed tri-clamp fitting as a stand-off to support the bottom. Good as new. Back to brewing - two hours later.

At the time of clogging, I had just finished boosting the mash from protein rest to conversion point of 154 deg. F. So now had the mash in a bucket down at 105 but the wort was very sweet at that point. I could tell by experience that it was totally converted. I boosted the temp straight through to the mash-out and sparged. Is my beer ruined?

At this point the beer is happily bubbling away. The OG is 1.068 vs a target of 1.057. So I guess what I am going to get here, given the extreme extract at low temps, is a thin bock (if there is such a thing) rather than a malty Oktoberfest. It wouldn't be the first time I've changed the style to meet the outcome. If it's good, "I meant to do that." It will be interesting to how much this attenuates.

Overall, this disaster added three hours to my brew day and was easily the biggest mess I've made in 25 years of brewing. Cleaning out every nook and cranny of the brewing stand is no fun. Fortunately, I had my awesome smoked porter to keep my spirits up!

 

Your experience mirrors the same thing that happened to me less than two weeks ago on March 6th. We were doing a group brew using a 55 SS drum as a BK. It was a full 1 BBL batch. The FB collapsed on the Italian made 32 gal MT. The FB had flimsy feet that were not well placed. The edge near dipped below the level of the outlet port and that's when the whole thing came to a halt. This was almost precisely the same timing as you describe and the same cause. One of us pushed down to hard on the edge of the FB and because it lacked feet or support right along that edge is folded down and began a domino effect as about 2/3rds of the legs folded up nearly flat. We emptied the entire 28 gallon mash into buckets and kettles then I bent the legs back in shape on the FB. We dumped the mash back in the MT and resumed raising the temp to mash out while circulating with a pump. This was a direct fired manual RIMS system. The FB failure set us back about 5 or 6 hours. The mash was at very low temperatures for a considerable stretch. The wort still tested posistive for starch, but we figured if we just took it slow to the mash out it would be fully converted by then and it was. We remained at mash out 170*F for about 10-15 minutes then began the sparge. The beer is still in the primary but I think close to finishing out. All seems OK. We got very good efficiency and that does not surprise me with the very long mash. I don't think it will be overly dry rocket fuel and I am fermenting it cold at 48*F.

Your beer will be fine just like ours will and possibly epic.