How to Unstick A Stuck Sparge (What Worked for Me)

I don’t often get stuck sparges, but this past Saturday I got a little greedy with my crush and apparently went to far (too fine).

With a 23 pound grain bill, a fine crush and a round 10-gallon Rubbermaid, I had the makings of the “perfect storm”.

About half way through the first drain, I knew I was in trouble. The drain had become a dribble. I did the usual mechanics (stir the mash, give the whole cooler a twist left and right and blow back on the drain hose).

NOTHING.

Then, just as I was about to do the dreaded (2-hour) scoop and strain, I caught a glimpse of my shop sink hose off to my right and thought…”what the hell…?”

I took the hose end sprayer, turned up the (cool) water to full blast…the I pushed the sprayer snug against the end of the drain tube and cupped my had over everything to contain the overspray and gave the drain tube a good 2 second blast of water.

Batta-bing…batta-boom, we have a full velocity drain again.

The solution held up for quite a while and I ended up repeating this process just two more times during the whole drain/sparge process.

So if you’re trying to repair a stuck sparge by just blowing in the end of the tube…try back flushing your mash tun with a good blast of water.

FYI

I am greatly disappointed that this post does not include any new pictures of ugly junk.

I had a suck mash/sparge a while back(yes,a greedy too fine grind) and gave the valve a couple blasts of CO2.Worked great also.
Cheers

Holy crap, why didn't I ever think of that! I've had 2 stuck sparges and got them going by blowing back in (for longer than I would have liked). I have an RV water hose with a small ball valve on the end hooked up to my hose bib for all of my brewing water needs. Do you think a shot of cold water (55F) would have any negative affects on the mash?

I would have wagered any amount of money that scaring them with the "Bear Trap" would have been prominantly involved....

menschmaschine said:

...Do you think a shot of cold water (55F) would have any negative affects on the mash?

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Not by this time. The mash was done...just time to drain.

I have a feeling i'll be using this advice later this week. I'm tired of m poor eff numbers and without a grainmill i took all 13lbs of poorly milled grain from AHBS and put it to a rolling pin. I may have gone a bit too far............

the_bird said:

I would have wagered any amount of money that scaring them with the "Bear Trap" would have been prominantly involved....

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That's why is was stuck in the firstplace. Wort is afraid to enter the keggle of the "Farewell To Arms" brewery.

Cheesefood said:

That's why is was stuck in the firstplace. Wort is afraid to enter the keggle of the "Farewell To Arms" brewery.

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I didn't know that wort had nads...but I'm pretty sure I heard em shrivel up at the sight of my baby...

I will tell you what I learned from the BN( Doc) Take your mash paddle and cut slits into the grain bed. I had a stuck mash a few weeks ago and I did this and walla problem gone.

Brew-boy said:

I will tell you what I learned from the BN( Doc) Take your mash paddle and cut slits into the grain bed. I had a stuck mash a few weeks ago and I did this and walla problem gone.

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Tried that, but it doesn't work with a manifold...maybe a false bottom?

Brew-boy said:

I will tell you what I learned from the BN( Doc) Take your mash paddle and cut slits into the grain bed. I had a stuck mash a few weeks ago and I did this and walla problem gone.

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That may work if you are batch sparging, but isn't a good idea for fly sparging as you will make it channel.

I like BM's idea though. Just vorlauf a little afterwards and you are good to go.

jdoiv said:

That may work if you are batch sparging, but isn't a good idea for fly sparging as you will make it channel.

I like BM's idea though. Just vorlauf a little afterwards and you are good to go.

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I ended up not vorlaufing and settling for a little “stuff’ flowing through. By this point, the bed had compacted so much that recirculating a few quarts wouldn’t have made it through.

I thought I was gonna have a stuck sparge on my first AG this weekend.

I batch sparge and I had to do 2 of them due to space....well on the second sparge barely a trickle was coming out when I opened the valve...in a panic I stirred the poop out of the grain down by the braid and about 10 secounds after I stopped it started gushing out....shew.

Nope it worked for me great. I fly sparge and have a manifold I always hit between 82 and 85% Efficiency. I cut the slits where my runners are like I said it worked for me and my system. May not work for all systems.

FWIW, I got my first stuck sparge today (just had to push the limits with my barley crusher...) and I used your advice, except I used a turkey baster to shoot water back into the drain hose. Not as much pressure or volume, but it seems to have worked, certainly a lot better than just blowing into the tube. It's still draining slow, but at least it's pretty steady. Did that twice while draining the mash, and it made it all the way through the rest of that plus the sparge without sticking again.

Thanks for the tip!

On my 2nd all grain today, I had the mother of all stuck sparges. I blew back up the tube half a dozen times, and nothing worked. I ended up grabbing a 2 cup pyrex measuring cup, and transferred the entire mash to a bucket. It was either that or dump the whole thing in the composter. At which point I probably would have drunk every drop of alcohol in the house. Turns out I had probably half a pound of grist under the false bottom. Has anyone else had this happen? Is there a chance that my blowing through the hose lifted the false bottom up and caused the grist to get under?

What a mess. I dumped malt all over my back deck. I'm sure I had HSA galore (on a pilsner no less), and the temp of the sparge was so out of whack it makes my head hurt just thinking about it.

I also forgot to take my gravity reading after the sparge. The incredibly amazing thing is that I was right on for my reading into the fermenter (1.048 as planned). From this I can only assume that somehow I planned on brewing like a moron.

Is there any trick to not having grist end up under the false bottom? I have a 5 gallon cooler with a false bottom from NB. I connect it to the ball valve with a couple inches of high temp hose.

My other thing is that I'm getting a ball valve to drain my kettle. I keep hearing about the hops catching all the break material, but I use whole leaf hops, and I still have an inch of break material in the bottom of the fermenter. On my last lager, it cleaned up real nice after I racked. I'm done pouring.

I've only had a couple stuck sparges, and both time a little burst with the air compressor did the trick.

Would I were so lucky to have stuck sparges.

Kai said:

Would I were so lucky to have stuck sparges.

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Rather funny. The CO2 blast is the method the septic system guy used to clear my drain field. I'm told it works on gophers as well.