Excessive floating grains

[Morkin]

I am a big fan of the search function, but didn't find what I am looking for. I have had an American Stout that I did with a partail mash and extract in the primary for close to 3 weeks. I noticed a lot of floating grain, which I found odd because I used a grain bag and I strained. Since it is a stout and I don't care about clarity, I wasn 't going to use a secondary, but decided to so that I could eliminate the floating grain.

After I have done this, I notice even more floating grains! I know that when racking you stir a lot of stuff up, but I can't stand it! Why in the hell if I used a bag and a strainer do I have exsessive floating grains, and why after 3 weeks have they not sunk to the bottom of the fermenter?

Is there anything I can do to get rid of the floating Grains? Will even more time heal my grain problem? Thanks.

 

[moger777]

You sure it's not just floating yeast? This is pretty common I've found.

 

[Reno_eNVy]

Yeah dude, it's likely yeast or just proteins from the grain floating around. Give it a full month in the primary and if you still aren't satisfied, throw it in the fridge for a few days until it clears to your liking and rack it to your bottling bucket or keg.

 

[BierMuncher]

I paint strainer wrapped around your racking cane will filter out 98% of your unwanteds.

 

[SkewedBrewing]

I've noticed a few stray granules in my primary and they sometimes make it into the secondary. I'm happy when this happens because it reminds me that I'm making my beer from grain, not just syrup, and thats a good thing.

I agree with the others in that it might not be grain but yeast. Either way, I wouldn't let it get me down...

 

[Morkin]

Upon closer examination, I think you all are right. I only used about .5 lbs of crystal malt, the other malts were chocolate and roasted. My floaters look a bit like crystal malt, so I guess it is yeast. I'll give it more time to sink to the bottom. Is there any good to aggitate, stir, or rock the fermenter to ensure that it sinks? Just questions, haven't done anything to it yet. Thanks for all the help.

 

[SkewedBrewing]

Agitating it might start more fermentation, which means even more yeast moving around in there so I wouldn't do that if your goal is to let it settle more. RDWHAHB... The longer you let it sit the more it will clear out.

BM's paint strainer technique would definitely ensure that nothings going to be syphoned, though, if you want to go that route...

Just my .02...

 

[Morkin]

I paint strainer wrapped around your racking cane will filter out 98% of your unwanteds.

View attachment 10339

This Worked great! Kept almost everything that I didn't want to go into the bottles out of them. Just as an FYI, do you think these strainers would work as grain bags for extract with partial mashing? It would be great if they would, these are about $1.50 where as Austin Homebrew gets about 4 bucks for theirs.