HERMS Help - Recirculation stopped by compacted bed

[mcgster]

I'm hoping someone can give me some advice, i'm really trying to nail the repeatability of my brew days and i seem to be having an issue with the grain bed compacting over the false bottom every 5 to 10 minutes and killing the recirculation through my coil. Each time it happens i have to take my paddle and scrape the false bottom where the grain is compacted.

Any ideas?

Thanks!

 

[Rockn_M]

Do you have enough water? Did you add water them grains or grains then water?


Sent from my kegerator

 

[day_trippr]

Are you trying to run your pump full-bore or have you tried closing its outlet valve down (by half, for instance)? Also, do you allow the grain bed to hydrate and settle for at least a good ten minutes after dough-in before you start circulation?

Cheers!

 

[mcgster]

Are you trying to run your pump full-bore or have you tried closing its outlet valve down (by half, for instance)? Also, do you allow the grain bed to hydrate and settle for at least a good ten minutes after dough-in before you start circulation?

Cheers!

Full bore - i was thinking the more movement the better but i'll try cutting it in half.

I had waited about 5 minutes before i started the pump, next time i'll try ten!

Thanks

 

[acidrain]

Wait ten minutes, then recirculate as slowly as your pump will allow. Compacted grain bed in the middle of mashing sucks.

 

[hunter306]

Yep, JUST had this happen to me on my first batch. Didn't have any luck unsticking it either, though now I think I'd probably do things a bit different.

What everyone is suggesting works. Slow down the pump to a near trickle at the start of your herms recirculation. You'll probably notice that the temp in the mash drops a hair because you're not recirculating quickly enough. After about 10 minutes, open it up a bit more, and keep watching the temps. If they continue to fall, open a hair more and so on.

I was able to maintain temp at less than 30% open valve, and didn't experience any issue with stuck mash on that second batch using this method.

Next time, I'm going to be a bit more aggressive (open it a bit further) to see if I can't improve that mash temp consistency over the first 20 minutes.