How clear should your runnings be?

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mezman

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Just a quick question: Just how clear should your runnings be while drawing off your wort from the mash? Should it just be free of grain fragments and hulls, or should it be crystal clear like a finished beer? I've never been very clear on that. Thanks!
 
It should be almost as clear as finished beer, but a little haze is normal. Definitely no chunks.
 
Huge help, thanks. I asked my LHBS owner today that same question and he said there shoul be no husk particals in the first runnings. so then i thought why in the hell are people so concerned. He must have not understood my question.
 
Cleaner mash/sparge runnings means cleaner beer. I always see some minimal amount of crap running through the tube, and the beer doesn't seem to suffer. But you have to be careful that you don't have too much stuff in the boil pot.
 
So if your runnings should be clear, what does cloudy runnings indicate? Lots of starch still to be converted? Ot is it simply ineffective grain bed filtering?
 
Completely disagree! I have played around with methods for mashing and lautering very small batches recently and one method I tried turned out to be pretty poor regarding clarity of run off. None-the -less I fermented it anyway and decided to change it into a cherry beer by adding fresh cherrys to the secondary. Here's the resulting beer in a clear pespsi bottle, just out of the fridge.
cherry.jpg


Its a shame I didnt pour it as it looks suitably polished when in a glass. Most if not all the debris from the mash gets thrown up by the yeast and can be skimmed, the rest just drops out of suspension. A good hot break and cold break are far more important than a clear runoff.
 
mezman said:
So if your runnings should be clear, what does cloudy runnings indicate? Lots of starch still to be converted? Ot is it simply ineffective grain bed filtering?

Near the end of your scheduled mash, draw a sample from the mash to test the starch conversion. Make sure you only have wort, no grain bits. Drop a drop of iodine on the sample your drew. If the sample turns black, there is still starch present (continue to mash) if the sample stays orange the starches have all converted to sugar.
 
What if the beer is black? And in general, how can you tell your runnings are 'clear' when your beer is very dark?
 
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