SoCal-Doug
Well-Known Member
Felt like sharing. If it saves someone from a similar headache, it's a good thing 
I decided to brew up another batch of Saison. Not having much for grains in personal stock, my son and I head over to the local supplier. I weighed them out, handed each bin to my son, he went to the back and milled them. The last couple grains, I went back also and used a different mill. (during my brewing hiatus, I had sold my mill). We bought a few other things, yapped with guys there, paid and headed home.
Fast forward a week to brew day (yesterday). Everything is setup. RO water is at strike temp, adjustment salts added, time to mash in... It's 90-something degrees, i'm tired, just spent hours shopping and doing chores with wifey. I think I have my $hit together. We chuck in the grains and give it a stir. Done. Recirculation begins and I plop my butt on my chair. The first rest was to be 112 for 15 minutes.
Wort temp 3 degrees low. How did I miss the mark? No biggie, it will come up. Typical 3 vessel electric wonder rig. After about 10 minutes the mash temp hasn't changed but the HLT is climbing. Note: My system allows me to select either the HLT or MLT PID to control the HLT element for mashing.
Now I'm a little concerned. I see a temp runaway about to take place. After some fiddling and thinking I notice there is no wort flow, but the pump is running. I reach into the mash... It's not grain, its a cake of concrete. CRAP! My very first stuck mash ever.
I thought about dumping a few ice packs into the HLT. My lack of motivation said otherwise. I decide "screw the acid rest, i'll check the ph and use lactic acid" (I know this recipe will need one or the other). I set the mash PID to 149, slowed down the flow some, and started breaking up the milky mess. That's when I see the problem. WAY too fine a grind. Somewhere in that bucket of different grains (i'm guessing the base malt) was milled to some very tiny pieces.
Root cause: Me not paying attention and being complacent.
Secondary cause: Either the local shop has a separate mill for BIAB (they have 3 mills I think) or someone fiddled with one of the mills.
Results: As the temp came up and I did a little more stirring, the starch ball loosened up and began to act more normal. Lactic acid took it down to 5.35. Not trusting it, I did check compaction and SG about every 15 minutes. 30 minute sparge went well, final running's were 1.008. Nailed the boil down level. The good part was a BH efficiency of 87.3 and a mash efficiency of 91.7. I'm much happier however with a slight drop in efficiency to not work that hard
Pitched the yeast, cleaned up the last few utensils. Jumped on the computer and ordered a grain mill. Today it's happily bubbling away with a nice krausen.
I decided to brew up another batch of Saison. Not having much for grains in personal stock, my son and I head over to the local supplier. I weighed them out, handed each bin to my son, he went to the back and milled them. The last couple grains, I went back also and used a different mill. (during my brewing hiatus, I had sold my mill). We bought a few other things, yapped with guys there, paid and headed home.
Fast forward a week to brew day (yesterday). Everything is setup. RO water is at strike temp, adjustment salts added, time to mash in... It's 90-something degrees, i'm tired, just spent hours shopping and doing chores with wifey. I think I have my $hit together. We chuck in the grains and give it a stir. Done. Recirculation begins and I plop my butt on my chair. The first rest was to be 112 for 15 minutes.
Wort temp 3 degrees low. How did I miss the mark? No biggie, it will come up. Typical 3 vessel electric wonder rig. After about 10 minutes the mash temp hasn't changed but the HLT is climbing. Note: My system allows me to select either the HLT or MLT PID to control the HLT element for mashing.
Now I'm a little concerned. I see a temp runaway about to take place. After some fiddling and thinking I notice there is no wort flow, but the pump is running. I reach into the mash... It's not grain, its a cake of concrete. CRAP! My very first stuck mash ever.
I thought about dumping a few ice packs into the HLT. My lack of motivation said otherwise. I decide "screw the acid rest, i'll check the ph and use lactic acid" (I know this recipe will need one or the other). I set the mash PID to 149, slowed down the flow some, and started breaking up the milky mess. That's when I see the problem. WAY too fine a grind. Somewhere in that bucket of different grains (i'm guessing the base malt) was milled to some very tiny pieces.
Root cause: Me not paying attention and being complacent.
Secondary cause: Either the local shop has a separate mill for BIAB (they have 3 mills I think) or someone fiddled with one of the mills.
Results: As the temp came up and I did a little more stirring, the starch ball loosened up and began to act more normal. Lactic acid took it down to 5.35. Not trusting it, I did check compaction and SG about every 15 minutes. 30 minute sparge went well, final running's were 1.008. Nailed the boil down level. The good part was a BH efficiency of 87.3 and a mash efficiency of 91.7. I'm much happier however with a slight drop in efficiency to not work that hard
Pitched the yeast, cleaned up the last few utensils. Jumped on the computer and ordered a grain mill. Today it's happily bubbling away with a nice krausen.
