My catastrophe with all grain

[doornumber3]

Today was a complete fail...ok, maybe not complete, i'll probably have a couple of gallons of beer to drink in a month. I've been extract brewing and partial mash brewing for about a year. I finally built my mashtun out of 10 gallon home depot cooler and was ready to go with a scottish ale.

Everything was going ok during the mash. I did have an issue with a huge temp drop so i had to add some additional boiling water to get it back up to 152. Everything went down hill when i tried to do the first runnings. The sparge was completely stuck. No matter what I did (blowing it clear, stirring, nothing cleared it. Blowing cleared it for a sec but then stuck again. Really got me thinking though how in the world it wouldn't get stuck....It's submerged in the grain and one end was fairly open. I don't think a screen would help. I must have done something wrong but followed the steps on this site to a t. Well the only solution was to take out the nylon bag and dump the mashtun contents in there and filter the water to the kettle. I have no idea what else to do but didn't want to dump the batch. I did that and then same thing with the additional sparge. I came up way under my volume but at this point I was just going to boil and deal with what i got.

As i moved the pot to the stove i noticed my one handle had a huge crack and was about to snap. I put a little pressure on it and it snapped -- I wanted to do it on the stove rather than carrying it. I had to cool it for a bit on the stove as my new faucett doesn't attach to my chiller. After 20 minutes i moved it to an ice bath and chilled to 65. I transferred it and pitched and now it looks like there's literrally about 8 inches of trub already on the bottom.

I'm getting another pot tomorrow and thinking of just doing the 15 gal blichman and do a biab method. Just so frustrated with Mashtun and don't see how it won't clog.

Any thoughts critiques, etc are greatly appreciated. In the meantime im going to RDWHAHB

 

[doornumber3]

Oh, and also OG was supposed to be 1056 and was 1062. Clearly higher because of the lesser volume but i'm guessing with a full batch, it would have been way under.

 

[slapnutz]

I see no problems. ****ty day equipment wise but you basically did brew in a bag followed by submersion cooling. The trub you are seeing is probably hot break, something you wouldn't have dealt with using extracts.

I use a bazooka for masking so I can't help you there.

Off by .006 is nothing that it's just figuring out your efficiency with your setup.

Sent from my VS980 4G using Home Brew mobile app

 

[doornumber3]

I think the resolution was right but crappy day with equipment. I need a new kettle so I may just do the 15 gallon blichmann and use that as a mashtun wit the false bottom.

 

[sumbrewindude]

Don't know what you're using for a manifold, but get some voile from a fabric store (a square yard should be more than enough), and use that instead of the manifold in the cooler. If you do end up with a stuck sparge, just lift the "bag of grain" and it'll unstick itself.

It sounds like you're using some kind of a bag already, if my runnings slow down I can either stir the mix briefly, or lift the bag and I'm back to full flow.

 

[doornumber3]

I didn't put the grain in the bag I just poured it in slowly. Getting false bottom for te cooler today.

 

[WileECoyote]

Hello, first of all, sounds like you made a good batch of beer.

And your OG being a bit is no big deal, especially a Scottish Ale.

You overcame a brewing problem with a bit of quick thinking, thats what home brewers do, Good job.

As far as your stuck sparge, you can add rice hulls to your grain bill to help with that, also when starting your first runnings open the valve a little bit to let the grain bed set, then slowly add a bit more flow several different times.

A false bottom will help also.

If you do get the 15 gal pot and try a BIAB, I would suggest using 3 five gallon bags for your grain, instead of 1 big bag, it makes dealing with the wet heavy grain so much easy'r, when I do this method I twist the bag tops and lift out of the wort and hang them on the side of the pot with those black springy clips for holding papers together, doing this even allows me to do a pore rinse sparge on the grain bags, then they can hang and drain while I'm starting my boil.

Most brews I use a 70qt coleman extreme ice chest with a home made 1/2 copper tubing manifold for my mash tun, it works great, but if I get impatient (I do often) and full open the valve to fast, I will get a stuck sparge too, when I have done this I can lift the grain bed with my mash paddle and continue on, where with your type of cooler I don't think that is an option.

Hope this helps.

Cheers

 

[brewguyver]

Sounds like a brew day with new AG equipment. You didn't end up short of your mark, so I'd say it was a good day!