quick all grain question.

[size]

I just got done with my first all grain batch (awesome, i know ), but there's a TON of sediment hanging around in it. I've never been one to filter my beers, so I wasn't really prepared for this. I have one of those bazooka screens for my all-grain set up, but I'm not sure that did much for the really small pieces.

So I have a whole LOAD of sediment in there. Is it anything I should be worried about? What can I do next time to prevent that? I suppose I'll just rack it off once or twice to help that go away, but I'm losing volume because of that.

Any ideas? Should I top it off with a bit more water? Was considering that but my OG was about dead on...

 

[Rick500]

It'll settle out. My first two were like that too. [Edit: Er...well, how much sediment do you mean when you say a whole load?]

 

[s1080]

And are you sure its sediment? It could be flour from the grain. Ive had that multiple times and it settled out just fine.

 

[size]

Well, i'm going to guess when all's said in done it'll be about 3 inches in the bottom of the carboy.

I have no idea what it is, s1080, it all looks like hop residue actually (it's greenish) but it couldn't be because i didn't load this batch up with hops. I'm assuming it's just stuff that got through in my mash.

 

[Pappers_]

Hi Size - do you know about doing a vorlauf when draining and sparging your mashtun? This should reduce/eliminate particles in your wort coming out of the mashtun. Or perhaps I misunderstood your question?

 

[wormfishin]

3 inches sounds excessive to me. How did you chill? Mine generally clears a good bit while the IC is doing it's thing.

Did you siphon or dump into your fermenter?

 

[size]

no, actually i didn't, pappers.

i've heard the term, a lot. i've even looked it up a few times.

but it completely slipped my mind tonight.

now that i've looked it up, i feel like an idiot i knew better than to not do this.

Oh well, it seems to me this problem is pretty much all aesthetics. It won't affect my taste by much, will it?

 

[davesrose]

I would say it really depends on your recipe and yeast used as to what kind of sediment you get, not whether it's AG or extract: the amount of trube I've gotten just varies with style. Most of the time I don't get too large of a sediment as I do filter out hop residues before I pitch the yeast. Actually, with my last imperial stout, I tried out a different yeast strain then I was used to (and it was rated as lower flocculation). After the beer was done fermenting, I noticed the sediment didn't fully settle all the way down. It took awhile of cold crashing to get the sediment to fully compact...and even then, it was pretty large....like the beer!

Oh well, it seems to me this problem is pretty much all aesthetics. It won't affect my taste by much, will it?

Having extra sediment can only effect your final outcome if you get it in your bottled/kegged beer. It will get some of your batch cloudy, and slightly different tasting, then the clearer portions. It might be worth it to just stop siphoning when you reach the top of the sediment and not get every ounce of liquid from your carboy.

 

[Pappers_]

no, actually i didn't, pappers.

i've heard the term, a lot. i've even looked it up a few times.

but it completely slipped my mind tonight.

now that i've looked it up, i feel like an idiot i knew better than to not do this.

Oh well, it seems to me this problem is pretty much all aesthetics. It won't affect my taste by much, will it?

I'm sure your beer will be fine. The potential issue is that boiling grain can extract tannins, I believe, which can add harshness to the beer.

 

[size]

^yes but I've heard that's only at temperatures over 170? Even my sparge water was at about 168 before I mixed it with my grains

Thanks for the advice, you too davesrose, together you both answered all of my questions, even the ones I didn't ask.

 

[Picobrew]

^yes but I've heard that's only at temperatures over 170? Even my sparge water was at about 168 before I mixed it with my grains

Thanks for the advice, you too davesrose, together you both answered all of my questions, even the ones I didn't ask.

I think he means that boiling the "sediment" is equivalent to boiling a small portion of the grain, and hence could extract tannins. However, I'm sure everything is fine - even if you didn't vorlauf, it would be a very small fraction of grain in your kettle.

 

[size]

Ahhh, I understand now.

Yeah, I'm thinking with all of the other precautions I'm taking with this beer, this small thing shouldn't be too big of a deal.

 

[Krelja]

I also noticed that when I switched to PM then all grain the trub at the bottom seemed to be alot more "fluffy" for lack of a better word. I found that it took a little bit more time for it to compact down like my extract brews. Also I noticed a little bit of husk material in my last AG brew and a bunch of it got stuck to the kettle at the top during the hot break. I think all will be good for you but update this thread in a week or so. It's nice to see a thread that has some feedback so when the search nazis starting chirping, you may find a thread with an actual follow-up from the OP. Good luck RDWHAHB