Second all-grain brew day went sideways...

[DVCNick]

So, like I said... second all-grain brew. Everything went as normal until it was time to get wort out of the mash tun. Open valve. Jammed solid. Hardly a single drip coming out. Stirred. Added more water. Nothing. (Did not have this problem at all the first time around).

I ended up filtering one pitcher's worth at a time through my hop screen until I had my desired pre-boil volume. Time consuming and messy.

Pre-boil SG indicated 51% efficiency (the prior batch said over 85%). I had a little over 1.5lb DME that I'd bought for yeast starters. Dumped it all in. Post-boil OG after DME addition was 1.051. The recipe sheet says 70% efficiency should have had an OG of 1.060 to 1.065, so still short.

I should have drinkable beer at least though, right?

When I cleaned out the mashtun, found that the hose that intakes under the false bottom was COMPLETELY full of grain. I don't know how, but a ton of grain got under there somehow.

There also seemed to be a good bit of hazy solids of some kind in the wort. Questions:

1) Mash tun is the standard 10 gallon round orange cooler. The false bottom seems to be the normal one that people use, so I'm expecting the chances that grain went through it in quantity to be low? The only thing that is holding it down is the plastic line hookup, and gravity. Would it help to be weighed down by placing some kind of metal weights on top, etc? I'm guessing I knocked it up stirring the mash or something... that's all I can think of.

2) I elected to add DME instead of extend boil, etc.. .was this the right move?

3) Regarding the hazy solids: I don't think I had this in my first all grain batch, but this was a different recipe. I could see them in the boil kettle and then in the fermeter. Most of it VERY rapidly dropped to the bottom of the fermenter even at warm temps; couldn't have been more than 20 minutes and it was all in the bottom. So hopefully I can just siphon off from above whatever it is. Does anyone know what this might be?

Any other tips on stuck sparges? Rice hulls? These were not in the kit and I didn't have any anyway.

 

[Auger]

So, like I said... second all-grain brew. Everything went as normal until it was time to get wort out of the mash tun. Open valve. Jammed solid. Hardly a single drip coming out. Stirred. Added more water. Nothing. (Did not have this problem at all the first time around).

I ended up filtering one pitcher's worth at a time through my hop screen until I had my desired pre-boil volume. Time consuming and messy.

Pre-boil SG indicated 51% efficiency (the prior batch said over 85%). I had a little over 1.5lb DME that I'd bought for yeast starters. Dumped it all in. Post-boil OG after DME addition was 1.051. The recipe sheet says 70% efficiency should have had an OG of 1.060 to 1.065, so still short.

I should have drinkable beer at least though, right?

When I cleaned out the mashtun, found that the hose that intakes under the false bottom was COMPLETELY full of grain. I don't know how, but a ton of grain got under there somehow.

There also seemed to be a good bit of hazy solids of some kind in the wort. Questions:

1) Mash tun is the standard 10 gallon round orange cooler. The false bottom seems to be the normal one that people use, so I'm expecting the chances that grain went through it in quantity to be low? The only thing that is holding it down is the plastic line hookup, and gravity. Would it help to be weighed down by placing some kind of metal weights on top, etc? I'm guessing I knocked it up stirring the mash or something... that's all I can think of.

2) I elected to add DME instead of extend boil, etc.. .was this the right move?

3) Regarding the hazy solids: I don't think I had this in my first all grain batch, but this was a different recipe. I could see them in the boil kettle and then in the fermeter. Most of it VERY rapidly dropped to the bottom of the fermenter even at warm temps; couldn't have been more than 20 minutes and it was all in the bottom. So hopefully I can just siphon off from above whatever it is. Does anyone know what this might be?

Any other tips on stuck sparges? Rice hulls? These were not in the kit and I didn't have any anyway.

Everyone who brews AG will end up there eventually (well maybe not those BIAB heathens )

1. If the cause of your "stuck mash" was actually a line blockage, rice hulls are not going to fix that. It's likely you just caught it enough to lift it a bit while stirring, and once there was a gap grain started flowing through it. You'll get a feel for stirring, just try to do it more gently and not at the edges of the false bottom. One thing you can try if you really get stuck is blowing back up the line to loosen/push out a blockage and get it flowing again. Once the liquid is moving well, if there is grain in the way it will often flush out with the wort. It will end up in your kettle, but that's not the end of the world.

2) Either option is fine...with DME you end up with more beer and its a lot quicker than trying to boil down. Boiling down can also screw up your hop schedule if you don't adjust from the beginning.

3) if there's suspended haze, likely hot or cold break in your wort, it will likely drop out during fermentation. Use a racking cake or siphon carefully and try to leave it behind when you rack to the keg or bottling bucket. Hot break and cold break are suspended particles of proteins and tannins that clump together during the initial heating of your wort, and the cooling period after the boil, respectively. If you're worried about it in future batches, letting the wort rest in the kettle for those initial 20 min allow you to siphon or drain from the kettle and leave it behind there, vs. in your fermenter.

 

[Auger]

And yes, the beer might be a little different than the recipe intended, but if you take care of it properly from here on it will be very drinkable.

 

[Iseneye]

I suggest putting a large grain bag in the cooler when mashing.

 

[DVCNick]

True, the line was blocked so rice hulls would not have helped.
I've got to figure out a way to keep the false bottom on the bottom.

A large BIAB type bag actually sounds like a great idea.

 

[kh54s10]

If the false bottom is not tight to the sides of the cooler you can get some silicon tubing slit it down the side and put it over the edge of the false bottom.

Are you fly sparging or batch sparging? If batch sparging you could change out the false bottom for a braid. I use a braid off a 3/4 water heater supply line. It is indestructible.

 

[grampamark]

I'll second using a braid. I have a bazooka tube in my Igloo cooler and haven't had a stuck sparge in >50 batches. I brewed a Belgian White a couple of days ago. The grain bill was 50% wheat. No rice hulls, no stuck sparge.

 

[RM-MN]

I ended up filtering one pitcher's worth at a time through my hop screen until I had my desired pre-boil volume. Time consuming and messy.

Pre-boil SG indicated 51% efficiency (the prior batch said over 85%). I had a little over 1.5lb DME that I'd bought for yeast starters. Dumped it all in. Post-boil OG after DME addition was 1.051. The recipe sheet says 70% efficiency should have had an OG of 1.060 to 1.065, so still short.

I should have drinkable beer at least though, right?

Buy yourself a couple paint strainer bags (they come two to a package at Home Depot). If you can't drain the tun you can put the bag into the boil pot and scoop/pour from the tun into the bag, then lift the bag to let the wort drain out. Even easier is to put a bag right into the mash tun which will keep the grain particles from going through or around the false bottom. Easiest is to put a bag right into the boil pot and do the entire mash there. With the bag as a filter, no matter where in the system you use it, the fine weave and large filter area lets you use a finer crush. Be forewarned, with the finer crush your efficiency will be higher and you will have to deal with beer that has more alcohol until you have adjusted recipes to account for that.

 

[DVCNick]

Thanks all! Sounds like some minor adjustments here will prevent this in the future.
Hopefully this batch still comes out decent. It sure appears to be fermenting normally.

 

[porter1974]

I have the false bottom and the bazooka. I got the false bottom and thought it would be an upgrade. I used it a few times and decided I like the bazooka better.

 

[JLeuck64]

I haven't experienced a stuck mash like that yet... sorry to hear about your troubles. I've heard of a stuck sparge before but haven't experience that either.

If I did experience one or the other though... I think I might be inclined to just blow real hard into the drain hose on the mash tun. I mean it's really just simple plumbing that has a restriction. Blow it clear, then reset the grain bed and drain it a little more slowy at first until the grain bed sets real good ( ;

 

[DVCNick]

I did blow into the tube, and that resulted in air bubbles coming up through the tun... still not a single drop of wort coming out though.