Stuck Sparge - is this a disaster??

[milholen]

So I brewed my second all-grain batch last night. The good news is that every time I brew I get better and learn from my mistakes. Over and over I've learned that it's best to do what others have done before and not try to assume I know a better way. As I progress in my brewing, it's amazing to me how little I really knew when I first started as an extract brewer.
Some things I learned last night:

1. You need to use either a braid or a manifold in a cooler mash tun -- a grain bag tied around the inside of the bulkhead doesn't work. Needless to say I had a stuck sparge that was impossible to clear.

2. A real brewpot with a ball valve and a thermometer is a must. Since I use the brewpot as an HLT, it's much easier with a built-in thermometer to monitor sparge water temp. Also, transferring wort to the fermenter would be a lot easier with a ball valve on the brewpot.

3. A thermometer on the cooler mash tun would be very helpful. This would make monitoring the mash temp so much easier.


Since the wort was so cloudy, I used about 2 teaspoons of Irish moss in the last 15 minutes of the boil. I did a 70 minute boil and chilled with an immersion chiller in 5 minutes. I took a preboil gravity reading and it was at 1.035. After the boil I forgot to take a gravity reading but I anticipate it would be around 1.050 given the boil off rate of my cheap aluminum brew pot.

So here's what I did with my stuck sparge: Since I could not clear the ball valve to drain the wort, I sanitized a bowl and scooped out the grains and wort and dumped into a grain bag and drained the wort into my brew pot. I ended up with a very cloudy wort but without any any grain husks in it. How bad is this? I guess I could expect some oxidation from hot side aeration?? I'm wondering how much of a fubar this really is.

Thanks for any feedback and suggestions!

 

[cheezydemon3]

A small grain bag tied to the spigot with a perforated object (like a small colander or strainer)in the bag will work great.

 

[OLDBREW]

you do need a screen/manifold/false bottom of some sort

hlt's are good to have a thermometer on

mash tun coolers.. you can just stick a cheap floating thermometer in the grain bed. Once you dough in using an instant read thermometer of some sort, the temperature shouldn't change that much over the course of the rest.

on the hot side of brewing there is no need to sanitize anything. you could have just dumped it gently into another bucket/vessel

 

[milholen]

well what I'm concerned about is how cloudy the wort was. Since I didn't really sparge -- just scooped out the grains and poured through a grain bag, would this cause any issues in the finished beer? Is the wort supposed to be clear after sparging and lautering?

 

[cheezydemon3]

Not clear, but free of little bits.

 

[milholen]

ok cool thanks I should be good.