Stuck 'Sparge' - Rice hulls the answer?

[Safa]

This past weekend, my wife and I brewed a dry Irish stout with 2.5 pounds of flaked barley (~25% of the grain bill). During my psuedo sparge, the bag clogged up, and my efficiency suffered a little bit (plus I popped a seam while squeezing my grain bag!).

I'm thinking that next time I do a beer with something sticky like oats or flaked barley, I'll use rice hulls to help.

Has anyone had any success with this before?


My method if anyone is interested:

• Mash 5 gallons 60 minutes (Good volume for my 7.5 gal kettle, fits most grain bills)
• At the end of the mash, I heat to 170 as quickly as possible (~5 minutes usually)
• Dump everything into bucket 'A', inside of which is a grain bag (bungee chord secured, don't want to be fishing in hot wort for a bag!)
• Start heating sprage water in now-empty kettle
• lift grain bag out of wort, suspend it over the wort bucket 'A' and let it drain (Rope + scout knots + handy tree limb = winner)
• Once sparge water is at 170, I drop the suspended grain bag into bucket 'B'
• Pour sparge water into bucket 'B', stir it up, and give it a few minutes to rest
• Return wort from bucket 'A' to kettle, start heating to boil.
• Suspend/drain grain bag over bucket 'B'
• Once desired volume reached**, add wort from bucket 'B' to kettle
• Boil for 60 minutes
• Chill with copper coil immersion chiller and a drill with a paint stirrer attachment (This is the future my friends! Speeds cooling and aerates all in one)
• Strain through paint strainer bag into fermenter.
• Yeast, Ferment, Carbonate, Enjoy.

** - I mash with 5 gallons, usually collect ~4 gallons from my first drain/drip, I heat 3 gallons of sparge water, and usually collect ~3 gallons from the second drain/drip (grain is already saturated, no more room for extra absorption). This gives me ~7 gallons in my 7.5 gallon kettle. (Thank goodness for fermcap!).

 

[RM-MN]

I've no idea about the rice hulls but if your bag popped a seam you need a better bag. I've done unmalted rye at 60% of the mash. You don't know sticky until you try that.

Some other things to make your brew day go easier. When your mash period is done, don't bother with heating to 170. You aren't fly sparging and don't need a mashout. Sparging with cold water has almost the same ability to rinse out the sugars so you don't have to be heating the sparge water which means that your wort can stay right in the pot you mashed in. Set the bag of grains in the bucket and start heating the wort collected while sparging with cold water. Pull the bag out soon as it only takes a minute or so to rinse out the sugars, squeeze the wort out of the bag of grains, and add that wort to the pot that is heating.

While people claim that hot side aeration is a myth, I might let the wort cool for a bit before I started aerating it. No point is taking that chance with the beer.

 

[Safa]

I've no idea about the rice hulls but if your bag popped a seam you need a better bag. I've done unmalted rye at 60% of the mash. You don't know sticky until you try that.

Some other things to make your brew day go easier. When your mash period is done, don't bother with heating to 170. You aren't fly sparging and don't need a mashout. Sparging with cold water has almost the same ability to rinse out the sugars so you don't have to be heating the sparge water which means that your wort can stay right in the pot you mashed in. Set the bag of grains in the bucket and start heating the wort collected while sparging with cold water. Pull the bag out soon as it only takes a minute or so to rinse out the sugars, squeeze the wort out of the bag of grains, and add that wort to the pot that is heating.

While people claim that hot side aeration is a myth, I might let the wort cool for a bit before I started aerating it. No point is taking that chance with the beer.

Thanks for the comments RM-MN!

I must have misunderstood the purpose of the mashout, I will try the next beer with the cold sparge.

As for the aeration, I start the drill very slowly, using it only to move the wort more effectively over the coils. Once its cool, I let rip. I'm also skeptical of HSA, but like you said, its hardly difficult for me to avoid it, so if not, why not?