Victim of milling or process

Have a grainfather and brewed a Anchor Steam Clone: 9 lbs of breiss 2 row and 14 oz of breiss crystal 80 L both bought and milled at Northern Brewer… Long story short, in the picture is what I got in my strainer after cooling down the wort. This is all grain, by product, I assume. I use a hop spider. Not harping, but just wondering if this is part of the milling process or the result of the all-grain process? Never had this before, except for in my early years of adding hops to the boil without a mesh bag.

Let me rephrase my question since I re read you use a grainfather…so how do you get the grist out? What kind of filter is there to separate the grain from the sweet wort? Doesn’t look like it worked well…

Having said that, it looks like a LOT of flour but some pretty good size chunks of grain mixed in… I’d be concerned about tannins from that crap being the boil.

Ian the grainfarter a brew in a basket? That looks like some grain got through the strainer. Left over hops is more green. Not really sure what happened.

I’d blame process… Now, maybe there was some “flour” that plugged up the basket, and it wouldn’t allow the wort to flow through… so it over flowed, taking barley with it out of the basket… So camp run a muck reared its ugly head…
If the pH was on target, I wouldn’t worry about the tannins/protiens fouling things up also… Sneezles61

Yes, it was a grainfather, but my question if indeed it is the process, is it due to the grain milling? I milled this at the store. Do I now have to worry about cleaning the store’s mill or bins? I brewed many all-grain both with a mash tun and now a grainfather, but I never had this come out of the boiling kettle before. If answer yes, then I might just get my own mill and not worry about it. Thank you all for the feedback.

forgot to add that I was there through the process and if anything “seep” out it was from the bottom, so it must be a collection of dust?

If you’re grains are milled to flour it may get through the basket but that looks like chunks. May it did overflow. Definitely get your own mill so you have control over your crush. Also if they scooped out the bottom of the bin may have got alot of flour

2 Likes

Okay, after looking at a few videos on youtube et al. and reading posts, I am thinking it was the setting of the mill at the brew store that got me. Would anyone agree that the possibility was that setting was too tight and basically I ended up with flour. If this is the case, then I know what to look for in the future (ie making sure the setting is around .380) and bummed. 99.95% of the time I walk in the store and don’t even think about looking at the settings. This time, I think I just got burned.

You could be right… Some Donkey before you was messing with stuff and screwed it up… I think you will keep your eye on the community mill from here on out… Once you get your own… you’ll have some piece of mind… Sneezles61

Seems ike you are serious about brewing so you should get your own mill for sure. It’s the first piece o equipment I bought. Then buy your grains in bulk.

1 Like

What’s the Grandfather basket filter look like? You’re pretty bold doing this over carpet like that. I cann’t count how many ways I would have ruined it by now. LOL

I mill my grains at the NB store in West Allis (Milwaukee). I do buy my base grain in bulk and bring back what I need for the batch I’m brewing. At that time I purchase the other grains I need and mill them all together. Milling @NB is just too convenient to justify the cost of buying my own mill. There is a downside in that you can’t adjust the roller gap. They have them locked in at 0.040". I’ve never had a problem with getting too fine a crush. In fact I will sometimes run my grist through a second time if it seems too many kernels are not crushed properly. Because their mills are locked down I doubt your crush was so fine that it caused a stuck sparge and overflowed the basket. However, since the grain room is not monitored, it is possible, however unlikely, that someone before you messed with the roller gap and caused your problem.

Not having a grainfather I’m just guessing here but, are there adjustments you can make to alter the sparge water flow rate or some other setting that would alter the process?

The bottom of the grainfather basket is a mesh, similar to the false bottom that I previously used in the Thermos mash tun. Unfortunately, the pump is set at a constant speed, there is no way to adjust the flow accept from the ball valve on side of the sparge tube.

I guess, my only choice will be replication to see if this occurs again. This is my 3rd batch with the grainfather. I am somewhat a fan of it so far and there is a long winded story as to why I switched from traditional kettles and mash tuns. But that is another story for another feed. Thank you all for your insights.

1 Like

My money is on Ian the grainfarter.

3 Likes

dammit Ian stop fartin’ grain in the mashtun!

3 Likes

:joy::sweat_smile::joy: Sneezles61

Good name for a horse

4 Likes