Hi All,
I brewed my first all gran batch this weekend, I was going great until I got a stuck sparge. I was not able to properly recirculate the run off, so my wort is really cloudy. I’m not too worried about the cloudiness of the finished beer, but can I expect some of it to settle out in the fermentor?
It will settle out if…if…you get it time. consider a secondary if you wern’t.
:cheers:
Yes it will settle out. The biggest problem with having a cloudy runoff is the possiblity of carrying husk material into the boil. That can give you astringency problems. You should be OK though.
Why do you think it stuck? Fine crush? Or did your braid collapse or something?
Did you rake the top of the grain bed? Often this will get things moving again. I use my spoon to score about an inch into the top of the bed, this breaks up the fine protein layer that can cause the whole thing to lock up.
Worst case, I stir things up and then re-vorlauf prior to running more off.
The other things i"ve done, is run off like you did and then let that settle for a while, then drain off the cleared wort from the settled solids before boiling.
Thanks for the reply.
It’s the AG Caribou Slobber kit from Northern Brewer. I was planning on giving it two weeks in the primary and one to two in the secondary.
I’m not sure why it stuck. I may have opened the valve too quickly. I did not rake or score the top of the grain bed. I tried blowing into the tube a few times and let it settle for a few minutes, then tried the flow again. It was only a trickle. I ended up stirring the grain bed and it was still really slow, but flowed at a constant rate. It took about two hours for the lauter. I read somewhere that if you have alkaline water, the protiens can clump. My water is very alkaline. I took the mash PH with a brewers PH strip and it was off the color chart toward alkaline. One other clue. Once I stirred the bed and got the slow trickle. I let all the spagre water into the cooler (10 gal). I was affraid that the temps were getting too low. It trickled for about 20 - 30 minutes collenting about 1 1/2 gallons, then it suddenly took off filling the brew pot in about 5 minutes. In the end the gravity was 1.050. A little shy of the 1.052 called for, but I used too much sparge water, so that factors in as well.
