Question on NB Urca Vanilla Porter PM kit

Extract/Partial Mash Brewing
1

Hello all; A week ago I made the above kit. This is my 2nd PM beer. I hit the mash temp and time just fine. I hit the sparg temp as well. But when it came time to add the sparg water it seemed as I added the 3-4 pint of water, most of the water wound not work it’s way through. It kinda ran off. I used the mash bag that I bought from NB as a PM kit. Could it be possible that the grains had plugged up the bag not allowing the water to filter through? Here is the grain bill.

1 lbs English Maris Otter

0.875 lbs English Medium Crystal

0.75 lbs Flaked Barley

0.5 lbs Belgian Aromatic Malt

0.5 lbs British Chocolate Malt

0.5 lbs Belgian Special B

0.25 lbs English Black Mal

Also when I went to check my SG it was 1.042 instead of the 1.061 the sheet called for. I had rocked the carboy back and forth hard for 5 min. I’m pretty sure I had my top off water mixed pretty well. So what I did was to boil up about 2lbs of DME cooled it and added to the carboy. Rocked it all up for 5 more minuets and my SG was at 1.062. What I figure is all my sparg water didn’t make it through the grain causing my low SG. Right??

Thanks for all the help!! Cheers.

2

Was your grain bag to small? The grain being compacted in the bag would cause the sparge water to run off and decrease extraction efficiency.

Did you have your grain bag in a strainer for the sparge? A strainer resting over the boil pot makes it easier to create a flat or bowl depression in surface of the bag.

Go Packers

3

Thanks for the reply. My grain bag is big enough to just about fit around my 5gal pot. And yes I used a strainer to hold the grain bag while I sparged. Cheers!

4

Just took my first FG reading after 3 weeks. It’s sitting at about 1.018. I used the Wyeast 1056. Does this sound about right? I’ll take another reading in a few days. Cheers!