Stuck Mash

[lexuschris]

Howdy all,

Well, I thought I was going to brew me a nice English Brown Ale today. With the rain, I figured I'd move my gear to the garage and dress warm. Everything was going pretty darn good until it came time for my 1st runnings. OMG! A stuck mash!!

Odd, there is no wheat or rye in my grain bill. This shouldn't be happening. First I try blowing into the draining tube I use. Its pretty stuck. Next, I put a funnel on the end of the tube and elevate it above the mash level. Pouring in my hot sparge water to backflow the clog ... doesn't work either. I then pour all my sparge water on top of my mash, hoping that the thinning of the mash & more weight atop the false bottom will push stuff thrugh. No dice.

Some more blowing, a few phone calls, and I'm really & truly stuck. I can finally get bubbles from my blowing to push my brimming mash over the top edge of the tun. Working on quite a mess here... but nothing is flowing. Even the scant trickle I had has stopped completely.

So I transfer my completely full tun (9 gallons water + wet grain) into my boil kettle, and clean out everyting in my tun with a hose. I water test it, and it flows just fine. I pour all that wort & grain back into the tun, splashing it all over my garage floor in the process. Open the ball valve on the tun... NADA!



At this point, I'm out of ideas. I start straining some grain out of the tun, hoping to remove the offending grain, and realize after a few scoops what must be going on. Just scooping clear wort into the strainer, cloggs the strainer so that only a trickle comes out. If I move the grain around the strainer with a spoon, suddenly all the water drains.

Today was the first time I crushed my grains using an electric drill on my barley crusher mill. I really had a tough time getting the motor to turn with the grains already in the feeder. So, I must have gone way too fast and over-crushed my grains. This mash sets like concrete, and clogs because of the fine malt & husk mixture, in between the larger grain chunks.

So after 2 hours of trying to get my mash to drain, I realize that even if I trickle out the wort with tricks or strainers, there will be a ton of micro husk material in the boil. I must be truly SOL.

Painfully, I decided to dump the batch down the driveway. (Which lead to a huge project of breaking up all the cement-like grain clumps on my driveway.)

Any other thoughts on this? Was the batch able to be salvaged? Any other ways to unstick mashes?
--LexusChris

[backyard brewer]

Oh man what a bummer!!!!!!!! What do you use for a MLT/false bottom? Sounds like you may have over-crushed, but did the grist look OK?

The first thing that comes to my mind is get a pump. These new Chugger pumps with SS pump heads are only $110 and they can be used for so many things in the brewery. If I start to get a slow or stuck sparge, I hook the pump to the HLT and pump hot liquor back through the bottom of the screen, hopefully clearing the issue. It usually works great.

[BrewMasterBrad]

Sounds like too fine of a crush. What a bummer.

[jward]

You might have tried mixing in rice hulls. I'm not saying you wouldn't end up with more paste with rice hulls added. I do higher then 50% wheat beers without rice hulls and don't get stuck sparges with them. Oats cause me trouble. My last brew session the sparge ring came apart. I turned off the pump filling the tun but didn't shut off the spage drain. The gain bed set when it stopped floating resulting in a way too slow sparge. I had to re-stir and re-vorlouf to get going again. I picked up a chugger pump. I'll bring it to the next brew day if anyone wants to see one.

[brahn]

I had a little stuck mash on Saturday myself with a grist that was about 25% wheat and rye. We just mixed in some rice hulls and that got it moving again. If yours was due to too fine a crush I'm not sure that would have worked as well, but it would be worth a shot if it happens again.

I've never heard of these chugger pumps until this thread, I'd like to see it jward.

[lexuschris]

Update:

I attempted this receipe again today. After the last try, I was pretty sure the issue was the fine grind I had form my mill. So I was truely dumbstruck when it happened again, today. ARGH! I ground my grain at Addison's, plus a few extra pounds by hand here. I even added 1/2 # of rice hulls just for insurance. This time it was even more stuck than last time. I opened the ball valve and not a drop came out!

I snaked a tube brush up the open ball valve all the way to the center of the false bottme elbow joint. Nothing really clogged, and I got a small trickle to come out, but as soon as I removed the tubing brush, it stopped.

Thinking about the comments on the board, and calling oc_eric as well, we reasoned that something must be wrong with my mash tun system. Perhaps that little piece of thermoplastic tubing I use to connect my false bottom to my ball valve is getting compressed by the grain, and pinching off any flow!?!

I transferred all my mash to my brew kettle, and took a look at the mash tun. While everything looked fine, I decided to swap out the 3" tubing on my false bottom with a freshly cut tube. Transferred it all back and opened the valve and EUREKA!! It flowed perfectly!

A stupid little 10 cent piece of tubing ruined my last brew day, and almost this one. He he ... just glad I found the solution this time! Its a good reminder that regular maintenance & part inspection is a sound practice in your homebrew setup. That little tubing had been used for 16+ brews without trouble, but had gotten weak enough that it now compresses with the extra mash weight. (Which is why the water test worked fine..)

Anyways, thanks again to everyone for the suggestions & pointers over the past 2 weeks!
--LexusChris

[maltbarley]

Chris, I'm glad you can be so positive after realizing the last batch may have worked.