Chunky Bits And Cloudy Wort

[Daniel.lear]

Morning All,

Disclaimer: Before anyone starts carrying on about search functions ive used them and read plenty.

Ive been brewing AG for some time now and one thing that i have always struggled with is achieving a clear run-off from my MT, and of late, lots of chunks bits. This has been with braid in an esky (batch Sparge) SS slotted manifold in an esky (batch and fly) and now in a keg-shaped MT with a false bottom.

I brew a variety of beers with a variety of malts. I crush my own grain and have tried fine and coarse with niether having any real effect. i normally conduct 90min mashes and achieve around 72% I now almost exclusively fly sparge.

The cloudy run-off has always given me the shits but does not appear to affect the finished product. What really pisses me off is that lately my run-off is getting worse (cloudier) and im getting chunky bits through. This is regardless of crush and how fast or slow i conduct my sparge.

Short of using some cloth and a sieve, where to from here?

Cheers

Leary

 

[Kleiny]

Is your false bottom sitting flat in your mas tun?
If your keg shaped vessel has dents in the bottom the false bottom may not sit flat.

I had the same problem of chunks a couple of brews ago and worked out that my better half when stirring was hitting the false bottom and lifting it allowing grain to get underneath during doe in.

What material do you use to connect your false bottom to the tap inside your mash tun?
If its just silicon hose you can get movement during stirring, if its copper or ss pipe you may have a small gap between the false bottom and your mash tun floor.

Just what ive experienced with my set up which sounds the same as yours

Goodluck
Kleiny

 

[Daniel.lear]

Is your false bottom sitting flat in your mas tun?
If your keg shaped vessel has dents in the bottom the false bottom may not sit flat.

I had the same problem of chunks a couple of brews ago and worked out that my better half when stirring was hitting the false bottom and lifting it allowing grain to get underneath during doe in.

What material do you use to connect your false bottom to the tap inside your mash tun?
If its just silicon hose you can get movement during stirring, if its copper or ss pipe you may have a small gap between the false bottom and your mash tun floor.

Just what ive experienced with my set up which sounds the same as yours

Goodluck
Kleiny

Kleiny,

The bottom of my MT is in pretty good nick. I use the wire wound PVC hose to connect the falsie to the tap. I have thought about tacking it down with a little bit of silver solder to see if that helps.

Leary

 

[Screwtop]

Kleiny,

The bottom of my MT is in pretty good nick. I use the wire wound PVC hose to connect the falsie to the tap. I have thought about tacking it down with a little bit of silver solder to see if that helps.

Leary

Firstly I wouldn't stress too much about cloudy wort and a few chunky bits, but you are so lets see if we can find a cause. Maybe hard plumbing to connect the FB would improve things. Possible it's lifting at times and allowing grist under the edge. I find with recirculation wort clears quickly and naturally this improves with temp especially at MO. That is about all I can suggest Leary

Screwy

 

[cliffo]

Kleiny,

The bottom of my MT is in pretty good nick. I use the wire wound PVC hose to connect the falsie to the tap. I have thought about tacking it down with a little bit of silver solder to see if that helps.

Leary

What about connecting the falsie to the tap via copper pipe & compression fittings? That should help to ensure the falsie doesn't move and allow grain to get in under (if that is the cause).

Do you do a vourlauf? I assume you do, how many litres?

I wouldn't worry so much about cloudiness but getting chunks of grain through on the sparge annoys me no end.

cliffo

 

[BoilerBoy]

My mill is set fairly fine and I use a fat braid thats about 50ml wide, it works well but still lets a bit of grain through.
I sparge twice and after recirculating and then satisfied that the wort is as clear its going to get I fit a tube shaped ss fine mesh about 100ml long to the end of the pvc hose as a final catchment and just empty it out between sparges.

Cheers,
BB

 

[Bribie G]

Cloudy wort? Cloudy wort? Come to a BIAB session and I'll show you cloudy wort B) . However the wort into the cube is usually crystal clear and althought the finished product may suffer a bit more from chill haze I find that Polyclar cures all ills there, also got my first batch of Isinglass from Ross and I'll try that with next batch.

I read somewhere (about 3 months ago maybe) that the Weihenstephan mob did a wort turbidity trial and were actually leaning towards discounting the importance of wort clarity out of the mash tun as being a bit of a furfy. I'll try and find it and edit this post if I'm successful. Otherwise as Screwy says don't stress.

Here 'tis:

Since a proper fermentation is a
premise for a high beer quality, it has to be questioned
whether the today’s lauter turbidity may be too low to
provide a proper yeast nutrition. Therefore, it seems to be
worthwhile to discuss a new statement of preferring a
moderate lauter turbidity, within the range of lauter turbidities
currently observed, instead of the minimum turbidity
that is technically realizable today in order to provide
proper yeast nutrition and to minimise adverse quality
effects at the same time.

Ok what they are saying is that whilst very cloudy wort isn't necessarily good, over clear wort can be not so good either and the commercials may have been chasing their tails unnecessarily.

 

[Daniel.lear]

Guys,

I can recycle up to 10-15L with no diff in clarity. The chunky bits at the beginning stop as the bed compacts a bit and wort is recycled. However as soon as i get towards the last 10L of run-off the chunky bits and excessive cloudiness starts to come back with the last 5L worse than at the start.

Ive found that skimming and adding a bit more whirfloc clears it right up. I havent had a problem with clarity into fermenter/cube.

The last batch i did i attached a piece of mesh to the end of my hose to collect any stray bits and worked very well.

At the end of it all the beer is great (IMO) however it just give me the shits that i have to recycle as much as i do before im happy to let it go into my kettle.

I will try and eliminate any possiblity of my FB moving as that is a fairly simple fix.

Cheers

Leary.