Messed up fist attempt at batch sparging...should i keep it?

[Rowang]

Hi guys,

Not sure whether to continue this brew or not... advice would be great!

Had my first go at batch sparging, but my mast tun stuck, to the point there was no flow... after lots of pissing about I managed to get it done... by which time, the mash had been sat for 2+ hours. I put the mash back into the fixed tun, and added water at 80degrees, however the mash had cooled so mush that the mash tun temo fell to about 70C... SO i ran this off, which half filled my boiler. For the second run, I topped up with 90C water, which fell to 80C in the tun. I now have a full boiler, with what seems ok wort, sweet and not tannic... but will it be chemically bollocks? Should i carry on regardless or chuck it and try again next weekend??

Cheers

[pas8280]

Rowang carry on it should be fine my first couple of AG suffered terribly from stuck mashes and on one brew the filter came away and like you because i had to empty the mash tun the temp of the mash dropped severely.
90c was a little too high for the second sparge but you will get drinkable beer.
I have a Porter in the boiler as i type this has been a pain to sparge the second runnings had two stuck sparges so had to blow up the pipe twice to free it this i put down to the fact i used a lot of speciality malts and that the pale malt was bag end with lots of flour.
I dont know what your filter is like in the tun but if your getting stuck sparges it might be worth having a rethink on the design mine is copper tube with slots on the under side and since adding extra slots not suffered with stuck sparges till now !!!!

[Rowang]

I didnt sparge at 90C, I added the hotter water to get my batch up to 80C to arrest the sugar enzymes...

Thinking il carry on, I got really good efficiency from my sparge.

My main problem, is the majority of the wort runoff never saw any hotter than 66C... only half got up to 80.. Carry on regardless... its got sugar, so there will be alcohol...

[a-slayer]

Just put a muslin bag over the copper filter and you will never get a stuck mash again.

[micmacmoc]

I bought one of those mash bags, youngs i think. I always place it over the mash filter, I don't get stuck mashes even when I'm doing wheat beers which used to drive me spare with sticking. I'm sure your beer will be amazing anyhow, beer looks after itself. I had to clear a stuck hop filter whilst running off from my boiler last week by blowing up the tap. I hope its not damaged, my experience is that even when things look really bad for your beer theres always a surprise waiting. Beer knows you know!

[a-slayer]

I bought one of those mash bags, youngs i think. I always place it over the mash filter, I don't get stuck mashes even when I'm doing wheat beers which used to drive me spare with sticking. I'm sure your beer will be amazing anyhow, beer looks after itself. I had to clear a stuck hop filter whilst running off from my boiler last week by blowing up the tap. I hope its not damaged, my experience is that even when things look really bad for your beer theres always a surprise waiting. Beer knows you know!

I put a bag over my hop filter in the boiler as well.

[micmacmoc]

Heh!
I will now!

[Horatio]

The beer will be fine as long as it was mashed within the correct temperature range. The sparge temperature will not matter that much being too cold; too hot could cause a few probs but not too cold. There are some brewers who have even sparged with cold water and had good beer from it. All you are doing is rinsing the newly converted sugars from the grains; the hot water helps the sweet wort to run out easier. The enzyme reactions will stop once the wort gets up to temperature in the boiler. The length of mash you did will also not have any detrimental effect; some people regularly mash overnight without issue.

Good luck with it and keep us all posted as to how it turns out.

[Hogarth]

Hi Rowang. I'm sure you'll be fine. When batch sparging, the temperature of the sparge water isn't a huge deal. As Horatio says, it's the mash temp that matters. On the other hand, a stuck sparge is a PITA. Are you using a falsie or a manifold? It may be that you may need more holes/slits.

[jubbo]

You just need to calm down.

The important thing is the mashing. Did you hold the mashing temp correct? Did you do the iodine test so that you can see if all the starch has turned into sugar? If so then your brew will be fine. Check your SG, find out how much sugar you have in there. Add a sugar to bring into your starting range and then you are good to go. I personally don't think the temp of the sparge is as important as some people make out. You are just rinsing the grains to get all the sugars into your wort.