stuck mash ?

[johnluc]

used my new GF controller today, great piece of kit, very impressed it works a dream, also used my new mill and crushed at 1.1ml it looked ok to me but all through the mash tthe wort was flooding over the overflow, if i lifted the o/flow it started to rise up untill it reached the o/flow so am assuming my crush was too fine, a stuck mash?, has any GF owners had this happen and do you concur that the problem was to do with the crush.

[john luc]

When you say overflow you mean the piece of pipe that you fit in after you push the plate down on to the grain bed. It is supposed to overflow that pipe so all is well.

[johnluc]

When you say overflow you mean the piece of pipe that you fit in after you push the plate down on to the grain bed. It is supposed to overflow that pipe so all is well.

Thanks for your reply john luc, yes the overflow inlet piece, i've now done about twelve brews on my GF and never had it overflow at such a fast rate for the whole duration of the mash, it normally stops overflowing after a short time into the mash.

[Fil]

When you say overflow you mean the piece of pipe that you fit in after you push the plate down on to the grain bed. It is supposed to overflow that pipe so all is well.

Thanks for your reply john luc, yes the overflow inlet piece, i've now done about twelve brews on my GF and never had it overflow at such a fast rate for the whole duration of the mash, it normally stops overflowing after a short time into the mash.

who said what when ???


after i realised you guys have fairly similar handles, i have to agree with johnluc in that usually the mash liquor filters down through the grain after an initial short period of flooding the top plate and draining down through the centre.

Was your OG on target or did it fall short of your expected efficiency? if so your possibly right about the crush,

[johnluc]

that's the thing, i hit my target og of 1055 and got an efficiency of 86.6%, when i started to sparge the top plate was about 2 or 3 inches off the grain bed and covered in crap, so cleaned that off, stirred up the grains a bit and sparged as normal then pumped out the wort and cleaned a load of crap that had settled on the base of the boiler, put wort back into boiler then finished as normal.

[john luc]

Ha haa if you work for star fleet and travel faster than the speed of light, t'is expected their would be 2 John Luc's eventually

[Dads_Ale]

Must say two John Luc's confused me for a while - why was the OP replying to his own question

Any way back to the GF

Last years I had one on trial and did two brews. As I was testing the kit and not my recipes I bought a couple of mash kits from HBC. The first brew day went perfectly with everything working as it should.
The second was very different in that during the mash the pump was making to gurgling noises. I put this down to a slow run off through the grains meaning the pump was running dry whilst trying to re-circulate the wort. I added some more water so as it went down the overflow pipe and kept the pump charged. I had to keep this up during the entire sparge period and the wort was not very clear (unlike the first brew that was crystal clear). I addition the sparge took ages.
Unfortunately I had to send the unit back so did not get chance to investigate further but I am pretty sure it was down to a finer crush on the second mash kit ingredients. Both were IPA kits so the grain bill should have been similar.