Although I fly sparge and have not had a problem with, my friend batch sparges and last brew
got a lot of “stuck” situations. MY problem is that for my brew today, I’m having to use the same
brew store that he uses - and I’m thinking that this guy is grinding wrong.
My bag seems to have quite a lot of “dust” in it and I’m wondering if before I start my mash if I
should strain that out. Would I be losing important sugars, or would I be served well by straining
it out before I start?
Hard to say. You’re friend could be draining too quickly, but I’d say that removing dust would just be asking for more problems. If it is significant, them there are also significant sugars in there. Rice hulls would be good insurance if you have them. Or just sparge nice and slow.
That “dust” is where all the good stuff is…you definitely don’t want to strain it out. I crush very fine and get a lot of that, but I’ve never had a stuck runoff. A lot of it has to do with the design of your system.
I have to slow mine down, and possibly the hot water heater braid is too large compared to a smaller diameter braid. Regardless, if your friend has problems with sticky mashes he needs to slow his lauter down or continue to suffer the problem. It’s not a big deal.
If your bro has a lot of flour he might try backing off a little on the gap of his mill. This should help and might even improve his efficiency a bit.
Based on response here, I mashed with entire bag of grain (yes, ground at the HBS). Result for me was okay. I got stuck a couple of times fly-sparging, but cleared it only by increasing the flow a little. My OG was spot on (1.061) the expected.
The only out-of-ordinary thing is that I had a lot more clearing to do in the funnel to carboy process. Also, the “stuff” on top (krausen?) of the wort is like a coffee-colored meringue on top of a pie. Never seen the look of this, but I’ve never brewed with Munich malt before either. Looks like it is already starting to drop, though. The trub at the bottom is already nearly an inch thick. If I don’t secondary, it is going to be interesting trying to siphon without picking all this up - if the top adds to the bottom trub. Wheeee…