Yesterday’s brew session was going great, and I was transferring into the fermenter through my counterflow chiller when the flow stopped. My first thought was that it was done, but my gravity was right and I was short 2.5 gallons. I began to think I really screwed something up. I looked into the kettle, and sure enough there was no liquid left. It took a second glance to realize that the hop spider bag was massively swollen. The missing wort was all there! Apparently it didn’t like the ounce of ground mustard seed I threw in at flame-out. I was able to recover the wort by lifting the bag and letting the wort out through the top of the bag, where the filtering effect wasn’t clogged.
Hops, no problem, but apparently I have to rethink how I add ground spices.
