Stuck Sparge solved by Emergency Brew in a Bag -- Again

I've been getting stuck sparges (I batch sparge) in my copper manifold in a few of my last several brews. Last summer, I blamed it on recipes that had spelt and corn grits, but today, it happened in a recipe of 100% 2-row basemalt. The grits clearly had clogged the manifold. The spelt had no husk material and was probably a big sticky. But the two row? I think it was a fluke. Just one of those things.

The technique I developed for dealing with this is to scoop out the mash into a paint strainer and strain into my kettle: Emergency Brew In a Bag. I then transfer the grains back to the mash tun for the second dose of sparge water. Today, the second runnings lautered like a charm during the second batch sparge, but the previous time, I had to repeat the scoop and E-BIAB. Anyhow, an emergency paint strainer in your toolbox might not be a bad item to keep around.

 

In the past, yes, and it didn't help. This time I restirred the mash and still had problems, so I went straight to the bag. Of course, I keep a supply of rice hulls on hands for adjunct brews, but never thought to use them in this simple mash. I think I'll adopt the use of a few handfuls of rice hulls for good measure, too.

 

Want to hear something pretty crazy? This operation -- shoveling out the grains, straining, shoveling back in, and doing the second sparge -- apparently raised my extraction efficiency considerably. I expected a petite saison but instead, have the real deal, OG 1.052. I calculated a 90% extraction efficiency. I'm usually in the low 70s% zone.

 

I get my grains crushed by the supplier, in this case, Midwest supplies, whose crush usually gives me 70-72% efficiency. As I indicated earlier, I had much higher efficiency on this batch, which could either be the crush or my goofy procedure. If the crush changed, than yes, you might be on to something.

My batch sparge procedure for over 100 batches has been to open the outlet part way during the vorlauf phase and then switch to full throttle during the transfer phase. Just letting her rip is the Denny Conn approach: http://byo.com/stories/item/448-cheap-and-easy-batch-sparging (see step 5 of Your First Batch Sparge). I have experienced 6 stuck sparges, and until today, they have all been in high adjunct beers, including two beers with grits, one with spelt, one with oats, and one with malted rye. Four of those were in 2012, but I have brewed beers with oats, rye, and wheat in the past and not had issues.

But I agree that this might not be random flukiness and welcome troubleshooting. One thing I did during my clean up phase today was to pay special attention to the copper manifold. I was thinking that it might be more gummed up than a simple rinse will take care of, so I used dental floss to clean out all the slots (there was some gummy residues, but it didn't prevent me from lautering during my second effort today). I'll be brewing again this weekend. It's another 100% two row batch, but I plan to use rice hulls this time.

 

I think all the mixing gets a lot of credit, as once I was able to get some flow, I drained fast, as per the denny conn batch sparge method.

 

Slots in the manifold are about the thickness of a dime and worked find for a 100 batches - that's not the problem. The crush is a possibility as I don't crush my grains myself. Midwest Supplies crushed the grains. They didn't look noticeably finer, although my efficiency shot up with this batch.