A few questions about All Grain Brewing

[boboboland]

Hi All
These might seem like stupid questions but sur i'm gonna ask anyway.
I have done a few batches of all grain and they worked out great but I have a few questions.

1. When Sparging I Get It Very Hard To Get The Water To Pass Through The Grain Is This Normal?
2. After Sparging Does It Matter If There Are Bits Of Grain In The Wort?
3. After Boiling I Get Alot Of White Cloudy Stuff In My Fermenter Is This Normal?

Thanks To All In Advance

[Leann ull]

Can you post some pics of your pickup at bottom of mash tun as it sounds like a hardware problem
Do you use Beersmith or similar, it will tell you water rate additions
Lots of theories how to sparge, continuous, batch etc always like the batch covert myself, so drain fill drain fill etc
Try and avoid the bits by pulling 2-3 litres or until it runs fully clear and gently reintroduce that into top of mt
On that third one take a pic for us as well as not sure what white cloudy stuff would be unless you mean krausen?

[molc]

I think all of those could be related to your crush size. If the crush is very fine, lautering can be quite difficult as there is too much flour and not enough husk to make a proper filtering bed.

The white cloudly stuff after boil sounds like the cold break, which you normally leave behind after settling in the boil kettle and siphoning out your wort.

Pictured would help with all of this of course.

[Bubbles]

1. When Sparging I Get It Very Hard To Get The Water To Pass Through The Grain Is This Normal?

Ideally, you want the run-off to be free-flowing. First question is, do you buy crushed grain or crush it yourself? If you crush it yourself, what kind of grain mill do you have?

2. After Sparging Does It Matter If There Are Bits Of Grain In The Wort?

Yes, boiling bits of husk is not ideal, particularly if you're making a dark beer. Boiling husk material will affect clarity and will draw astringent flavours out.

3. After Boiling I Get Alot Of White Cloudy Stuff In My Fermenter Is This Normal?

Yes, it just means you're getting a lot of cold break material into the fermenter. It's best to minimise this if beer clarity is important to you, but a little cold break is actually supposed to be beneficial to the yeast. Some home brewers go to great lengths to minimise the amount of break in the wort (skimming hot break, siphoning the wort off the trub etc.).

[Pheeel]

When opening the tap for the MT open it slowly. If you open it too quickly the grain bed can compact which could explain 1

[LASERBOY147]

I think your entire difficulties are based in your Lautering process.  You really need to spend a long time when doing this as creating a tightly compacted grain bed will inevitably force you to somehow loosen up the grains,either by utensil or agitation which will definitely lead to unwanted starches and other fine grain cing through. The first run off of 2 litres should be done very very slowly and you won't have anything but crystal clear wort by the time you've done this twice or three times. The reason water isn't coming through is you've coated your grain as opposed to very gently settling by opening the run off tap slowly. I'm almost certain this is the cause for all 3 issues having made this error twice myself....

SLOWWWWLLLLLLY LAUTER ....😉

[Leann ull]

Although he hasn't been back since to take all our good advice I'm still convinced issue is around how he is picking up