Golden Promise Mash Problems - From Crushing?

[smp465]

I mashed some GP on Sunday for a TTL. Temperatures, ratios, water, and all that were correct/usual, but the run-off just would not clear. I'm not talking about a bit of haze here, i'm talking pea soup! Thick grey/brown runnings (so not quite pea soup). When i tried to run off a larger volume to see if it would eventually clear the whole thing just clogged up, and wouldn't clear/resume running no matter what i did. The grain bed was also very "spongy" feeling when i scooped out a handful to look at it.

Any ideas? I must say, i have a bit of the grain batch left over, and i think it looks way too crushed compared to other pale malts i have. Could that simply be the problem here? There must be people on here who crush their own grain (i don't) and overdone it on some occasion? What were the results?

[Aleman]

Golden promise has the reputation of not clearing during the run off and recirculation . . . but produces perfectly clear beer though

[smp465]

Thanks Aleman, i did continue with the brew, but chose to use up some older hops instead of opening fresh ones for a TTL...just in case it was going to hit the drain! It may well turn out to be a cracking brew, who knows?

I have used GP twice before, wasn't anything like described here. I am not exaggerating when i say the runnings were grey slop! I wish i had a working camera, then i could have, and would have, posted pictures, and could have shown you what the starting grain looked like. Out of interest, what are the consequences of over-crushed grain, if any? Am i basically barking up the wrong tree there?

[yashicamat]

I find that the malt I use (Pearl) can be a bit like that sometimes. I only managed to get it to totally clear up if I recirculate about 5 litres of wort. In fact, I only got a properly clear sparge for the first time when I used my new HLT setup at the weekend, which feeds the liquor into the tun very gently. When I used MO (for my first AG brew) I didn't have this issue . . .

[NickK]

Seems to clear and remain unclogged with flour if the grain bed is deeper. I've had a 2.7kg GP clog solid whereas a 4.7Kg GP/2kg other malts maintained a good drainage (I also put a spacer under the manifold in the mashtun.

[alefric]

Your GP could have been over crushed as i've used it quite a lot and not had these problems and ended up with as Aleman said a clear beer......wait and see what it's like at the drinking stage .

Andrew

[booldawg]

I've never witnessed a clear re-circ. TBH I notice by the time the 2nd batch is running off its fairly clear. God knows how many litres it'll take to re-circ until its clear; maybe I'll try that out one day!

On the upside I've never had a beer that didnt clear (given time) Maybe my beers will be more 'polished' if I did perservere with the re-circulating until its truly running clear. I guess that means re-circing about 15 litres of wort