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So we've been pushing the envelope with our NE IPAs and decided to try hitting the oats a bit harder. Made a grist of 51% pale, 31% flaked oats, 9% Golden Naked Oats and 9% flaked barley. Run-off was terrible, but that's to be expected. We added a ton of rice hulls and reset the bed with another vorlauf twice before getting a decent lauter. We came in a touch low on expected efficiency, but extraction was not too far out of the ordinary. This was a bit of a surprise, since we only had about 1.5 lbs of hops per bbl in the kettle. Backflushed the chiller, restarted, clogged the chiller again. Repeated 4 times before getting it all into the fermenter.
We typically get problems with clogging the heat ex around 2 lbs per bbl hopping in the kettle, and clogging can typically be resolved with a single backflush if it's an issue. After the first clog, I peeked into the kettle and the wort had a skin on it that was thick enough to collect with a spoon. It was so sticky that it took a good 30 seconds with really hot water to wash off my hands after touching a sample. After knock out finally finished up, a sample from the fermenter was like ropey beer in a pedio sick phase. Maybe even more viscous than that. Fermentation has gone from 15.7*P to 4.5*P in 2 days, so that's nice, but the beer is still thick as snot. Truly, the weirdest beer I've even made.
In addition to the viscosity issue, it is intensely bitter. I'm assuming that the thickness of it prevented the hops and trub in the kettle from ever precipitating, which then clogged the heat ex. Presumably, a large percentage of the hops in the kettle made it through the heat ex into the FV, since samples run through a coffee filter (which takes at least a half hour for about an ounce to pass through) leaves hop residue all over the filter. I decided to go ahead and dry hop it today, ready to eat a big goose egg if I can't work something out with the end results.
After a couple conversations, the only good theory I have at the moment is that there just wasn't enough enzymatic action to break down starches. This seems a little dubious because we've made beers with similar grain bills before and things have turned out great. We just did 50% pale, 24% flaked oats, 9% flaked barley, 9% flaked wheat, 7% Golden Naked Oats, and 1% crystal with no problems at all. Is there something peculiar about the particular blend of grist that we used that would create a glucanous snot wort? Maybe we just moved into a new crop year and something dramatic just changed? Perhaps the additional stirring from all the stuck mashes made the wort far more glucanous than it would naturally be in a typical mash?
Thinking about tossing in some beta-glucanase to see if it will thin it out. Curious to see how the dry hop changes it, if perhaps any enzymes on the hops help at all, though this would likely take forever. If all else fails, might try blending it with a super dry IPA or tossing it in barrels to break down over time.
Super baffled by this one. Has anyone seen anything like this or have any insight as to what happened here?
We typically get problems with clogging the heat ex around 2 lbs per bbl hopping in the kettle, and clogging can typically be resolved with a single backflush if it's an issue. After the first clog, I peeked into the kettle and the wort had a skin on it that was thick enough to collect with a spoon. It was so sticky that it took a good 30 seconds with really hot water to wash off my hands after touching a sample. After knock out finally finished up, a sample from the fermenter was like ropey beer in a pedio sick phase. Maybe even more viscous than that. Fermentation has gone from 15.7*P to 4.5*P in 2 days, so that's nice, but the beer is still thick as snot. Truly, the weirdest beer I've even made.
In addition to the viscosity issue, it is intensely bitter. I'm assuming that the thickness of it prevented the hops and trub in the kettle from ever precipitating, which then clogged the heat ex. Presumably, a large percentage of the hops in the kettle made it through the heat ex into the FV, since samples run through a coffee filter (which takes at least a half hour for about an ounce to pass through) leaves hop residue all over the filter. I decided to go ahead and dry hop it today, ready to eat a big goose egg if I can't work something out with the end results.
After a couple conversations, the only good theory I have at the moment is that there just wasn't enough enzymatic action to break down starches. This seems a little dubious because we've made beers with similar grain bills before and things have turned out great. We just did 50% pale, 24% flaked oats, 9% flaked barley, 9% flaked wheat, 7% Golden Naked Oats, and 1% crystal with no problems at all. Is there something peculiar about the particular blend of grist that we used that would create a glucanous snot wort? Maybe we just moved into a new crop year and something dramatic just changed? Perhaps the additional stirring from all the stuck mashes made the wort far more glucanous than it would naturally be in a typical mash?
Thinking about tossing in some beta-glucanase to see if it will thin it out. Curious to see how the dry hop changes it, if perhaps any enzymes on the hops help at all, though this would likely take forever. If all else fails, might try blending it with a super dry IPA or tossing it in barrels to break down over time.
Super baffled by this one. Has anyone seen anything like this or have any insight as to what happened here?
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