Lauterhexe stuck in HERMS

Troubleshooting
1

Last saturday I did my second brew since I upgraded my HERMS with lauterhexe filter to 70 liter pans. The first time the process went great except for a low efficiency, only 50%. To compensate for that this time I added more grain and becasue this beer is supposed to be stronger it was a lot of extra grain, 20 kg in total but it all fitted in the pans. (3.2 liters / kg grain)
I added the grain in the mashing pan and pumped the water on top of the grain. After a couple of minutes I stirred it all the prevent ‘dough balls’ . The stirring was hard work because it was a lot of grain :slight_smile:. After I let it settle for about 5 minutes.
Then I started the pump and it took just a few minutes and the flow was nearly zero. The grain at the bottom of the pan was super compact and no water flowed through.
So the whole mashing process we stirred like hell to get just a bit of flow to heat the mashing pan. We did find some dough balls while stirring.

Upside of this story is that because we stirred the hole process we got a really good efficiency, recipe was SG of 1080 and we got 1120 :sweat_smile: This is going to be a strong chouffe!

What do you guys think how to solve this issue?

  • pump at lower speed
  • add grain bit by bit to the water so it mixes really well and prevent dough balls
  • add filter bottom
  • ??
2

Here are some tips:

  • use a roller mill at about 1.2mm
  • with the lauterhexe, use our claw to create smaller bends
  • add grain on top of water so smaller bits float to top
  • don’t pump for the first 10 min to let the bed settle and you don’t suck the small particles into the filter
  • try wet milling (should be called damp)
3

Thanks for the tips. I tried them last weekend and it worked like a charm!!
I didn’t have the lauterhexe claw so I improvised for now. Is it possible to order one of those claws without a lauterhexe?

4

Good to hear!

Yep, they can be ordered separately. There is a small issue with the webshop that it puts the lauterhexe out of stock all the time, while it is not. I’ll try to get that fixed tomorrow.