Suspended Solids in wort post boil

[abdominousabel]

So after my mash, my preboiled wort looks like a nice black tea, just colored water when I’m taking the SG reading. I noticed however after the boil, the whirfloc addition, and chilling(ice bath) my wort was very murky and had a lot of suspended solids. I was wondering is this proteins or does this come from the hops? They kinda looked like jelly fish, I know it is not an infection of any kind, it has to be due to hot break and cold break.

I took my post boil OG reading and it was 1.098 which was way too high. The wort looked as if I had oatmeal sitting in water for a long time then blended. It Had all those suspended solids in it and I know that had to have skewed my numbers. I used calculators after and found my OG Is more accurately .07~.08

I used 1lb of crystal 40L 15lb 2-Row with 41% efficiency so I added 3lb of DME pils

Any idea what the suspended solids are in my wort?

 

[corax]

It's almost certainly hot break and cold break material, which is denatured protein. Kind of like the eggs in egg-drop soup. It might be throwing off your gravity readings, but you might also want to confirm that you're using the accurate post-boil volume when calculating your expected OG.

 

[GoeHaarden]

Would egg drop soup be a better description? If so, then it's normal hot break/cold break/hop material and you shouldn't worry. A picture would be helpful.

I would be more worried about why your efficiency is 41%. Something is sorely wrong. What's your mash temp? Who is crushing your grain? How are you checking your gravity?

 

[abdominousabel]

Would egg drop soup be a better description? If so, then it's normal hot break/cold break/hop material and you shouldn't worry. A picture would be helpful.

I would be more worried about why your efficiency is 41%. Something is sorely wrong. What's your mash temp? Who is crushing your grain? How are you checking your gravity?

Yeah that’s exactly what it looks like, I had a feeling it was normal.

I purchase a grain mill and had it set at 0.045in gap and it was milling well and then the grains stopped going through. The roller connected to the motor was rotating and adjustable roller wasn’t. The grains were just dancing around the gap so I had to reduce the gap so that the second roller would engage, and then the grains stopped going through again so I had to repeat the process. The gap was wildly adjusted from an estimate of 0.03~0.05 +/- 0.005.

I’m certain that messed up my efficiency but I don’t know if the fine grains were the problem or the non-fine grains were, or both.

 

[abdominousabel]

It's almost certainly hot break and cold break material, which is denatured protein. Kind of like the eggs in egg-drop soup. It might be throwing off your gravity readings, but you might also want to confirm that you're using the accurate post-boil volume when calculating your expected OG.

I might had had a lot of extremely fine grains in my wort. I think that through my readings? Possibly

 

[GoeHaarden]

A finer crush usually increases efficiency, so as long as you cracked the husks then your mash conversion would have been a lot better. I'm guessing you had a lot that weren't cracked open leading to your problem. It's kind of like it wasn't in there in the first place. What's your typical efficiency?

Also, I'd say it's unlikely that fine grain in your wort tainted your gravity reading to that extreme. Unless it was just caked on your hydrometer and you didn't spin it. How are you checking gravity anyways?

 

[abdominousabel]

I borrowed the mash tun which usually yields 75%+ efficiency with grains crushed at the LHBS, but this time I tried out a mill I bought for the first time which likely threw that off. Also I’m new at AG

Ohh... spinning it is actually a real protocol? I thought it was a myth, whoops. I didn’t spin the hydrometer I just place it in the hydrometer cylinder and take my reading from there.

 

[GoeHaarden]

Ohh... spinning it is actually a real protocol? I thought it was a myth, whoops. I didn’t spin the hydrometer I just place it in the hydrometer cylinder and take my reading from there.

Well, technically I think spinning it is to release any bubbles stuck to the hydrometer. However, if it's covered in grain particles I'd say you might want to spin it or the extra weight from the grain might get you a lower reading. I'd say a few points though, nothing too extreme as what you seem to be experiencing. I'd bet your mill/crush is to blame though...