Proper batch sparging

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s2cmpugh

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Hey everyone. I need some help on proper batch sparging. On my most recent AG brew (2nd batch) I mashed at 154ish, then I added about 1.5 gallons of 170 water. After that I stirred for a minute, then drained off into my kettle. Then I added the remaining 170 water, stirred and let it rest for about 10 minutes.

Is this process correct?

How fast should I be lautering into the kettle, valve fully open, half way, etc.?

Thanks!
Cris
 
Thats about right except I drain the mash tun before adding the first sparge infusion.
Also, I dont let them sit for any length of time, but I recirculate until it runs clear again. I empty it at a fairly fast rate, as long as it still remains clear and no grains are getting sucked through you're good.
 
bruin_ale said:
Thats about right except I drain the mash tun before adding the first sparge infusion.
Click to expand...
+1.. It also tells you how much the grains absorbed and dead space so you can add just enough sparge water to hit your pre boil amount :mug:
 
Hmm I have always been fuzzy on this part myself. I have always added water hot enough to bring the whole mash to 168-170 deg, usually 198 deg sparge water additions. It definitely makes good beer doing it this way, but would like to hear which method is correct.
 
DeNomad said:
Hmm I have always been fuzzy on this part myself. I have always added water hot enough to bring the whole mash to 168-170 deg, usually 198 deg sparge water additions. It definitely makes good beer doing it this way, but would like to hear which method is correct.
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As with many things in brewing (and life), it's personal preference.
I mashout using my HERMS before I sparge, so the entire mash is already at 170. So I add 170 degree water because I don't need to raise the grain bed temps. Some people refuse to sparge any hotter than 170 because they're worried about astringency issues. Palmer has revised his statements on this and clarified that the grain bed shouldn't go over 170, but that the sparge water can be much hotter.
 
See www.dennybrew.com . I used to add additional water before running off the mash but these days I use a higher ration so I don't have to deal with the extra addition. I also always do only one sparge addition. IMO, if you beak the sparge into 2 additions, you're doing extra work for no appreciable gain.
 
I think I may switch to one next time also.. I measured the last of the runnings of my second sparge this weekend and it was really low to the point that I was concerned about tannin extraction. I'm sure it'll turn out fine, but maybe a single sparge would have been better. It was a pretty small beer too, so that probably didn't help (7.5lbs of grain)
 
Thanks for the suggestions everyone!

So what water temperature should I be adding into the mash tun when I batch sparge?

I started doing two additions to help thin out my mash before I did my first runnings. Should I just vorlouf then lauter OR, add some water, then vorlouf and lauter?

Thanks!
 
I heat my batch sparge water to 185-200 F. That gets my sparge temp to just under 170.

I just vorlauf, then runoff as my web page states.
 
Denny said:
See www.dennybrew.com . I used to add additional water before running off the mash but these days I use a higher ration so I don't have to deal with the extra addition. I also always do only one sparge addition. IMO, if you beak the sparge into 2 additions, you're doing extra work for no appreciable gain.
Click to expand...

So to make sure I understand correctly... Now you just increase your initial volume to about half pre-boil volume (+grain absorption) for the duration of the mash, instead of adding the additional water before mashing out?
 
hnsfeigel said:
So to make sure I understand correctly... Now you just increase your initial volume to about half pre-boil volume (+grain absorption) for the duration of the mash, instead of adding the additional water before mashing out?
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Yes, that's it. My normal mash ratio is 1.6-2 qt./lb. If the mash runoff and sparge runoff are within about a gal. of each other, it's close enough. You will not see an appreciable gain in efficiency by making them exactly equal.
 
spenghali said:
I'm not convinced. It just doesn't make sense intuitively or in my experience.
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Then do you own experiments and decide what's best for you.
So in your experience, have you found two sparges to get you much higher efficiency than one?
 
spenghali said:
I'm not convinced. It just doesn't make sense intuitively or in my experience.
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You're not convinced??? You think I'm lying to you? Sheesh, man, I don't wanna get all high horsey here, but I know a bit about batch sparging. When I do 2 sparges on a normal size batch (meaning that all the water would have fit in my cooler at once) I see an efficiency gain of 1-2%. I've batch sparged 415 batches and several dozen of those have been with 2 sparge additions as a test. Try it for yourself and see what happens. Then (and I know this is gonna sound ass hole-ish) google me and see what you think. And I'd love to hear about your own experience with it.
 
edmanster said:
BYO had a no sparge article in the november 2011 issue... That saves alot of time for just a couple more bucks in grain!
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Probably off-topic. But...

No sparge f'ing rocks.

I did a mild with no sparge and it came out great. If you're looking for a rock solid malt flavor on a low-alcohol beer, try this out. it made me very happy.
 
I know my method works, and I still call in batch sparging, though I may be wrong. I recirculate my mash via pump for the final 20 min of mashing then pump to my kettle to start heating. Meanwhile I pump in my sparge water generally about 170 deg and recirculate that after stirring for 5 min or till i'm ready (no more than 10 min max) then i pump in my kettle. this shortens my time to bring to a boil and raised my mash efficiency to able 85% on avg. (has been as high as 90% though) this is a little different than what others in this thread talk about but very similar.
 
+1 on 2 sparge additions adding nothing to efficiency. I've done it both ways, and the efficiency gain with 2 sparge additions has been no better than 3%. Is 3% worth the extra time and effort of splitting the sparge into 2 separate batches? In my opinion, and I'd assume most others, no. Besides, high efficiency on a homebrew scale is really not needed, just that you get consistent efficiency. Grain is cheap.. homebrew scales are small. When your efficiency gets too high, you start seeing tannin extraction - I've experienced this firsthand. I used to get 85ish % efficiency and always ended up with a drying, astringent finish in my beers. Since making some adjustments (mainly coarser grain crush), I've dialed it back down to 75ish % and am getting much better results.
 
I used to do double batch sparging then went to single batch sparge in an attempt to find ways to reduce the workload during brew day. I did not notice any appreciable difference in efficiency between single and double batch sparging. After single sparging for many, many brews, I am able to achieve around 75% efficiency for average to moderate ABV beers. For high gravity beers, it is around 70% or so. I am more than happy with these results and therefore I don't see any justification in my case for double batch sparging.

However, I have never been able to get my grain to 170 from my sparges. I guess my sparge water has not been hot enough (typically 180-185) and I fear of hitting the grain with near boiling water. I guess I should try hotter sparge water next time.
 
In my experience, I have to get the sparge water up to at least 190 to get the grain bed up to 167ish. I tend to go 185-190 as I'd rather end up getting a little under 170 than over. I went with 195-200 once and the grain bed hit 174ish - I picked up a noticeable astringency to the beer which was confirmed by 2 judges in a competition I entered with the beer (and this was after I made adjustments to lower my efficiency).. So I err on the side of caution now!
 
Don't worry about hotter sparge water if your pH is under control. If you couldn't use boiling water to sparge, you couldn't do decoction mashes, either. The reason both will work is that the pH is low. ;pH is a much more important concern in tannin extraction than temp.
 
spenghali said:
I'm not convinced. It just doesn't make sense intuitively or in my experience.
Click to expand...

Denny said:
Then (and I know this is gonna sound ass hole-ish) google me and see what you think. And I'd love to hear about your own experience with it.
Click to expand...


Don't sweat it, I would love to pull the Denny Conn card on a tool like that.
 
Wait a minute, I listened to Denny on Basic Brewing radio! Good show on batch sparging btw.

Also my take on 2 sparges: I did it when I was figuring my system out. Now that I know how much volume I lose in the MLT I do 1 sparge to save time, usually. Efficiency is darned close, I am always within .002 of my target OG. No sparge sounds interesting for lower OG beers.
 
So to clarify: Mash for x amount of time, collect, then add sparge water to get grain up to 170, stir, sit for 5, then collect?
 
I also stick with a single batch sparge. I'm targeting 75% efficiency with my recipes. I've read that pushing your efficiency can result in a lesser quality beer. I'd rather have the best tasting beer I can than save a couple of bucks on grain. Just my opinion.
 
Darwin18 said:
I also stick with a single batch sparge. I'm targeting 75% efficiency with my recipes. I've read that pushing your efficiency can result in a lesser quality beer. I'd rather have the best tasting beer I can than save a couple of bucks on grain. Just my opinion.
Click to expand...

I don't know how true that really is. I regularly get in the low 80s to as high as 90% and I don't detect any problems with the beer. Sierra Nevada tells me they get close to 100%.
 
I agree with you Denny, except doesn't SN use a slightly different method? From what I understand, I thought big breweries like them basically grind their malt to powder and have special filters to get it out.
 
Their crush is pretty fine, but it didn't look like powder. I also didn't see any mash filters, nor did anyone mention them.
 
AR-Josh said:
So you don't need to let the sparge sit for any time? Just stir it up and vorlauf?
Click to expand...

Exactly! That's one of the great things about batch sparging.

Continuous sparging (fly sparging) relies on the property of diffusion so that the water "pulls" out the sugars during the slow sparge, as sugars will diffuse to the liquid with the lower gravity as it seeks equilibrium.

In batch sparging, you just stir like you mean it. And then stir some more. That puts the sugars in the liquid, so you just vorlauf and let 'er rip.
 

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