First All Grain brew-batch sparging question

I just finished my mash/lauter tun conversion and my first all-grain recipe (EdWort's Haus Pale Ale) ingredients are in the pantry, and I plan to brew on Friday. I read through the Palmer book as well as many posts on here, and I have a question. It looks like from the posts on here when people batch sparge, they drain the first runnings completely before adding the sparge water, whereas Palmer reccommends keeping the water one inch above the grain bed and adding the sparge water bit by bit. Am I misreading? Any help on whether I should drain the first runnings and then add all the sparge water or use the bit by bit approach would be greatly appreciated. Thanks, Worth

I drain my first runnings completely after a short vorlaf... then put a piece of aluminum foil on top of the grain bed and pour the sparge water slowly on top of that.

While I don't claim to be an expert, I routinely get 83 to 85% efficiency so I must be doing something right.

NOTE: I also rinse the grain bed with 140 degree water to get my pre-boil volume. I do this exactly the same as the sparge except the water is cooler. You'd be surprised at how much sugar comes out doing this. While I haven't made any attempt to measure it, the appearance of the "rinse water" is almost the same as the 2nd runnings. I think it accounts for a good bit of my high efficiency.

Sounds to me like what you state Palmer says is Fly Sparging. If you batch sparge, you drain, add sparge water, drain, repeat for how ever many times you need.

Tex...Why bother with the foil if you're batch sparging? Do you not stir after adding the sparge water anyway? There's no worry in disturbing the grain bed if you've already drained your first runnings.

I reread the section I was talking about, and Kiltbrewer, you were right. Thank you both for the help and advice.

Bobby_M wrote a primer that has become my bible for batch sparging. This really helped me out alot before my first all grain. Oddly enough I did the same Pale Ale from EdWort for my first batch.

One word of advise. The crush I got from my LHBS was not nearly fine enough. You may want to either see if they'll tighten the gap or run it twice if you're having the shop do your crush.

Here's Bobby_M's link:

http://www.suebob.com/brew/allgrain.htm

Thanks, I got it from Brewmasters Warehouse, and it sounds like from reading other posts on here that they crush pretty fine.

For 5.5 gallon batches of 1.052 beer, I'll vorlauf maybe .75 gallons then ladle that onto a perforated sheet of foil on top of my grain bed just like BigTexun indicated. Then drain all the wort in my kettle (should have about 2.25 gallons) at this point. Then I add 5 gallons of 185F water to my MLT, then wait 10 minutes, vorlauf again and drain the whole outfit. Gets me to 7.25gallons everytime. You can rince as often as you like though. One time seems to work well for me.