Fly sparging?

ok all, having done a few all grain batches, and I batch sparge, I'm looking at fly sparging. But i have a few ordering and time line questions.

I have read that fly sparging will give a better efficiency then batch sparging. i also plan on doing "dough in" process, read that in the beersmith book to get the efficiency up.

1. If I mash for 1 hour then do I also fly sparge for another?
2. while i fly sparge for that hour, what is happening in the BK? does the Wort just sit there?
3. what temp do i keep the BK at while Fly sparging?

Oh, my brain hurts... better have another beer..

Is there a good write up on Fly sparging?

ColeR-

My process:
Mash for 1 hour (or until conversion complete)
Vorlauf until no grain bits are in wort
Fly sparge for ~45 minutes

If it's a 5 gallon batch, the brew kettle just sits and collects wort. If it's a 10 gallon batch, I start to fire up the brew kettle once I have an 1-2 of wort. I do this because it takes a long time to bring 12.5 gallons of wort to full boil.

I've only fly sparged a few batches, and that was probably 10+ yrs ago, so I'm not an expert. But yeah, the sparging process does take some time so you don't compress the grain bed. Just keep the water level an inch or so above the top of the grains while your sparging and you'll be ok.

I fly sparge at the moment, but it's only because I have a system designed for it. When I was using a cooler to mash, I found that batch sparging was so much simpler and quicker, and the efficiency difference wasn't enough to make it worthwhile.

By all means give it a shot, and see what you think. My system recirculates wort during the mash, so the grain bed is pretty well set. As far as how long to fly sparge, basically, go slow enough that you don't compact the bed too much, but just keep going until the kettle is full. It takes as long as it takes, depending on how big a batch you're doing. For me, I seem to remember 5g batches taking 15 or 20 minutes or so.

+1 to starting the heat when the kettle has a few inches of wort in it.

Fly sparging isn't worth the effort on my manual ( no pumps) system. Few more efficiency points wont make ur beer taste better.

For fly sparging to give a higher yield than batch, you need the right equipment and technique.
With the wrong equipment or technique, fly sparging can give a much lower yield than batch sparging.
I started fly sparging with a 5g Rubbermaid cooler and false bottom back in 1993, making 5g batches. I'm sure my efficiency would have been all over the place for the first few batches, but I didn't know what efficiency was. Things quickly settled down and I was getting 75% brew-house efficiency consistently. For "normal" beers (OG 1.045 - 1.060), I needed to sparge for about 50 - 75 minutes. For larger beers (OG 1.061 -1.075), it would take 75 - 100 minutes to sparge and still get the 75% efficiency.
I'd mash for ~ 60 minutes, vorlauf, then sparge until I had collected the required pre-boil volume.
Then I tried doing a mash out be adding some boiling water at the end of the mash, and my efficiency immediately increased to 85%, but I had to be very careful not to over sparge especially with the lower gravity beers.
I tried batch sparging at this time, and found I could get 80% efficiency.
I then switched to a 10g cooler (again with false bottom), and with a batch sparge and no mash out, or a fly sparge with mash out, I got 80% efficiency, but I could sparge considerably faster (presumably because of the larger cross sectional area of the 10g MLT) with the fly sparge. I think the efficiency decrease in the case of the fly sparge is due to the decreased grain bed depth.

-a.

Thanks all for the replies,

Right now i use 3, 15.5 kegs and a single pump but i plan on getting a 2nd pump and at that point in time would like to try Fly sparging. I brew 10 gal batches, and i use a HERMs system.

So from the replies, i gather.

0. "dough in" at 100-120deg for 20 min.
1. mash for 1 hour at the temp required for the beer style.
2. fly sparge for 30 min to 1 hour. to get the right amount in the BK
3. while fly sparging, start up the burner for the BK at 2-3 gallons.
4. for the last gallon while sparging, so kick up the heat to about 168-170 deg.
4. continue on as normal....

am I missing anything?

does it hurt to start the boil of wort and add the hops to the BK while finishing up the Fly sparging?

Sorry for all the questions.

ColeR-

One common misconception is that it is necessary to keep just a small, consistent amount of water above the grain bed. No need to agonize on this. My SOP in my home setup is to mash in for 30-45 minutes (single infusion, length of mash depends on the beer I am making), vorlauf, start run off, get all sparge water in mash tun as quickly as possible without majorly disturbing the grain bed. Current setup, my sparge water is all in within 10 minutes of the start of runoff. Runoff for 1 hour. I am getting consistent 80% yields with my jury-rigged MLT.

I have done it this way in several commercial breweries, including Bell's (which is where I learned to brew in the first place). It works, and there is little headache. Easy, RDWHAHB