ScottT

Recipes 

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Scott

Primary: Empty

Secondary #2: Empty

Bottle Conditioning: Oatmeal Stout

Drinking from Keg: Ordinary Bitter, Kolsch

Drinking bottled: Brown Autumn Wee Heavy
Hefe Weizen
Peaches and Cream Weizen


"This is grain, which any fool can eat, but for which the Lord intended a more divine means of consumption... Beer!"
-Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves, Friar Tuck.
Next up: Hefe Weizen

Orfy

Recipes 

Thanks for the help and information.

So for a beginner, batch sparging seems to be the way to go. I have an insulated cooler so I need to add a spigot and some type of false bottom or filter.

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GET THE GOBLIN
Have a beer on me.

david_42

Recipes 

I cheat and use "5.2" pH stabilizer in both the boil and batch sparge water. I have naturally soft water here. At a tablespoon per 5 gallons, I suspect the jar will last four or five years.

ScottT

Recipes 

I've seen that stuff and have though about it. Does it really work? Have you tested the ph at the end of the sparge to make sure it does?

__________________
Scott

Primary: Empty

Secondary #2: Empty

Bottle Conditioning: Oatmeal Stout

Drinking from Keg: Ordinary Bitter, Kolsch

Drinking bottled: Brown Autumn Wee Heavy
Hefe Weizen
Peaches and Cream Weizen


"This is grain, which any fool can eat, but for which the Lord intended a more divine means of consumption... Beer!"
-Robin Hood, Prince of Thieves, Friar Tuck.
Next up: Hefe Weizen

Lost

Recipes 

A sparge arm is simply not necessary. Others have reported a significant temperature loss by using the arm as well. IMO it's not worth the effort or the money. Here's how I sparge:

Take a hose from the HLT and lay it in the middle of the grainbed. Adjust the flow from the HLT to match the outflow from the mash/lauter tun (1qt per min max).. set it and forget it. I do check the grainbed temp every 15 or 20 minutes and I also check to make sure I still have an inch or two of water over the grainbed at all times. I routinely hit 29 - 32 efficiency points.. while sparging certainly is not the only factor I do believe that it helps.

Baron von BeeGee

Recipes 

I was looking for the 5.2 stabilizer at my LHBS and couldn't find it, but walked out with lactic acid instead. My city water is ~7ph and a teaspoon of the lactic acid seems to get my mash water in the neighborhood (hard to read those damn strips). My efficiency has gone up a consistent 5 points since using it (65%->70% in Promash) which isn't huge, but is noteworthy. I suspect I can fine tune and raise it a few more points. I always forget to add it to my sparge water, so that could help, as well.

david_42

Recipes 

Hard to read is an understatement! When I started brewing in California, we would have Michael's girlfriend read the strips (she's an illistrator/artist). Neither he nor I could tell the differences.

5.2 is a buffering compound, so it can deal with a little acid, neutral water or a little base.

Rhoobarb

Recipes 

Yep, it works! I have very hard water with a pH of well over 7 - probably closer to 9. I almost always use filtered tap water, measure during the sparge and usually hit 5.0-5.2

__________________
"Brewing beer to save money makes as much sense as buying a boat to cut costs on a fish dinner." -- Tim French

>^,,^<
Rhoobarb

Drinking: La Fin de la Rue, Deep Chocolate Stout, Slam Dunkel, Smoked Snow Day Bock, Irish Wake Stout
Primary: Coffee Stout
Secondary: Lonely Pole Dubbel
Kegged: 77, "7 Guy's, One Barrel" Bourbon Porter
Up Next: WeddingFest, Mister Mertz's Bitter