Newest Threads

Cos · 09-13-2007, 04:30 AM

Beersmith tells me to sparge with 3.5 gal of water, but I'm using a 2 gallon cooler to do my PM.

Should I sparge with 2 rounds 1.75 gal each? How long do I hold each sparge?

Or should I just pour in 3.5 gal and drain at the same time? I thought I reat a post that said to hold the sparge 15 minutes before draining.

**Jaybird** · 09-13-2007, 04:57 AM

you must be batch sparging... I would just do a fly sparge and your home free
JJ

Iordz · 09-13-2007, 05:02 AM

I assume you are conducting a batch sparge. In that case you should probably do two rounds of 1.75gal. Infuse the water with the grain and let it sit for 10min, vorlauf and lauter. I don't think you have to wait for the sparge water, however I like to stir the mash and let it sit for around 10-15min before I lauter.

perry · 09-13-2007, 05:34 AM

What jaybird said. Better efficiency, better clarity, more experience toward building better beers. -p

Cos · 09-13-2007, 06:02 AM

I assume fly sparging just means to pour in the full amount of sparge water and let it drain off immediately.

JnJ · 09-13-2007, 10:30 AM

What Iordz said. Just cut the sparge amount in half and sparge twice.

**Lil' Sparky** · 09-13-2007, 11:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cos

I assume fly sparging just means to pour in the full amount of sparge water and let it drain off immediately.

Fly sparging is slowly adding (sprinkling usually) the sparge water to your MLT at the same rate that you are slowly draining it.

If you're already comfortable with batch sparging I recommend you just stick with that but split the sparge as you said. You should actually bump your effeciency a little that way. You can let it rest for a few minutes after you add your sparge water, but 15 mins is really overkill. Stir, let sit briefly, vorlauf, and drain. Some people don't even stir with the same results.

Cheers

Thalon · 09-13-2007, 12:12 PM

I found myself running into the same guess-and-check scenario when using BeerSmith. I emailed the maker of it suggesting he add a feature in there like a check box that would lock the "mash tun volume required" field to the capacity listed in the equipment section. The idea is to force the mash parameters to be adjusted for you in situations like that. For instance, it would know your MLT is only 2 gallons so it wouldn't even try to tell you to sparge with 3.5 gallons at a time, it would tell you that you need to do a split sparge with 1.75 each pass. He emailed me back saying he'd think about adding it to the next release. I would highly recommend you email him too (I think there's a feedback option in the Help menu) and describe your situation and ask for the same feature. The more feedback he gets on this, the more likely it will be that he'll program it in there.

**Lil' Sparky** · 09-13-2007, 12:22 PM

Now that I think about it more, the REAL solution is to get a 10+ gal MLT and go full AG. That'll solve your dilemma.

Cos · 09-13-2007, 12:43 PM

That feature has been added to beersmith. After I set my mash tun volume to 2 gallons, it now says to sparge in 3 rounds 1.25 each, but doesn't give a time to hold.

It still says to mash out with 2 quarts, which I can't do in my mt when it's already full, so I'll dump my first wort into 2 quarts in my brewpot, and then sparge in my mt.