help me please with batch sparging!

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earlytimes

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I'm doing my first all grain today - an Anchor Porter clone. It has about 13.5lbs. of grain for this 5 gallon recipie. I was going to mash with 16 quarts and I plan on batch sparging. For 7 gallons into the kettle, I figure this leaves about 4.8 gallons to sparge with. Should I:

A) drain all the sweet wort from the MLT into the kettle before adding any sparge water, then do two sparges of 2.4 gallons each

B) add about 1.2 gallons to the MLT, then drain, then add the remaining 3.6 gallons of sparge water and drain again.

C) something else???

I thought I had this figured out before hand, but I'm starting to doubt myself...:eek:

Thanks!!
 
Thank you!

I was originally thinking I shoulqd do A, but then I thought two sparges with only 2.4 gallons of water would not be enough water for each, so I started to lean towards B. Thanks for reassuring me!:mug:
 
I have beersmith. I guess I don't know how to use it because it's not telling me what to do.:confused: Where does it say how to do this?

You have to click on Preview brewsheet on the top right side. However Beersmith doesnt tell you to use two equal size batches and it will tell you a lower temp. When I followed Beersmiths instructions for sparging I got crappy efficiency.
 
I am an IT professional, and consider myself pretty damn computer literate and I cant figure out brewsmith.

I guess it's time to RTFM..
 
You have to build your equipment profile including the plastic cooler mash tun (if that's what you're using). Select the correct mash profile. The brew sheet tells you exactly what to do. Strike temp, batch size and temp too.
 
update: I batch sparged using option A and at the end of the day, I ended up with a brewhouse efficiency of close to 79%!!!:rockin: I guess AHS does a pretty good job with their crush. (So much for convincing SWMBO I need that new barley crusher)

All went well for my first all-grain brew. I hit all my temperatures spot on and actually ended up a couple points above the target S.G. The only downside was from getting the equipment out to cleaning it up and putting it back away, it was a little over 6 hours! Hopefully I can trim almost an hour off of that next time...
 
Yes, Beersmith is definitely worth the money! I think there is an option on the mash profile detail button that lets you choosed equal size batch sparges. It will give you a low sparge temp of like 168. You can go back in and up it to whatever you want. Took me a while to get the program figured out, still learning it. Lots of handy features in there once you find em.
 
c) don't sparge with more water than you mashed with. Alternately, sparge with more water than you mashed with and brag about your efficiency.
 
That sounds like a pretty arbitrary rule of thumb and it fails when the intended OG is under 1.045 or so. I just did a 1.038 OG beer and my strike was 5.5 gal (1.6qt/lb ratio) and my sparge to hit preboil was 8.5 gallons. I assure you I wasn't choosing that strike/sparge ratio for any bragging purposes. I suppose I could have gone to a 2qt/lb ratio but it's thinner than I prefer to mash.

Are you making a claim about suffering wort quality at high efficiencies? My sparge runnings were 1.016 and in safe PH range. Did I ruin my beer?
 
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