Is overspargeing possible

I'm brewing a old Brown dog ale right now. 8.5 lbs grain
I determined I need a total of 8.75 gallons of water total to brew with

I mashed with 3 gallons of water

Planning on 2 batch sparges of 2.875 gallons per sparge

That seems like a lot of sparge water for the small grain bill. Is it possible to oversparge, or will this work

Thanks

I am by no means an expert in this area, but my guess is that it isn't really possible to over-sparge. I think you will just end up with more water then necessary and it will take longer to boil down to your target gravity.

well technically i think you can start extracting some tanins if the OG falls below 1.10 on the output sparge

Wild Duk said:

I'm brewing a old Brown dog ale right now. 8.5 lbs grain
I determined I need a total of 8.75 gallons of water total to brew with

I mashed with 3 gallons of water

Planning on 2 batch sparges of 2.875 gallons per sparge

That seems like a lot of sparge water for the small grain bill. Is it possible to oversparge, or will this work

Thanks

Click to expand...

Yes it is possible to oversparge. What is the size of the batch? Three gallons for 8.5 lbs of grain is towards the high side but within the normal range. Assuming you have a five gallon batch you might get approximately 2 gallons from the original strike water and five gallons from the sparge runoff. Seven gallons to boil for a 5 gallon batch is not unreasonable.

BigEd said:

Yes it is possible to oversparge.

Click to expand...

+1
Like hell it is. Since I restricted sparging my beers are much better (or so it seems).

Absolutely its possible. Don't sparge runnings under 1.010 and keep and eye on your gravity or you can unnecessarily dilute your pre-wort boil.

It is very possible to over sparge.

I thought tannin extraction was solely a function of pH. If the pH rises above 5.4 then you start to risk oversparging and tannin extraction. Why would specific gravity alone extract tannins?

The pH rises as you wash the sugars out, thus when your gravity falls, your chances of extracting tannins increases. I've also read that tannin extraction is affected by temp--if your grainbed gets above 175, there's a greater risk of extraction.

Man, I am soooooo screwed!

Double batch sparge your chances of oversparging are nearly zero. It's more of a problem with fly sparging where the last runnings are high pH and low gravity.

brewgrl said:

The pH rises as you wash the sugars out, thus when your gravity falls, your chances of extracting tannins increases. I've also read that tannin extraction is affected by temp--if your grainbed gets above 175, there's a greater risk of extraction.

Click to expand...

See I always prepare 100% of my brew water (including sparging water) from RO/DI water that I add salt and chalk too. Its pH is 5.2 all by its lonesome, so in my case, provided I stay below 175F, I can't oversparge regardless of the sg of my final runnings.