I think I need an HLT?

Or maybe I'm doing something wrong. In all grain brewing is the sparge supposed to be more water than the mash? For example, both beersmith and my recipe kit both told me I needed about 3 gallons to mash and 5 gallons to sparge. I ended up boiling off more water but the beer came out spot on the desired gravity in the end.

Anyways I was trying / learning to flysparge, and I realized I had no container to mash out into since I had to use my brew kettle to heat the 5 gallons of sparge water. I ended up using a 5 gallon carboy for this and a siphon hose to get the wort back into the kettle once I finished sparging.

So what do I buy next? A new larger brew kettle so i can use my 36qt bayou classic for my HLT? Maybe one with a value? Or maybe a 2 tier system? Something else?

I'd love to get me some gravity feed automatic sparging going on, even though this is only my second time doing it. Maybe I should get something that could later be used for this purpose, since that is probably ideal at this point, but what?

I need to make myself a sparge arm or maybe just get a collinder or something? I used a flower pot watering thing, but I don't think it was food grade plastic so probably not something I will want to repeat?

You could do a single batch sparge. Which is to heat the water for mash out in the kettle you have now then add it all to the cooler or mash tun and then run off into the kettle for the boil.
Don't put hot liquids into your carboys, they have been known to crack/shatter.

+1 to not putting hot wort into a glass carboy.

Buying another pot would be a logical expansion of your brewing rig. If money is a factor, however, you could just pick up a plastic bucket (or 2) to hold your first runnings and sparged wort. That's what I did until I finally was ready to invest in another pot to serve as a HLT.

+1 to plastic bucket.

You also might give batch sparging a try. Nothing wrong with fly sparging, but I'd experiment with a few different methods before you start sinking money into equipment.

I use a second rubbermaid cooler as a HLT - I heat in the kettle while mashing, then transfer to the HLT, and adjust the temperature. The cooler will hold the sparge temperature while fly-sparging over 15-30 minutes into the kettle. Shouldn't cost as much as a second kettle type pot, and you still only need one burner.

I just put a high temperature safe plastic container lid on top of the grain bed to protect while dispensing the sparge water from the HLT through a silicone hose - the water just seeps over the edge of the lid into the grain bed. A sparge arm is a future upgrade though.

I use a plastic bucket. They take up less space and are easier to put away than a brew rig. I use the same bucket for grain grinding.


I've used tin foil with a bunch of holes in on top of the grain bed.

I guess another bucket (probably more like 2 buckets) would work, do I have to worry about oxidation when I pour into the kettle though? I'm starting to think my brewpot might be too small since I have started to go down the all Grain road. Another cooler would work, but costs almost as much as a larger brew kettle and would require more temperature adjustment.

Not sure how to batch sparge with my equipment. I couldn't find a setting in beersmith for this. I was also wondering when doing a fly sparge do I want to use 160 deg water or higher such that it brings the remainder of water up to 160? 1/2 hour into my sparge my water in the tun was only 145 last time, I guess because I was sparging slower than required to heat up the remaining water, towards the end it hit 160 though.

1 bucket works with batch sparge. after you drain the tun to the bucket, you empty the kettle into the tun, then empty the bucket into the kettle, then empty the tun into the bucket again.


batch sparge in beersmith is in mash profile tab of the recipe. I use "Single Infusion, Light body, Batch sparge".
I also have checked "drain mash tun before sparging", and "Batch sparge using batches that fill %90 of mash tun"

Bobby M has a neat article on batch sparging :
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f36/all-grain-primer-article-videos-228699/

Most people are going to tell you to batch sparge, and that's good advice.

I still fly sparge most of the time because I wound up with an accidental HLT when I started to make higher-gravity beers. My original mash tun is just 5G. To make a 5G batch of bigger beers I had to step up to a 10G Mash Tun, giving me a 5G HLT in the process.

It was an extra equipment purchase that I hadn't intended, but now I feed between them with some tubing and do a slow, gravity-fed sparge. It's the reason I still fly sparge most of the time (because it's almost as easy as batch).