Any suggestions on my batch sparging?

So I made the venture into all grain in August, after roughly 3 years of brewing primarily partial mash.

Anyways, I elected to go with the 10gal drink cooler + bazooka screen method with batch sparging.

So far, with a low to medium gravity batch, I get around 75-78% efficiency. When I sparge, I do 2 roughly equal large sparges followed by a final adjustment in case I didn't hit boil volume.

The water I use for sparging is usually around 190F, sometimes getting down in the 180s. I dump roughly half my sparge volume in, stir it up thoroughly, wait about 20-30 secs, then vorlauf and drain. I then repeat again, and finally sparge any small amount remaining to reach boil volume. So far, I've noticed no ill effects on my beer, and have been enjoying the fruits of my labor.

Does anyone have any suggestions on my sparge methods? Is 190F too hot? I haven't noticed any weird flavors unless I've just made a bad recipe period, but I'm curious as to whether there's something I can fine tune there.

if you are going for a mash out temperature 190 is not too hot and as long as your ph level is above 5.5 or so.

eastoak said:

if you are going for a mash out temperature 190 is not too hot and as long as your ph level is above 5.5 or so.

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I haven't even gotten into water chemistry yet. That's one of the things I want to tackle soon, with Palmer's Water coming out in early April.

I, too, do a split batch sparge. All I know is that with the first half of the sparge you have to add enough water or hot enough water to raise the grain bed temp to around 170F. That is to stop activity. The second half of the sparge just has to be around 170F to maintain the temperature. I typically let me sparge sit for 10 minutes to make sure the temp is even and things are all washed up and completely converted.

I have read about the mash out process which is adding some boiling water prior to your sparge to raise the temp and kill activity. I figure by adding the first half of my sparge water at a higher temp, I am effectively doing the same thing. Either way it sounds like you are getting good numbers out of your system.

I do batch sparging. I pull off the first runnings (the mash wort), then add in my sparge water around 168 to 170F. Stir and and allow to rest for about ten minutes. Vorlauf and pull off the water to my Brew Kettle.