batch VS. Fly sparge

I have been doing AG for just over 1 year and am not sure what is a better technic, batch or fly sparging. I do only fly and never thought about batch sparging. I normally hit around 60% extraction (Pre-boil). I see a lot of people staiting 75-85%. I hit all my mash temp and sparge with 175-180 degree water. I've tried mashout temps without much change. I use a 10 gallon Igloo cooler with a false bottom and always check my finnal runoff for SG. I do sometimes leave sugars at the end however, i will continue to collect the wort and add this to my boil as I'm boiling down due to my kettle size. I also adjust my caululations do to any volume change, any sugestions.

Thanks.

60% seems a bit low, are you sure your conversion is fine?
I do batch sparge simply because it is quicker, fly sparge is more intense sparging technique and it should extract more sugars. You can try with batch sparge but I am not sure it will increase your efficiency (it likely won't).

What about other parameters (crush size, pH, thickness, OG, dough balls..)?

There is great sheet on Kai's wiki,so you can calculate how many sugars you extract in every step and notice where the problem is:
http://braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php?title=Troubleshooting_Brewhouse_Efficiency

If you're interested to learn more about this topic:
http://braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php?title=Efficiency
http://braukaiser.com/download/Troester_NHC_2010_Efficiency.pdf (on bottom there is guide on how to use efficiency spreadsheet)

Can someone explain the difference? New to the whole all grain thing, trying to get into it.

would these methods of sparging differ if doing Biab?

I've never done BIAB, but have seen several tutorials on it. With BIAB there is no need for sparging because you mash in a bag and then, instead of lautering you lift the bag and grains out of the wort. Some people squeeze the bag and others swear against it because of possible tannin extraction. Sparging is part of lautering and since BIAB does not include lautering you wouldn't need it.

With fly sparging you slowly addd your sparge water to the lauter tun to keep a level of water above the grains while very slowly draining the wort from the tun. Most say it should take around an hour to do a full extraction with this method.

With batch sparging you drain all the water from your lauter tun and then pour in your sparge water, stir and then extract this running into the original wort. It is quicker and easier, but some feel it reduces your extract yield.

I try to fly-sparge, but with the mind-numbing boredom of trying to monitor flow I sometimes get impatient and end up with the equivalent of a batch sparge.

I batch sparge, bu I don't drain the grain bed dry. I leave it mostly covered. I only drain it dry at the end of the last sparge.

I'm trying to avoid air entrainment. It's probably not a big deal though, now that I think about it.

I'm new to AG brewing but to me your temps seem high. I'm usaully in the 158-168* for batch sparge

I've read that with Biab, you can "batch sparge" by removing the bag from the mash tun and then dunking the bag of grains in 170 degree water, I guess the other portion of the boil water, to rinse the grains. Then remove bag, let it drain, and add the wort from mash tun, then boil away.

This somewhat accurate?
How do you calculate efficiency? By original gravity pre-boil or post boil?

I just did my first partial mash BIAB. When I was done with the mash, I poured 170*f water over the grain bag, which I had in my strainer above my BK.

Hopefully that wasn't a stupid thing to do, but it made sense at the time. The water coming out wasn't clear, so I know I got something out of the grain. I just hope that it was a good, sweet, wort-y something and not a bad, bitter, tannin-y something.

anteup said:

I'm new to AG brewing but to me your temps seem high. I'm usaully in the 158-168* for batch sparge

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That's not the mash temp, he is talking mash out temps

I'd look into the grain crush. It always seems to be the culprit for low efficiency. I had crushed grain from two different LHBS's and two online retailers and all had efficiency in the low 60's. Got my own mill and I'm right at 75%. I batch sparge, by the way.

billingsbrew said:

I have been doing AG for just over 1 year and am not sure what is a better technic, batch or fly sparging. I do only fly and never thought about batch sparging. I normally hit around 60% extraction (Pre-boil). I see a lot of people staiting 75-85%. I hit all my mash temp and sparge with 175-180 degree water. I've tried mashout temps without much change. I use a 10 gallon Igloo cooler with a false bottom and always check my finnal runoff for SG. I do sometimes leave sugars at the end however, i will continue to collect the wort and add this to my boil as I'm boiling down due to my kettle size. I also adjust my caululations do to any volume change, any sugestions.

Thanks.

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There are variable that you may be leaving out of your equation to determine efficiency, such as deadspace in the mash tun. It shouldn't drop your percentage by a ton, but...

IMO you may have a crush issue. Crush probably has the most to do with efficiency in the average brewery. A finer crush will give a better yield, at the rick of a stuck sparge. I'd crush finer until you have a more decent efficiency, or until you start getting stuck sparges. If you order grain precrushed, try another store and see if your efficiency increases (or decreases!)

IMO it should not be hard to hit 70-80% either batch sparging or fly sparging. I mean, it should be very easy.

You may also want to double check the accuracy of your thermometer. If it's off by enough you may not be getting the conversion you should expect.

OP, read this:
http://hbd.org/cascade/dennybrew/

You'll find that there are people that swear by both methods. The best advice you'll get is to try both, see which one works for you. There are also hybrid methods that basically blend the two. I know an award-winning BJCP judge that uses a pitcher to pour sparge water over the grain bed while he's lautering, sort of an easy fly sparge method.

People will scream and shout and say he's not rinsing the bed evenly and he's causing channeling through the grain, but his beer tastes better than most others I've had, and he hits all of his numbers dead on, usually having 80%+ efficiency.

Take everything with a grain of salt, and try different methods to find what works for you.

freisste said:

I just did my first partial mash BIAB. When I was done with the mash, I poured 170*f water over the grain bag, which I had in my strainer above my BK.

Hopefully that wasn't a stupid thing to do, but it made sense at the time. The water coming out wasn't clear, so I know I got something out of the grain. I just hope that it was a good, sweet, wort-y something and not a bad, bitter, tannin-y something.

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No problem. You just did a modified version of sparging, and yes you likely extracted sugars you would've normally left in the grainbed. Ya done good!

For the OP, I mostly agree with Homercidal in that you may have a crush issue. You also need to make sure you stir like a brainwashed cult-member when you dough in and have no dough balls whatsoever, and that you do the same immediately after you add the sparge. If you're draining the tun, and then adding the sparge water, and not stirring thoroughly, you're leaving sugar behind.

I bought my own mill because I previously was buying pre-crushed grain from different retailers and my efficiency was all over the place. Crushing my own and stirring like crazy now gives me efficiency in the mid 80s. You'll have to vorlauf again after the sparge-stir happens, but you'll get much better extraction then if you don't stir the sparge water at all.

jbaysurfer said:

For the OP, I mostly agree with Homercidal in that you may have a crush issue. You also need to make sure you stir like a brainwashed cult-member when you dough in and have no dough balls whatsoever, and that you do the same immediately after you add the sparge. If you're draining the tun, and then adding the sparge water, and not stirring thoroughly, you're leaving sugar behind.

I bought my own mill because I previously was buying pre-crushed grain from different retailers and my efficiency was all over the place. Crushing my own and stirring like crazy now gives me efficiency in the mid 80s. You'll have to vorlauf again after the sparge-stir happens, but you'll get much better extraction then if you don't stir the sparge water at all.

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I also stir every 20 minutes during the mash. I've found it's increased my efficiency by as much as 10%.

TheZymurgist said:

I also stir every 20 minutes during the mash. I've found it's increased my efficiency by as much as 10%.

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I'm going to try this for mine. I have been stirring for dough-in and then leaving it alone for the rest of the mash cycle.

Wow, thanks for all the advice. It seems that the grain crush may be the culprit. Sounds like I need to purchase a crusher. At least then I would have control over any testing driffrent size grain crushes. What size, of grain crush, would anyone suggest to start with?

I batch sparge and use a corona mill. Usually crush grain quite fine and have to use rice hulls. Just got a Monster Mill MM2 2.0 and will set my gap pretty tight. I also like the work Kaiser did on increasing your mash thickness to 1.75-2.0 qt/lb. that helped my efficiency along with stirring every 20 minutes. For me once I started thinner mashes it helped bump my efficiency into the low 80's.

TheZymurgist said:

I also stir every 20 minutes during the mash. I've found it's increased my efficiency by as much as 10%.

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Me too, but there's loss of heat issues in a cooler setup so I kept my explanation simple. But no doubt, an occasional stir in addition to the dough in, pre sparge stirring can help free sugars up.

BigRedHopHead said:

I batch sparge and use a corona mill. Usually crush grain quite fine and have to use rice hulls. Just got a Monster Mill MM2 2.0 and will set my gap pretty tight. I also like the work Kaiser did on increasing your mash thickness to 1.75-2.0 qt/lb. that helped my efficiency along with stirring every 20 minutes. For me once I started thinner mashes it helped bump my efficiency into the low 80's.

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Just to clarify for people, he's actually talking about THINNER mashes, not thicker mashes...and I too have found this to be helpful.

I regularly get around 75% efficiency with store crushed grains and batch sparging. I add the strike water to the mash tun, stir in the grains, then continue stirring for over 5 minutes. I'll overshoot my temperature a bit so that I stir until the temperature reaches my desired mash temp. Then I close it up, but I come back and stir a couple more times during the mash, keeping an eye on the temperature. Then I vorlauf 2 liters and pour that back over the grains. I completely drain and collect all the first runnings in my brew kettle. Then I'll add sparge water to the mash tun at 168-170F, stir again for 5 minutes or more, let it settle for a bit, vorlauf 2 liters, and completely drain into the same kettle. I repeat this with the last of the water. I use the water volumes that BeerSmith2 gives me for the recipe, but I split my sparge water equally between the two sparges, and I drain it pretty quickly as well. I usually mash at night and boil in the morning, so I'll leave the valve open over night to make sure I get all the runnings.

It's been the stiring that has helped increase my efficiency the most. My home brew shop had no problems double milling or making a finer crush when I asked for it, but I've stopped asking for that because I'm happy with the efficiency I'm getting. I'll eventually get a mill, maybe.

Thanks, I was confused. I normally use 1.25 to 1.30 qts. water per pound of grain. So if I calculate 1.5 or even 1.75 qts. and do a mash out perhaps I could increase my extraction. As I said before I sometimes leave some sugars in my grain and have to do addional sparging to collect them and this leads to addional volume, that requires more boiling. And stiring a coupling of times during mashing is worth trying, can't loose much heat for just a quick stir.

I just brewed a porter.
Grain bill:
12Lbs MarisOtter
1 Lb. roasted barley
1 Lb. crystel 60
12 oz. chocolate malt
finnished with a 1.070
GU for this grain biil @ 100% would have been.
12 Lbs. 12x35 = 410
1 Lb. 1x32 = 32
1 Lb. 1x26 = 26
.75 Lb. .75x26 = 19.5
487.5 G.U.
Finnished with 70 x 6.25 gallons = 455 GU
455/487.5 = 93% extraction (sparge took 1.5 hours)

billingsbrew said:

I just brewed a porter.
Grain bill:
12Lbs MarisOtter
1 Lb. roasted barley
1 Lb. crystel 60
12 oz. chocolate malt
finnished with a 1.070
GU for this grain biil @ 100% would have been.
12 Lbs. 12x35 = 410
1 Lb. 1x32 = 32
1 Lb. 1x26 = 26
.75 Lb. .75x26 = 19.5
487.5 G.U.
Finnished with 70 x 6.25 gallons = 455 GU
455/487.5 = 93% extraction (sparge took 1.5 hours)

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That sounds delicious. What were your temps? What did you do for hops and hopping schedule.

My similar brew.

I used 1 oz. magnum 13.8 AAU 60 min.
1 oz. East Kent Golden 5.7 AAU 5 min.

mashed at 155

Wyeast 1318 London Ale III

This is a Bridgeport Porter clone recipie. The OG was to be 5.9 however, I chose to bump up the grain bill a bit. Of corse the hops as well. The original IBU was to be 35.