Fly sparging WO sparge arm?

Just something that occurred to me today while brewing:

If you fly sparged (in a cooler MLT) by running your tubing from the HLT to just under the surface of the mash water, what would be the downside to that?

It seems to me that the main goals in fly sparging are to maintain a 165°-170° temp and not disturb the grain bed. If you have a 168° mash and run 168° water to just below the surface of the mash, wouldn't you accomplish both? All sparge arms splash a little (disturbing the grain bed) and this would not......or am I crazy?

Having your HLT hose under the grain bed may not splash but i think it would create channeling which is a bigger concern, I believe.

But you are correct in that fly sparging is a continual flow from HLT to MT while draining to brew kettle. I do this very process and i dont have a "sparge arm" that spins in the conventional manner. My HLT hose just lays on the grainbed up against the MT wall and slowly, very slowly trickles in as the wort trickles out.

MNBugeater

Some people use an aluminum pie pan with lots of tiny holes punched in it, and place it on top of the grain bed. Anything that evenly distributes the flow of water and keeps it from channeling should do the trick.

For a few bucks and a little time, you can make one out of CPVC pretty easily...and it sounds cool too!




I get 84% eff. on average with this thing.

:cross:

If you have too much free copper and not enough to do some rainy afternoon you can make one of these. To answer your question, as long as you can somehow keep the water coming through the hose from creating a channel in the grain it will work just fine.

The splashing from a sparge arm is not enough to disturb the grain bed (at least mine isn't). The purpose of the sparge arm is to gently distribute the water evenly ofer the grain bed. The other solutions mentioned above would also do that, but discharging from a tube probably would cause channeling.

Not so sure about Brads solution. Reminds me of a Windows screen saver.

of course if you just like to stand around, you can shake the hose for the hour while you sparge.....

Or you can do the same thing with a sparge arm.....

ajf said:

...Not so sure about Brads solution. Reminds me of a Windows screen saver.

Click to expand...

Weighs quite a bit too.

Works like a champ though, I get a very soft drip across the grain bed very evenly. High 80's efficiency is hard to argue with too.

bradsul said:

Weighs quite a bit too.

Works like a champ though, I get a very soft drip across the grain bed very evenly. High 80's efficiency is hard to argue with too.

Click to expand...

Sorry, I'm jealous.
Can you build one like that for my round cooler?

-a.

spyk'd, couple of questions on that one, it's very similar to what i want to build.

1. holes or slits? how big?

2. what is the part number or DIY solution for the threaded input?

slim chillingsworth said:

spyk'd, couple of questions on that one, it's very similar to what i want to build.

1. holes or slits? how big?

2. what is the part number or DIY solution for the threaded input?

Click to expand...

I drilled 1/16" holes, off center so I have two rows of holes just about a quarter inch up each side. This causes the water to trickle out from each side and meet up on the middle of the bottom of the pipe to then drop into the mash tun; making for a more random sprinkle pattern. I get no channeling with this thing (and a false bottom). Also, nothing is glued, so I can take it all apart.

I used a 1/2" threaded to 1/2" barb brass piece and just drilled a hole in the CPVC tee and screwed into directly into the CPVC tee. There's not much pressure, so it doesn't leak. I do a 90 minute, fly sparge so the flow rate it pretty slow. Sounds like a gentle rain.

Hope this helps!

I found that having the top of the cooler open, pretty much ruins your chances of keeping the grain bed at anything above say 155 F, so here was my solution.

The Rig


The enclosed sparge arm:

Back in the day I would use a large dinner plate, placed on the top of the grain bed, and let my hose with sparge water run onto it. Running a single stream of water, with no baffle, will channel badly. It does not take much water pressure to bore a hole into your grain bed

Here is a good fly sparge:

http://s168.photobucket.com/albums/u189/PolTavern/BREWING/?action=view&current=DSCN0118.flv

That link is password-protected?