Batch Sparging: what's your setup like?

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
If you're referring to my setup, I can do batches of ,up to 19 pounds of grain. I do a lot of overnight mashes. At whatever temp i mash in at, it will hold Indefinitely.
 
Am I the only one who doesn't worry about aeration at this point? I mean after my mash and sparge are done I put my wort into my boiling kettle and it rolls around for 60+ minutes. Am I wrong in thinking that boiling forces most of the oxygen out of my wort anyway? Then, when the boil is done and I have chilled the wort and pitched the yeast I try my best to get as much aeration as possible to give the yeast a nice environment to do their thing. Am I completely off base here???

I never worry about aeration on the hot side. Only on the cold side.
 
Stay where you're at! Simple is better IMO. I've been around the world from where you're at, to a Brutus 10 setup, to a 50L Braumeister and back again. I love the simplicity of a basic system like you (and I once again) have. It makes great beer and there is much less to clean at the end of a brew day.

I've had a similar evolution in brewing to there and back again. Hard to beat the basics for fun and simplicity...
 
I am apartment AG brewing on an electric stove. Here's my process.

1. Heat strike water in 10 gal BK
2. Start mash in Igloo MLT and start heating mash out water in BK
3. Simultaneously start heating sparge water in a cheap lobster pot
4. Add mash out water and collect first runnings in BK
5. Start boiling first running in BK
6. Add sparge water from lobster pot, collect second runnings, and dump into BK on the stove.

EDIT: Although my BK does have a ball valve, I only use it for transferring the wort to the fermenter. I just dump the water into the MLT.

doing all grain in an apartment with an electric stove top!
I have no idea how in the hell you do that.
All I can say is bravo sir, bravo
 
agsetup.jpg
 
Normally I don't brew inside but it was really cold that day. I have another 8 gallon pot that I heat my sparge water in. I hook that to the pump and transfer the sparge water at a high rate into the mash tun via the sparge arm. Stir, recirculate and then drain to the bk.

image-79090708.jpg
 
Normally I don't brew inside but it was really cold that day. I have another 8 gallon pot that I heat my sparge water in. I hook that to the pump and transfer the sparge water at a high rate into the mash tun via the sparge arm. Stir, recirculate and then drain to the bk.

My fascination is endless for seeing other's setup! May I ask:

  1. Is your march pump just laying on the floor?
  2. Are you heating with propane indoors?
  3. Is that a BCS controller?

Looks like a nice, tight configuration!
:mug:
 
Brewfist said:
My fascination is endless for seeing other's setup! May I ask:


[*]Is your march pump just laying on the floor?
[*]Are you heating with propane indoors?
[*]Is that a BCS controller?


Looks like a nice, tight configuration!
:mug:

Yes it is just laying on the floor :). For a long time I didn't have anything to cover it, so I used longer hoses to keep it away from all the liquid. Since that picture, I have mounted it to the frame with a cover.

Nope. Even though it is a propane burner stand, I only boil with propane and I do that outside. My tap water gets to around 140-145 so I use electricity to heat up to strike temp which takes around 10 minutes.

It is not a BCS. It is a control box based on The Electric Brewery build.

Thanks. I wish I could mount the control panel to the end of the stand but I like having it away from liquid.
 
Normally I don't brew inside but it was really cold that day. I have another 8 gallon pot that I heat my sparge water in. I hook that to the pump and transfer the sparge water at a high rate into the mash tun via the sparge arm. Stir, recirculate and then drain to the bk.

HA. the only thing i thought of when I saw that picture was how quickly my wife would kill me if she came home and saw that...
 
Eddiebosox said:
HA. the only thing i thought of when I saw that picture was how quickly my wife would kill me if she came home and saw that...

It was REALLY cold out that day. Plus, she loves beer more than I do, so all I had to do was ask and clean up my mess. And get this, while I was brewing, she cleaned the whole house and didn't even ask me to help :)
 
This.



Nope, you're not off base at all.

Here's my setup:

img_2042-47340.jpg


The cooler usually sits on the sawhorses, but this pic was taken after I had cleaned it out and the boil had commenced.

This set up is great man haha. No need for a fancy blichmann gravity fed tier system, just attach everything to your kids basketball pole. I also have a corolla in the same color. Cheers.
 
It was REALLY cold out that day. Plus, she loves beer more than I do, so all I had to do was ask and clean up my mess. And get this, while I was brewing, she cleaned the whole house and didn't even ask me to help :)

Sounds like the definition of a "keeper" to me!
:mug:
 
WhiteDog87 said:
Sounds like the definition of a "keeper" to me!
:mug:

Well, I still boil with propane and my burner sucks. I need a new one and wanted to get the Blichmann floor burner and she shut me down.

I almost took the ring back and called off the wedding :)
 
Been Quite happy with this setup. Holds all my brew day gear. I don't have to disassemble anything and just roll it out of the way when not in use.

DSCN0149.jpg
 
Heh i use very similar system (look post #20) and love the benefits you mentioned
 
Where do you purchase that shelving? I've seen it before. Is it Home Depot? Is it sturdy?

Yes Costco, I picked mine up for $80 on sale and they were still that price when I was there last week, at least at my costco. It is quite sturdy, It does wiggle a bit when knocked, I have thought about cross bracing the back with some cables and turnbuckles but it is not necessary.
 
If you collect wort in a bucket, use a bottling bucket. This way you can slap some tubing on the spigot and gravity drain the wort into your kettle to avoid excessive aeration.

you are about to boil why would you be worried about air then you aregoing to stir to get oxygen before pitching yeast
 
My setup is a 10 gallon igloo cooler for a MLT. I made a copper manifold. My boil kettle is 8 gallons and it has a ball valve and a thermometer. I also collect the runnings in a bottling or other food grade bucket.

I heat the strike and sparge water up in the boil kettle on the propane burner. Since I recently learned how to solder copper pipe, I also made an attachment that screws into the ball valve, turns 45* down, and has about a 6" spout. This lets me safely drain hot water into a pitcher where I can pour the water into the cooler until it gets low enough to just pick up the kettle and dump the rest in.

By the time the kettle is empty, the bucket is almost full. I dump the bucket into the kettle and as soon as I've got the amount of wort I want, fire it up.

My sparging setup is a kinda ghetto. I use a spaghetti strainer that sits on top of my MLT. I line the strainer with a couple of paper towels and this helps keep the flow manageable, i.e. not too fast. One problem is that the manifold likes to disconnect from the ball valve on the inside. It's a mess when this happens. I try not to stir it too vigorously but I've got to come up with a better solution in the long run.
 
I just started AG brewing a few months ago and my setup is pretty simple. Like a lot of other guys, I tend to get equipment envy. All the pix of what others have done gets my little pea-brain buzzing with ideas to improve my equipment.

My 7 1/2 gal. brew kettle serves to heat my strike water. I use a big measuring cup to move the water to the tun. While the mash is going on I heat another 5 gallons or so in the smaller kettle. If I have it just a tad hot when the mash is finished it holds the heat OK while I drain my first runnings into the BK. Then the pitcher moves the sparge water to the tun for batch sparge. After its drained off the 5 gallon kettle gets filled with warm water and PBW for cleaning equipment.

The problem with this setup has been, as others have posted, I'm moving 5 - 7 gallons of really hot water, lifting and pouring it by hand. Also, I don't have the capability of doing anything but batch sparges or taking my mash up through rests. Would like to reassign the current cooler to hot liquor tank and add a second burner and kettle/mash tun so I could heat the mash. Also need to be able to drain the wort into buckets via a valve instead of lifting and pouring. A perfect upgrade would include a change-over to natural gas for my burners - much cheaper to run and no trips to get the tanks refilled!

AG Brew Setup 03-2013.jpg
 
Ramping up is fun and exciting and for a gadget guy like me, and most of us are, its fun and awsome to watch it come together. On that note it is expensive and time consuming, I have spent 3 months and countless dollars putting together the dream brew system and haven't brewed on it or my old 10 gallon system for that same period of time, and sometimes I look and my other system and think what am I doing.
Ok all that said if all works out I will use the system to open a Nano Brewery in (hopefully) the not too distant future.
"Puddlethumper" take it a piece at a time and you will get there with little $ and little time and have a perfectly managable system.
I think nowadays with the great access to great grain doing step mashes is overated, My opinion only.

20130302_170834.jpg
 
Ramping up is fun and exciting .... On that note it is expensive and time consuming, I have spent 3 months and countless dollars putting together the dream brew system ...

"Puddlethumper" take it a piece at a time and you will get there with little $ and little time and have a perfectly managable system.
I think nowadays with the great access to great grain doing step mashes is overated, My opinion only.

Thanks for your comments. You have a beautiful system! Hope it works as good for you as it looks!

I like to build stuff and don't mind spending a few bucks if I need to, but hate to spend the same money twice. So your suggestion to take it slow is good council. I like the Costco rack on wheels some of the guys here have built and I'm noodling the idea of something along those lines with natural gas burners under the mash tun and brew kettle.

Was watching a tv show about brewing the other evening and the guy from Budweiser said they brew with step mashes (he didn't call it that cause the show was aimed at non-brewers). Palmer describes it and gives a nod to its value in his book. Made me think it was probably a place I'll want to get to at some point. With that in mind I didn't want to "spend the same money twice" by making an Igloo cooler mash/lauter tun, but rather go ahead and spend the bucks on a decent SS kettle with ball valve, thermometer, etc.

Your thoughts on that move?
 
Thanks for your comments. You have a beautiful system! Hope it works as good for you as it looks!

I like to build stuff and don't mind spending a few bucks if I need to, but hate to spend the same money twice. So your suggestion to take it slow is good council. I like the Costco rack on wheels some of the guys here have built and I'm noodling the idea of something along those lines with natural gas burners under the mash tun and brew kettle.

Was watching a tv show about brewing the other evening and the guy from Budweiser said they brew with step mashes (he didn't call it that cause the show was aimed at non-brewers). Palmer describes it and gives a nod to its value in his book. Made me think it was probably a place I'll want to get to at some point. ith that in mind I didn't want to "spend the same money twice" by making an Igloo cooler mash/lauter tun, but rather go ahead and spend the bucks on a decent SS kettle with ball valve, thermometer, etc.

Your thoughts on that move?

There was a good kettle on Homebrew Finds that i saw today,
http://www.homebrewfinds.com/2013/03/85-gallon-stainless-kettle-2-ports-8999.html
paste the link above, its 89.99, you could buy the ball valve and thermometer pretty good deal. Whatever you do enjoy.
 
What kind of burners are you using? Propane, natural gas or electric?
I using propane and 32 jet, Jet burners. For my smaller system (15.5 gallon brew pot) I use the 12.5" banjo burner from Boyou classics, this burner is awsome and can be fitted for natural gas.
 
That is a smoking deal! Should serve as a brew kettle or mash tun. I gotta go count my shekels! :)
Yes HomeBrew Finds is bookmarked in my beer folder and I go there daily,
They have free books once in a while and ill grab those too.
 
I using propane and 32 jet, Jet burners. For my smaller system (15.5 gallon brew pot) I use the 12.5" banjo burner from Boyou classics, this burner is awsome and can be fitted for natural gas.

Great info. Fitment to natural gas seems to be an issue with most of the burners I've seen. I'm glad to know about that banjo.
 
Thanks for the link. That would make a really good brew kettle. They kinda ding it for the fitment of the lid so it might not be such a good fit as a mash/lauter tun.

I've about decided to install a weldless ball valve setup in my old and funky SS 5 gal. kettle. That, with the addition of another burner, would make a really good hot liquor tank. With the heat source it would hold the temp as long as I want. And that, with a little creative soldering of some copper pipe will open the door to fly sparges in my existing picnic cooler mash tun.

This combination of moves adds up to about $90 and gives me a good use for an otherwise marginally useful SS kettle + another burner to be available for various applications + the ability to do fly sparges.

Am I missing something here?
 
Puddlethumper said:
Thanks for the link. That would make a really good brew kettle. They kinda ding it for the fitment of the lid so it might not be such a good fit as a mash/lauter tun.

I've about decided to install a weldless ball valve setup in my old and funky SS 5 gal. kettle. That, with the addition of another burner, would make a really good hot liquor tank. With the heat source it would hold the temp as long as I want. And that, with a little creative soldering of some copper pipe will open the door to fly sparges in my existing picnic cooler mash tun.

This combination of moves adds up to about $90 and gives me a good use for an otherwise marginally useful SS kettle + another burner to be available for various applications + the ability to do fly sparges.

Am I missing something here?

Nope, you fixed it up to what you want for the price of the pot, there ya go.
 
Puddlethumper said:
So when are you thinking of opening your nano-brewery? And, btw, what the heck is a nano-brewery? :)

Down the road a ways that's for sure, a nano brewery in some people's opinion is under 5 barrels I myself would say under 3 barrels. No matter how you slice it it's not a money maker, just a stepping stone to something bigger.
 
I am looking forward to my first AG brew next week and had a question about batch sparging.

My setup is basically a 9gal brew kettle and a cooler mash tun. My question is: what is your hardware and process for batch sparging?

My initial thoughts was that I would be fine with a single kettle and MLT, but it seems I will need an extra vessel for either boiling water OR collecting the wort between batches.

I was thinking of using a plastic pail to collect the wort, but I would be worried about aerating the wort when putting it back in the BK. Now I am thinking of just getting another large kettle for boiling water, I was just hoping to avoid that expense.

Thoughts? What do you do?

Well I would not worry about areation too much you are going to boil all the oxygen out of it any way, and if you are worried just take care when transfering.
 
Back
Top