Sparge volume too big for LT

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Cos

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Beersmith tells me to sparge with 3.5 gal of water, but I'm using a 2 gallon cooler to do my PM.

Should I sparge with 2 rounds 1.75 gal each? How long do I hold each sparge?

Or should I just pour in 3.5 gal and drain at the same time? I thought I reat a post that said to hold the sparge 15 minutes before draining.
 
I assume you are conducting a batch sparge. In that case you should probably do two rounds of 1.75gal. Infuse the water with the grain and let it sit for 10min, vorlauf and lauter. I don't think you have to wait for the sparge water, however I like to stir the mash and let it sit for around 10-15min before I lauter.
 
What jaybird said. Better efficiency, better clarity, more experience toward building better beers. -p
 
I assume fly sparging just means to pour in the full amount of sparge water and let it drain off immediately.
 
Cos said:
I assume fly sparging just means to pour in the full amount of sparge water and let it drain off immediately.
Fly sparging is slowly adding (sprinkling usually) the sparge water to your MLT at the same rate that you are slowly draining it.

If you're already comfortable with batch sparging I recommend you just stick with that but split the sparge as you said. You should actually bump your effeciency a little that way. You can let it rest for a few minutes after you add your sparge water, but 15 mins is really overkill. Stir, let sit briefly, vorlauf, and drain. Some people don't even stir with the same results.

Cheers :mug:
 
I found myself running into the same guess-and-check scenario when using BeerSmith. I emailed the maker of it suggesting he add a feature in there like a check box that would lock the "mash tun volume required" field to the capacity listed in the equipment section. The idea is to force the mash parameters to be adjusted for you in situations like that. For instance, it would know your MLT is only 2 gallons so it wouldn't even try to tell you to sparge with 3.5 gallons at a time, it would tell you that you need to do a split sparge with 1.75 each pass. He emailed me back saying he'd think about adding it to the next release. I would highly recommend you email him too (I think there's a feedback option in the Help menu) and describe your situation and ask for the same feature. The more feedback he gets on this, the more likely it will be that he'll program it in there.
 
Now that I think about it more, the REAL solution is to get a 10+ gal MLT and go full AG. That'll solve your dilemma. ;)
 
That feature has been added to beersmith. After I set my mash tun volume to 2 gallons, it now says to sparge in 3 rounds 1.25 each, but doesn't give a time to hold.

It still says to mash out with 2 quarts, which I can't do in my mt when it's already full, so I'll dump my first wort into 2 quarts in my brewpot, and then sparge in my mt.
 
If you are mashing enough grain to need 3.5 gallons of sparge water, how is it possible to be doing a 'partial mash' (assuming 5 gallon batch). I commonly use slightly more than that much sparge water on my 5 gallon all-grain batches. How much grain are you mashing? That much sparge water should be enough to run off 7.5 gallons or so of wort once you add your first runnings.
 
Jim, I agree. It sounds like beersmith thinks he's doing a full all grain batch or something. I'd be really concerned about over sparging in this case. Try a sparge with 1.75 gallons and check the gravity of THAT running only. If it's 1.025 or higher, rest assured there is more sugar in the grain. If you're down under 1.020, I would stop there or maybe just run another gallon or less through. You don't want to keep sparging too much or you'll get astringency.
 
I dont know, I have a hefe partial mash that is calling for about 4 gal of sparge water. I'm not at home, so I cant get the details from my Beersmith, but I'll post them later. I think it has to do with how much grain you are "partial mashing". My grain bill is 6 total pounds of grain with 2 pounds of DME. BS shows to do two sparges to equal the total water needed.
 
i recently did a PM with 6.5 lbs of grain and my water volumes were like this:

Mash: 2 gallons
Sparge: 2 gallons

I had to add some water to bring my temp up a little to. I ended up with about 3.4 gallons of wort after sparging.

How big is your boil kettle? Mine is 4 gallons, so I was just about maxed out with that volume.
 
i don't use software, but when people talk about a "sparge volume", when you're doing an all grain brew, isn't the "sparge volume" just whatever it takes to get you to your boil volume? i usually boil around 6 1/4 gallons for a 60 minute boil to get me where i want to be in my carboy, and depending on how much grain is in my MLT, i might batch sparge 4 gallons through it, and i might batch sparge 6 gallons through it. i might fill up my 5 gallon cooler one time and sparge out all my volume into the brew pot, or it might take three trips through the MLT to get my boil volume. i've never measured it, just done it till i didn't need to anymore.

am i crazy? there's no real other way to do it is there? you wouldn't want to sparge with "X" amount of water, because software told you to, and be 2 gallons short in your brewpot right?
 
My kettle is 7.5 gal. I routinely do 6-6.5 gal boils. I just have to baby sit it very closely at the start of the boil. I keep one hand on the propane regulator and the squirt bottle in the other. I have a keg on hand that I will eventually convert to a keggle so I don’t have to worry as much about boil overs.
 
brian williams said:
i don't use software, but when people talk about a "sparge volume", when you're doing an all grain brew, isn't the "sparge volume" just whatever it takes to get you to your boil volume? i usually boil around 6 1/4 gallons for a 60 minute boil to get me where i want to be in my carboy, and depending on how much grain is in my MLT, i might batch sparge 4 gallons through it, and i might batch sparge 6 gallons through it. i might fill up my 5 gallon cooler one time and sparge out all my volume into the brew pot, or it might take three trips through the MLT to get my boil volume. i've never measured it, just done it till i didn't need to anymore.

am i crazy? there's no real other way to do it is there? you wouldn't want to sparge with "X" amount of water, because software told you to, and be 2 gallons short in your brewpot right?
yes and no.

if you are limited to a certain amount of volume, then yes...just sparge till you reach your max(unless you are oversparging)

BUT...there is an 'optimal' volume to sparge as well. Ideally you would sparge until the wort running off is at an OG of about 1.008(I think). So that could be more than you can boil.
 
bigben said:
yes and no.

if you are limited to a certain amount of volume, then yes...just sparge till you reach your max(unless you are oversparging)

BUT...there is an 'optimal' volume to sparge as well. Ideally you would sparge until the wort running off is at an OG of about 1.008(I think). So that could be more than you can boil.

sorry,i don't get this at all.

i'm not sparging to reach a "max" and i'm not limited to a certain volume either. i'm simply doing an all grain recipe calcutated to a finished volume of 5 gallons of wort. i account for a little over 1 gallon of boil off in a 60 minute boil, so i sparge untill i have a little over 6 gallons. if i sparged to a runoff OG of 1.008, and only had 3 gallons of wort (extreme example i know) that wouldn't make much sense would it? or if i got 8 gallons of wort, and still was getting 1.008 OG runnoff, i guess either way the recipe would be incorrect massivley.
 
I'm no chemist but from "how to brew":

Sparging is the rinsing of the grain bed to extract as much of the sugars from the grain as possible without extracting mouth-puckering tannins from the grain husks. Typically, 1.5 times as much water is used for sparging as for mashing (e.g., 8 lbs. malt at 2 qt./lb. = 4 gallon mash, so 6 gallons of sparge water).


I don't think it's really possible for PM, but for AG you can definitely "oversparge" and then you'll extract tannins, not sugars. It has to do with a rising PH after the first sparge. If your sg drops below 1.006, the ph rises and that's when the tannins from the grain can be released. This really is more of a concern for fly spargers- that's why they stop when their runnings are still around 1.010. Still, I guess it would be possible for batch spargers, if you sparge with more water than you should. I would think that you'd be better off topping up with water to reach your volume and lose some efficiency than to risk tannin extract.
 
Yooper Chick said:
I'm no chemist but from "how to brew":

Sparging is the rinsing of the grain bed to extract as much of the sugars from the grain as possible without extracting mouth-puckering tannins from the grain husks. Typically, 1.5 times as much water is used for sparging as for mashing (e.g., 8 lbs. malt at 2 qt./lb. = 4 gallon mash, so 6 gallons of sparge water).


I don't think it's really possible for PM, but for AG you can definitely "oversparge" and then you'll extract tannins, not sugars. It has to do with a rising PH after the first sparge. If your sg drops below 1.006, the ph rises and that's when the tannins from the grain can be released. This really is more of a concern for fly spargers- that's why they stop when their runnings are still around 1.010. Still, I guess it would be possible for batch spargers, if you sparge with more water than you should. I would think that you'd be better off topping up with water to reach your volume and lose some efficiency than to risk tannin extract.


thanks yooper! that makes more sense to me. i've never checked my SG while sparging. i typically don't check gravity at all untill the wort is cooled and in the fermenter just before pitching the yeast. i guess i don't fully understand what "tannins" are, and how they negatively effect the taste of the beer.
 
brian williams said:
thanks yooper! that makes more sense to me. i've never checked my SG while sparging. i typically don't check gravity at all untill the wort is cooled and in the fermenter just before pitching the yeast. i guess i don't fully understand what "tannins" are, and how they negatively effect the taste of the beer.
I don't check OG when sparging either. I was just explaining is considered 'optimal' I guess.

Everyone is limited to a certain boil volume, so you either sparge to your max boil volume or if you have the room, until sparge is complete. Or until you hit whatever you feel like boiling on that particular day. But there still may be sugars left in the grains.
 
I'm using 4lb of grain, 2 gall MT.

Beersmith says
single infusion no mash out
mash-in 5 qt.
sparge round 1 1.2 gal
sparge round 2 1.2 gal
sparge round 3 .8 gal
Total is 3.2 gallons of sparge.


my beer book says to sparge with 2 qt/ lb of grain, that would be 8 qt or 2 gal. But it's also assuming I'm doing a 2qt mash out. So total water is 2.5 gal.
 
Cos said:
That feature has been added to beersmith. After I set my mash tun volume to 2 gallons, it now says to sparge in 3 rounds 1.25 each, but doesn't give a time to hold.

It still says to mash out with 2 quarts, which I can't do in my mt when it's already full, so I'll dump my first wort into 2 quarts in my brewpot, and then sparge in my mt.

Here's what I chose in the Equipment section:


Brew Pot (6+gal) and Igloo/Gott Cooler (5 Gal)

Batch Size: 5.00 gal
Mash Volume: 5.00 gal
Boil Volume: 6.00 gal
Mash Tun Weight: 4.00 lb
Evaporation Rate: 9.00 % Mash Tun Specific Heat : 0.300 cal/g-deg C
Boil Time: 60.0 Mash Tun Deadspace: 0.25 gal
Top-up for Boiler: 0.00 gal Equip Hop Utilization: 100.00 %
Losses to Trub/Chiller: 0.25 gal Cooling Loss (%): 4.00
Top up water for Fermenter: 0.00 gal
Notes: Popular all grain setup. 5 Gallon Gott or Igloo cooler as mash tun with false bottom, and 7-9 gallon brewpot capable of boiling at least 6 gallons of wort. Primarily used for single infusion mashes.




Attached below is a screenshot of the screen where I choose a mash method in a sample recipe. Taking the default parameters of the "Single Infusion, Light Body" mash, you can see in the upper right corner it says this mash requires 6.05 gallons. But obviously I have selected a 5 gallon MLT in the equipment section. That's what I am talking about requesting the option to lock it to the maximum capacity of what was already selected.

BrewSmith-tun-volume-requir.jpg
 
Click the box under "batch sparge options" to "batch sparge using batches that fill" set the value to 100%.

It will calculate the maximum amount of sparge water that will fit into your MT (accounting for how much water the grains retain). If you need more sparge water than your MT will hold, it will show multiple sparge rounds.

Based on your original post, that sounds like what you were trying to do.
 
I just noticed in beersmith that the tun volume required is based on the amount of grain and the mash-out volume. I guess it's trying to tell you how big a MT you need for your grain bill. Alternatively, you can try my suggestion in the previous post.
 
4 lbs of grain...

Mash with 1.25 gallons of water. And sparge with 1.25 gallons of water. If you have a big enough brewpot you can do another sparge. but be sure to check the gravity of your runnings is still above ~1.010.
 
Cos said:
Click the box under "batch sparge options" to "batch sparge using batches that fill" set the value to 100%.

It will calculate the maximum amount of sparge water that will fit into your MT (accounting for how much water the grains retain). If you need more sparge water than your MT will hold, it will show multiple sparge rounds.

Based on your original post, that sounds like what you were trying to do.

I do believe that's exactly what I need to do. Thanks!! :mug:
 
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