Batch Sparging Question

Brewing a Porter today. I use a large rectangular cooler converted into a mash tun for all grain. I've been calculating about 65% efficiency over the last few batches. My questions today is about sparging. I have alot of grain in there- 14 pounds. Thinking that after I vorlauf and drain the first runnings very slowly, I'm going to have a nice compact grain bed. For a batch sparge, would you pour a certain amount (say 3 gals) into the mash tun and stir up the grains with it before draining, or slowly pour the sparge water over the grain bed in increments as not to disturb it? Any advantage/disadvantage to either method you can think of? Looking to increase my efficiency obviously.

For batch sparging, you just want to pour the water in and stir. Your just rinsing the grains at that point.

I pour in, stir, and let it sit for 15 minutes for the grain bed to settle again. I've been getting above 70% efficiency.

stir and vorlauf with each batch sparge

Hammy71 said:

For batch sparging, you just want to pour the water in and stir. Your just rinsing the grains at that point.

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Technically, no you're not. Rinsing the grain is what you do in fly sparging. In batch sparging, you get the sugar into solution and drain them.

ktblunden said:

I pour in, stir, and let it sit for 15 minutes for the grain bed to settle again. I've been getting above 70% efficiency.

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There is no need to wait after adding the sparge water.

There is no need to do more than one batch sparge, unless your cooler is too small to fit in all the sparge water at once.

There is no advantage to draining slowly, either the mash or the sparge.

Please see my website, www.dennybrew.com

WilliPatton said:

For a batch sparge, would you pour a certain amount (say 3 gals) into the mash tun and stir up the grains with it before draining, or slowly pour the sparge water over the grain bed in increments as not to disturb it? Any advantage/disadvantage to either method you can think of? Looking to increase my efficiency obviously.

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If you add all the sparge water at once, stir it in, then drain, you're batch sparging.

If you slowly pour the sparge water in without disturbing the grain bed, you're fly sparging.

Denny said:

There is no advantage to draining slowly, either the mash or the sparge.

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One exception to this. Toward the end of the lauter, I'll slow down the flow. My system (and I think a lot of others) depend on a bit of siphon action to fully drain the tun. By running slow at the end you allow the bed to drain fully before the siphon is lost.

If you use a piece of tubing to connect the braid, like I do, it maintains a siphon til the end. Or you can always just tilt your mash tun a bit.

Yeah. Probably just a crazy idea. I visualize wort still in the grain bed that may not drain to the bottom as fast as the run off. Never did anything to prove it. I just start running slow when the liquid level reaches the top of the grain.

AnOldUR said:

Yeah. Probably just a crazy idea. I visualize wort still in the grain bed that may not drain to the bottom as fast as the run off. Never did anything to prove it. I just start running slow when the liquid level reaches the top of the grain.

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Slowing the runoff won't do anything about that, though. The guy who taught me about batch sparging always mentioned the "law of diminishing returns". There comes a point when the just isn't enough wort left to be worth the time or effort to get it out. I live by that.

Denny said:

Technically, no you're not. Rinsing the grain is what you do in fly sparging. In batch sparging, you get the sugar into solution and drain them.

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Uhm....ok....

Thanks everyone. I ended up getting 75% yesterday.

Thanks for the info, Denny. Learn something new every day.