Batch sparge question

I did my first AG batch last Friday and had terrible efficiency (~50%). I believe the major factor was a bad grain crush. I order the grains from Austin home brew supply milled but there were still a lot of whole grains in the mix. However, I just got an issue of BYO magazine after I brewed and there was an article giving advice for first time AG brewers and it said to drain slowly when sparging. It didn't say if you needed to do this when batch sparging as well as fly sparging though. I batch sparge and after two gallons of Vorlauf I basically opened my valvle all the way and drained very quickly. The magazine suggested draining at 1 gallon per 10 minutes. Does this help efficiency because if so I will start going slower but if not I don't want to waste time. With a ten gallon batch that could take forever to sparge...

Those guidelines you read are for fly sparging. When batch sparging, you can drain quickly.

Alright thanks. Any suggestions on how to get my efficiency up? I didn't mashout, should I do that next time? Also I may have used to much sparge water because I still had some water in my mash after getting to my 12.2 gallons preboil volume.

What was your recipe?
How much water did you use for mash?
How much water for sparge?

It was 29 pounds 2 row and 1 pound amber. I mashed with 9.25 gallon and sparged with 8.9 gallons. For some reason that is what my brewpal app told me to do and I think it may have been way to much. I think I ended up with a preboil volume of 13-13.5 gallons and ended up doing a 90 minute boil but still ended up with a 1.051 post boil OG when I was expecting at 1.063. My pre-boil OG was 1.041

Woah..... 30 lbs of grain is a lot of grain and is going to need a lot of water to get the sugar rinsed and into your kettle.

If I were tying to do that much grain, following my normal procedure, I would have used over 11 gallons for mash and another 11 gallons for sparge which would leave me with damn near 18 gallons in the kettle that would need to boil down to 10 gallons. Crazy long 5 hour boil.

In short, I think you didn't sparge enough and left a lot behind in the tun.

edit: at 75% efficiency, I would have gotten 10 gallons of 1.077 wort out of that.

Walker said:

Those guidelines you read are for fly sparging. When batch sparging, you can drain quickly.

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Start it very slow or you will pack down the bed and possibly get stuck. However once its going good you can run it off as fast as possible.

FYI: I batch sparge with a SS braid and I only vorlauf about a quart before it's running clear.

Well I used extra grain because I figured I would have low efficiency on my first AG batch. I guess that actually was the wrong idea then? How do you get your numbers? Beersmith? Or just your own calculations? I am considering buying beersmith. When you say "at 75% efficiency, I would have gotten 10 gallons of 1.077 wort out of that." do you mean if you did exactly what I did except at 75% effieciency after boiling from 18 to 10 galllons?

maida7 said:

Start it very slow or you will pack down the bed and possibly get stuck. However once its going good you can run it off as fast as possible.

FYI: I batch sparge with a SS braid and I only vorlauf about a quart before it's running clear.

Click to expand...

Thanks, I use a SS braid as well.

I use ProMash for gravity and IBU calculations.

My process is to use about 3 quarts of water per pound of grain. half of that total water is for mash. the other half is for mash.

I get about 75% efficiency this way.

So, if I used your grain bill and my process, I would have gotten 18 gallons of wort that needed to be boiled down, and would have gotten 1.077 wort.

Seems like you need more sparge water and less mash water.

Try this schedule for mashing...

Untitled Recipe
0- Untitled Style

Size: 12.5 gal
Efficiency: 75.0%
Attenuation: 75.0%
Calories: 211.92 kcal per 12.0 fl oz

Original Gravity: 1.063 (1.000 - 1.100)
Terminal Gravity: 1.016 (1.000 - 1.100)
Color: 4.32 (0.0 - 50.0)
Alcohol: 6.26% (0.0% - 10.0%)
Bitterness: 0.0 (0.0 - 50.0)

Ingredients:
30 lb 2-Row Brewers Malt

Schedule:
Ambient Air: 70.0 °F
Source Water: 60.0 °F
Elevation: 0.0 m

00:59:59 Saccrification - Liquor: 9.5 gal; Strike: 166.73 °F; Target: 154 °F
01:29:59 Batch Sparge - Untitled Sparge: 7.5 gal sparge @ 190 °F, 30 min; Total Runoff: 13.82 gal

Results generated by BeerTools Pro 1.5.10

Why is it saying I am posting these messages at 8:00 PM. It is 4:30 where I am

AviatorTroy said:

Seems like you need more sparge water and less mash water.

Try this schedule for mashing...

Untitled Recipe
0- Untitled Style

Size: 12.5 gal
Efficiency: 75.0%
Attenuation: 75.0%
Calories: 211.92 kcal per 12.0 fl oz

Original Gravity: 1.063 (1.000 - 1.100)
Terminal Gravity: 1.016 (1.000 - 1.100)
Color: 4.32 (0.0 - 50.0)
Alcohol: 6.26% (0.0% - 10.0%)
Bitterness: 0.0 (0.0 - 50.0)

Ingredients:
30 lb 2-Row Brewers Malt

Schedule:
Ambient Air: 70.0 °F
Source Water: 60.0 °F
Elevation: 0.0 m

00:59:59 Saccrification - Liquor: 9.5 gal; Strike: 166.73 °F; Target: 154 °F
01:29:59 Batch Sparge - Untitled Sparge: 7.5 gal sparge @ 190 °F, 30 min; Total Runoff: 13.82 gal

Results generated by BeerTools Pro 1.5.10

Click to expand...

Thanks, so that is for a post boil volume of 12.5 gallons right? What is the average rule of thumb boil off volume for a 60 minute boil?

crlova2 said:

It was 29 pounds 2 row and 1 pound amber. I mashed with 9.25 gallon and sparged with 8.9 gallons. For some reason that is what my brewpal app told me to do and I think it may have been way to much. I think I ended up with a preboil volume of 13-13.5 gallons and ended up doing a 90 minute boil but still ended up with a 1.051 post boil OG when I was expecting at 1.063. My pre-boil OG was 1.041

Click to expand...

The brewpal numbers sound good but your efficiency sucks ass.

Total mash + sparge is 18.15 gallons. Minus 3 gallons for grain absorption. That means you should get 15.15 gallons out of your MLT IF you have no dead space. So if you only got 13.5 gallons then you have a 1.65 gallon dead space in your MLT. That + a poor crush could be the cause of your sucky efficiency.

I would not use more sparge water. It's just gonna make your boil times increase beyond reason. Crush finer, reduce the dead space and do a double batch sparge you should have no problems getting 70%+

maida7 said:

Minus 3 gallons for grain absorption.

Click to expand...

I calculate a larger amount of loss to absorption. But.... this is a number that is subject to error. I've seen quotes of 0.4 qt/lb and I've seen 0.8 qt/lb.

I went middle of the road and assume 0.6qt/lb and it has been working well for me.

Well I don't know that I have that much dead space. I left water in the mash tun because I didn't wanna go over 13.5 gallons of preboil because I didn't wanna be boiling for hours. Is having dead space in the mash tun a big problem? Will it affect efficiency? I know I have some but I don't know how much. Also, does recirculating all of the mash run off help efficiency? I was thinking about trying this next time.

With a batch sparge, you add the sparge water, and stir really well. The stirring dissolves the sugars. When the sugars are dissolved, you can drain the runnings into the kettle. For each batch, the gravity of the runnings will be constant.
If you didn't stir, or didn't stir well enough, this would definitely explain the low efficiency.
Also, as the gravity of the runnings are constant for each batch, any wort left behind in the dead space and absorbed by the grains will have the same gravity as the wort collected. That is why you will get better efficiency with multiple batch sparges, as the gravity of each batch will be less than the previous.

-a.