Newb question

When doing an all grain, is sparging a timed thing, or do you just let the wort drain immediately? I also see some recipes call for leaving the wort at several temperatures for a certain time each.

I like to keep my grain bed covered with sparge water. I drain it off very slowely....1 qt every 20-30 minutes or so, and keep adding the sparge water on top. I seem to get a richer wort by going slower. It rises all the good stuff out better. This is the longest part of my brewing session.

Beermaker said:

1 qt every 20-30 minutes or so

Click to expand...

OK, maybe my math if off here......

1 quart every 30 minutes=1 gallon every two hours.

So if you want to start your boil with 7 gallons of wort, you sparge for 14 hours?

There's three options I see here.

1.) You're nuts.
2.) You made a typo
3.) My mind is constipated and I misread something, and I should stop trying to do math on a Friday night.

Usually you would take an hour or so to do your sparge.

So what your saying is, it's not really timed and I should just take my time and use my judgement?

loomis said:

When doing an all grain, is sparging a timed thing, or do you just let the wort drain immediately? I also see some recipes call for leaving the wort at several temperatures for a certain time each.

Click to expand...

I wish sparges always ran on schedule. Sometimes they do, and sometimes they are just plain ornery. It usually takes me 90 minutes to sparge for a 5 gallon batch, but if I have a stuck sparge, it could thak a lot longer.

Resting at various temperatures is either a step or decoction mash (depending on how you raise the temperature). I would't do this for your first AG brew, as it is more complicated. You don't need a step mash for well modified two rwo barley such as is used for English Ales.

I would also steer clear of any wheat or flakes for your first AG brew as these can cause stuck sparges.

I would recommend a simple bitter with 7 lbs 2 row pale malt and 8 - 16 oz medium crystal malt gor your first AG. This is about as simple as it gets, and you will be able to compare it to your extract Yorkshire bitter.

Hope this helps.

-a.

When I sparge I usually collect about a quart every five minutes or so. Of course, my efficiency is 68%, so maybe I should sparge slower. Of course, it could also be my system, I don't know.

I'm happy with my consistency, so I'm not changing anything.

Sorry, I didn't provide and answer to the original question.

As a general rule, fly sparging should take at least an hour. I generally take right about an hour, and try to keep about an inch of water on top of the grain bed. But like ajf said, it can vary.

Lots of folks just "batch sparge". That's basically dumping all of your sparge water at once, and draining your wort. It's much faster, and most say the loss in efficiency is minimal.