Some questions regarding fly sparging setup

This may have been answered before, but yeah.

I'm trying to start switching over to all grain brewing, and want to have everything set up to fly sparge when I start.

The processes that I have seen before (over at southern star) are full scale commercial electric brewing, so they have control over the temperature of the mash and everything.

If I were to build a mash tun out of an igloo cooler, what is the best way to control the heat while sparging?

Should I just get a SS tun? Are Stainless tuns that you buy online insulated/do they hold the heat well or do you have to constantly maintain the temperature?

It seems like having the mash in an igloo cooler would be a problem when it came to temperature control. Unless I was literally pumping out of the tun, into the kettle to bring it to temp and then back into the tun....


Just thinking, any advice welcome.

I just set up a makeshift 3 tier system. I throw my sparge water in my bottling bucket on a chair that's on a table. I put my mlt (converted cooler) on the table and then my kettle on the floor. I just run my tubing from my bucket and rest it on my grain bed. I use the valves on the bottling bucket and mlt to control flow. Temp stays fine for me.

wegz15 said:

I just set up a makeshift 3 tier system. I throw my sparge water in my bottling bucket on a chair that's on a table. I put my mlt (converted cooler) on the table and then my kettle on the floor. I just run my tubing from my bucket and test our on my grain bed. I use the valves on the bottling bucket and mlt rio control flow. Temp stays fine for me.

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so you're using hot liquor for the sparge, I guess to compensate for water loss in the mash?

I've never homebrewed with anyone who fly sparged, like I said only seen it in a commercial setting, and of course they literally are just circulating their mash at a higher temperature for the sparge.

do you lower your initial water levels to make up for the fact that you're adding hot liquor for the sparge, or does it all even out in the boil?

I might be missing your point, but igloo coolers will maintain temperature for a few hours, perfect for mashing at home.

Maybe you can clarify your question a bit...

hopsalot said:

I might be missing your point, but igloo coolers will maintain temperature for a few hours, perfect for mashing at home.

Maybe you can clarify your question a bit...

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I want to fly sparge using a pump, and if I am using an igloo cooler as a mash tun I can't just increase the temperature inside of the cooler like I would be able to if I was using a stainless kettle/tun that sits on the stove.

But stainless mash tuns are god awful expensive too.

All grain brewing requires two kettles, as you are draining wort out of your tun, hot liquor is being pumped through a sparge arm

this should help
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/wiki/index.php/Fly_Sparging

Well you sparge with clean water to extract as much sugar as possible.

Are you talking about step mashing?

My system is 2 round 5 gal coolers , one as a mash tun , the other as hlt(sparge). Set up in 3 tier fashion, gravity drains it to my kettle , which I fire up while sparging to speed things up. I have basically zero heat loss . I do preheat the coolers with hot water I should add.

wegz15 said:

Well you sparge with clean water to extract as much sugar as possible.

Are you talking about step mashing?

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I don't believe so.

I think I was explaining it incorrectly earlier.

I was under the impression that I would just be increasing the heat on my mash tun, and then pumping the wort through the grain bed to sparge at the higher temp, not adding anything from a hot liquor tank.

Is that doable? I don't see why it wouldn't work, but I also am not too familiar with all grain brewing, so yeah.

funkapottomous said:

I don't believe so.

I was under the impression that I would just be increasing the heat on my mash tun, and then pumping the wort through the grain bed to sparge at the higher temp, not adding anything from a hot liquor tank.

Is that doable? I don't see why it wouldn't work, but I also am not too familiar with all grain brewing, so yeah.

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What you are describing is not sparging

The wiki on this site has great information, do some reading, I not sure if you grasp the all grain idea yet

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/wiki/index.php/All-grain_brewing

I think he's trying to refer to a mash-out step.

If you're not using a RIMS system (recirculating), the usual way to heat the mash to mash-out temperature is to add near-boiling water until the mash is at 170F.

M_C

hopsalot said:

The wiki on this site has great information, do some reading, I not sure if you grasp the all grain idea yet

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/wiki/index.php/All-grain_brewing

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I understand what sparging is. You're increasing the temperature of the water that's going to to basically rinse the grains of excess sugars.

The process that I have seen done, and the way it was explained to me, was that they were using the drained off mash, heating it, and then adding it back into the mash and using THAT as the sparge water, essentially rinsing the grain bed of the sugars and at the same time using the bed as a filter to pull fats out of the liquid. The mash went from a milky, caramel brown to a nice clear amber that resembled the finished beer.

This was all preboil, as well. Recirculating/sparging/whatever it may be, then over to the boil kettle for the boil.

Misplaced_Canuck said:

I think he's trying to refer to a mash-out step.

If you're not using a RIMS system (recirculating), the usual way to heat the mash to mash-out temperature is to add near-boiling water until the mash is at 170F.

M_C

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aha!

Okay, so that's what it is. It's not fly sparging, technically because I'm not using hot liquor......but..........

so what's it called....when you mash out to 170, and then use the mash as your hot liquor for sparging? retarded?

after a bit more searching.....


It seems that I am describing a brutus setup?

maybe not. I don't know.

brutus is a HERMS, heat exchange recirculating mash system, similar to a RIMS. This is not sparging. Sparging uses fresh hot water to rinse grains

hopsalot said:

brutus is a HERMS, heat exchange recirculating mash system, similar to a RIMS. This is not sparging. Sparging uses fresh hot water to rinse grains

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gotcha.

so I'm describing a recirculating mash system, and NOT a sparge.

this was confusing the hell out of me, I didn't know why you guys were saying I wasn't sparging.

yep, definetly not sparging, it would be hard to rinse sugars off grains with an equally sweet solution such as wort

funkapottomous said:

gotcha.

so I'm describing a recirculating mash system, and NOT a sparge.

this was confusing the hell out of me, I didn't know why you guys were saying I wasn't sparging.

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Well if it's just moving the wort from the bottom to the top, without heating, it's simply called "Recirculating". Usually, this is to create a grain bed which will allow the wort to eventually exit without any bits of grain.

M_C

this may have already been said, but here it goes...(i just did my first AG batch the other day. i'm set up for fly sparging, but haven't done it yet).
You want a HLT (hot liquor tank) and MLT (mash/lauter tun). When mashing, you want to use roughly 1.25 qt/pound of grain. This will not leave you with enough water for a full batch. so you want your sparge water in the HLT ready to go when you start doing your first runnings. You want the volume going IN (sparge water) to equal the volume going out (the wort).

Real life example:
i had a 10.5 pound grain bill, and mashed with 4 gallons of water. Some do 3.5 for the same grain bill. The grain absorbed a gallon and a half roughly, leaving me with 2.5 going into the kettle. So, for a full boil on a 5 gallon batch, i needed about 6.5 in the kettle. So that means i had to heat up another 4 gallons for sparging.

Just get a mash tun, and a hot liquor tank, and you'll be good. I use 2 10gallon home depot water cooler. one for the mash tun, one for the hot liquor. In a 3 tier system, its gravity fed.

in this pic, the HLT is on the ladder, mash tun on the table, and kettle on the ground. Hoses connect to each. I ended up taking this pic before deciding to batch sparge due to time.

hope this helps