Batch sparging with a Zapap.

Has anyone ever tried to batch sparge with a Zapap set-up? If so tell me how it went, and if there are any problems I should look foreword to.

I found it much easier to fly sparge with the Zapap setup even though it obviously takes more time. I tended to get real close to stuck or stuck sparges when trying to batch sparge with the bucket in bucket setup.

I'll tell ya man, I wish I had moved sooner to simply spending just $60.00 total and following the tutorial in the DIY site on here and building a MLT out of the 10 gallon Rubbermaid cooler. SOOO much better to do brews and relatively cheap.

I can't afford any crazy setup, but the upgrade from the Zapap to the rubbermaid MLT is awesome and at a small cost. The walk through on this forum made it so easy and it increased efficiency for me immediately

Wow, what a blast from the past. I built a zapap in 1996 shortly after I bought the NCJOHB book. I used it for about 3 years. At the time, which was when homebrewing was emerging from the middle stone age, it worked quite well. Eventually, it failed from the fatigue from the multihood of holes drilled in the bottom of the bucket. From there, I graduated to a plastic Phil's False bottom for the buckets, which again worked will until I bough a 10 gallon Polarware pot with a stainless false bottom. Since then I have moved on to other methods.

A lot has changed since the Zapap was proposed I really think that you would be better served to build a Cheap n' Easy Batch sparging setup.

Tom

I found it much easier to fly sparge with the Zapap setup even though it obviously takes more time.

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How much more time? I've always fly sparged so that's all I really know but it doesn't take very long and my efficiency seems OK (and it's consistent which is more important to me).

Batch sparging a 5 gallon batch takes maybe 20 minutes from the end of the mash.

The length of time for batch sparging is highly dependent on how fast your runoff happens and whether or not you're ready with sparge water up to temperature when it's needed. Depending on the brew session, one or both of those factors can bite you in the A.

Back to the OP, the zappap is a decent idea for when it was thought of and it's about the cheapest fly sparging rig you can make, but it fails compared to more modern methods. You're not really going to want to mash in that thing because not only does it lose heat quickely but there's a huge space below the FB so you have to mash really thin.

Joe Formanek does or did use a zapap and has won the Ninkasi twice.

He doesn't mash in it, of course but he does that in a similarly old school style.

http://badger.ncsa.uiuc.edu/buzz/photos/photo1.gif

The length of time for batch sparging is highly dependent on how fast your runoff happens and whether or not you're ready with sparge water up to temperature when it's needed. Depending on the brew session, one or both of those factors can bite you in the A.

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I think that's at least one reason I haven't switched...it seems the constraint is always the sparge water and/or getting the wort up to a boil. And since my pot is back on the burner well before I'm finished sparging I guess I didn't think I'd see that much improvement.

...but it fails compared to more modern methods.

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I know this an old dead horse for many of you but I've been outta the loop for a long time. How does the zapap fail and which 'modern methods'? I don't really shoot for uber-high efficiency...in fact I used to think uber-high efficiency was bad but that was back when I was 'flying blind' and never knew any pH values. I think it was just to make sure I had a fudge factor in there and never 'over-sparged'. But fly sparging in my zapap only takes a little longer than the 20 min. remilard posted and I usually get ~77% brewhouse (which I know is pretty low compared to some), but that is using whole hops (I'd probably get better brewhouse eff. if I used pellets).

EDIT: lol...remilard my setup is even more basic: propane burners, plain jane pots/saucepans, glass carboys, zapap made from my first TrueBrew beer brewing 'kit' I bought in the mid 90s, a funnel...I only recently went 'high-tech' and got an IC.

What I am trying to do is move from extract to AG without buying anything, and without destroying anything that I still use. So far, I've made a IC, and burner with things I had laying around the house. I have a cooler that I can mash in, but no way to lauder with it as it has no spout and I don't want to drill holes into it. I also have 2" thick Styrofoam that I can make an insulated box with to hold my mash tun. Buckets are free at the bakery, so I figured I would give this a try.
Thanks for the input everyone. It looks like I'm going to go with a separate mash tun, and fly sparge using BierMunchers method.
Would I be safe planing for 60% efficiency using 1.25 quarts/lb mash water and 2qt/lb sparge water? I know I'm going to have to add water to fill the dead space in the zapap also.

Sterling,
I can give you some of my limited experience and numbers using my zapap and AG brewing. I always do AG brews and I recently did 6 gallon batch of 1.054 Oatmeal Stout...even with that much grain and the gummy Oats I didn't get stuck (it was a bit slower than usual though) and I still hit 76% brewhouse efficiency. I'm almost always at ~77% brewhouse.

And I do that using about 1.25qt./pound mash water and about 1.5qt./pound of sparge water. I don't think I've ever used 2qt./pound of sparge water because my boil volume would be too big (you may want to check that...it seems like you'd have too much volume using 1.25qt/pound mash water and then 2qt./pound sparge water but I'm basing that on my setup). Just ballpark numbers: a typical (non-decoction) 5 gallon batch for me using 9.5# grain would use 12-13 qt. mash water and about 17-18 qt. sparge water. I almost always start with exactly 7.5 gallons of water and end up with 5.25 gallons in the fermenter (I use whole hops which decrease your brewhouse eff....those things soak up some wort and also displace wort...you have less wort in your boil pot than you think). And I also have to use a good bit of the sparge water to 'prefill' the zapap. But I still always get ~77% brewhouse so to me 60% seems really low.

Make sure your sparge water is >170o F...I usually shoot for ~185o F (remember...much of this is gonna go in first as the 'prefill'...after you've 'preheated' the zapap of course). And I always mash-out @ 168-170 F.

Thank you very much SpanishCastleAle. I'm going to drop my grain bill by 1 pound and see were brew house efficiency is at then. I'm thinking 9# American 2 row and 1# crystal 120, just for a simple ale.

Don't get me wrong, it works and it's dead cheap as I mentioned as the main reason to use it. You can still batch sparge in it but you'll pour your sparge water and your grain back into a common vessel (probably where you held the mash), give it a stir, and then dump it back into the zap buckets. What I'm suggesting is that if you're going to hold your mash in a cooler anyway, the simplicity of installing a braid to combine the mash and lauter into a single vessel is so easy a caveman can do it.

Just take a look at Denny Conn's method of conversion too.. No real hardware! You can buy two stoppers; one drilled and one not. Want to use it as a cooler? Put the solid stopper in. MLT? Put the drilled one in. You'll use a 3/8" hose splice ($2) (nylon or brass) which is basically a double sided hose barb. On one end you'll put a piece of clear tubing on, the other you clamp a stainless braid ($4). You push the hose through the drilled stopper and insert that into the hole you just drilled into the cooler FROM THE INSIDE.

No valve is necessary, just run the tubing up and over the cooler handle to keep wort from flowing. This will be the best $10 you've spent.

Thanks for the advice Bobby. I'm probably going to convert a picnic cooler later this year, but for at least this next batch I want to prove to myself (and my swmbo) that I can switch to all-grain for free.

Sterling,
If you are going to do that then I would also advise to make sure you have some Dry or Liquid Malt Extract on hand...just in case you come up short you can always get your OG correct by adding a little malt extract. Once you get the rig dialed in and are confident you'll get a certain efficiency then you won't have to worry about it as much. I measure my gravity before the boil so I know whether I've hit my mash efficiency (which is higher than my brewhouse efficiency)...of course you have to be able to measure your volume in order for that to be helpful.

Check out the Gravity and Efficiency Calculator at TastyBrew. It's just doing simple arithmetic but it's quick and easy and will tell you both your expected pre-boil gravity and post-boil gravity.

Oh yea...the crush of your grain will also have a big effect on your efficiency. I assume you are having it crushed for you. In my limited experience, having it crushed for you = not crushed enough = lower efficiency. I use a Barley Crusher but I don't set it nearly as tight as most...more like 0.050" gap and one time through only. When I used LHBS crushed grains my brewhouse efficiency was closer to 70-72%.

My efficiency ended up being 66%. Not good, but close enough to the 70% that I planned on to still have 5 gallons of usable wort. I didn't use hot enough water to pre-heat my mash tun, and my strike water wasn't hot enough so I had to keep adding hot water to my mash. It is now bubbling away happily in my fermenter, and I'm already planning on how to do it better next time. The wort did taste damn good thou.

I quit the Zapap because I was leaving behind about a gallon of my most concentrated wort. Just switched over to a 10 gallon rubbermaid, using the tutorial on here. The hardest part was finding a cooler in the dead of winter... It was easy, fairly cheap and effective. I just feel I could get better efficiency if I spread my SS braid out a bit more to reduce the risk of channels forming in my grainbed.

I quit the Zapap because I was leaving behind about a gallon of my most concentrated wort.

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Why was that? Just curious. I end up leaving the last bit behind but it is the most diluted part of my wort and it's nowhere near a gallon...more like a quart at most.

Sterling,
A lot of that might be due to your crush. Using up your sparge water to get the mash temp up didn't help either. Keep at it...you'll get it dialed in.

Also, I was incorrect before...I actually did a 9# mash on Saturday that was 1.33 qt./pound mash (12 qt.) and the sparge was 2 qt./pound (18 qt. for a 30 qt. total). Brewhouse Efficiency was right @ 77%.

the spigot sat that high i the bottom bucket. I didn't want to tip it forward for fear that some grain might also be resting down there.

If it's that high then tipping it a little bit shouldn't get you any grain...all the grain should have settled to the bottom. I would tip the bucket for sure if it's that high...but do it into an empty pot. That way even if you do get a little grain in there you can just let it settle and then pour off the top of it. I tip my bucket a little bit and my valve is about as close to the bottom as it can be....I actually flow until I get a bit of particulate/grain and then stop. Then I pour off the top of that...leaving the last bit behind. Then the last quart or so (that gets thrown out) is mostly from the grain bed slowly dripping.