Question about my First All Grain batch today

So today i took the plunge and everything was pretty easy except when it came time for sparging. I mashed my 3.8 Gal of water with 11.5lbs of grain.@ 154F... for exactly an hour did not lose a single degree Step 1 seemed to have worked out!

Ok so on to the second step the sparge! I had just read in a few post's that to get your run off to 165-168F i needed to sparge with water around 180F.... So i heated up my 4 Gal of sparge water which i assume was close to the correct amount and began to collect some run off from my tun. Once the wort dropped below the top of my grain bed i began to slowly sprinkle the 180F water over my grains allowing the ball valve to drain pretty slow.

We'll i sparged for 45 minutes and while i was sparging i put my floating thermometer in the wort and i noticed that the wort never got hotter than 130F even after collecting the full 7-7.5 gal of wort.

I will say i got lucky and ended up with the correct final volume of beer and also i actually hit the target OG of 1.065 could not believe that on my first attempt...

But my question is did i just do the sparge completely wrong? Was the run off wort suppose to run off hotter than 130F.?
Was the 180F the right temp for sparging?
I also was confused as to when i should begin adding the sparge water.? I had read to do so when the wort was an inch above the grain bed but that went away within 10 seconds.... so i just started sparging after the 10 seconds....

So over all my brew day went great, but the sparge kinda over whelmed me..


I apologize for so many questions thanks to whomever decides to help!

I'm very confused by this. You have a 154f mash and add in 180f water and yet your runoff is 130f?! Are you sure your floating thermometer isn't off by about 40 degrees or so? I would calibrate it with another thermometer. The whole reason to use hot water (>170f) in the sparge is because the heat helps the sugars dissolve in the wort as you drain it. So...if you hit your target OG and pre-boil volume, then your sparge was definitely a success, which is further evidence that your thermometer is off. I usually heat my sparge water to 170. 180 is fine, but it's right on the upper edge before you start getting tannin extraction.

you might want to check out batch sparging.

How did you check your strike temp?

I have always just sparged with 170 deg water, I have never checked the temp of my runnings.

ohill1981 said:

. Once the wort dropped below the top of my grain bed i began to slowly sprinkle the 180F water over my grains allowing the ball valve to drain pretty slow.

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My guess is that the "sprinkling" of the sparge water allowed it to cool well below the 180 degrees that you started at. Some fly spargers merely flow the sparge water into the top of the tun to maintain an inch or so of liquid above the grain bed.

In order to conserve heat, sprinkling the grain bed is best done in a covered system which can be a PITA, perhaps why some can't be bothered.

Have you considered a simple batch sparge process?

ohill1981 said:

I also was confused as to when i should begin adding the sparge water.? I had read to do so when the wort was an inch above the grain bed but that went away within 10 seconds.... so i just started sparging after the 10 seconds....

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First off congrats on the first AG, the first one is usually the most hectic but a whole lot of fun.

As far as sparging, the one inch of water above the grain is what fly spargers (what you were doing) like to maintain at all times. Its purpose is to prevent water channeling through the grain, so it is very important that you match your outflow (into your kettle) with your sparge input flow. Doing that will maintain that one inch of water and keep a nice even water pressure on the grain bed.

A few things. You tried fly sparging and found out why fly spargers usually use a small, hot mashout infusion just before vorlauf and sparge begins. This gets the grainbed up to the 168F. After that, you start flowing the sparge water on top BEFORE the top of the grainbed gets exposed.

In order to do a good fly sparge, you need a wide manifold or false bottom. What is your filtering medium in the mash tun?

It could just be due to heat loss. If the OP is fly sparging with the lid off and very slowly draining his mash/lauter tun, couldn't that account for a pretty significant drop?

Frankly, ohill, you hit your volume and OG, RDWHAHB!!!

Bobby_M said:

A few things. You tried fly sparging and found out why fly spargers usually use a small, hot mashout infusion just before vorlauf and sparge begins. This gets the grainbed up to the 168F. After that, you start flowing the sparge water on top BEFORE the top of the grainbed gets exposed.

In order to do a good fly sparge, you need a wide manifold or false bottom. What is your filtering medium in the mash tun?

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That's a good point. You didn't mention a mashout temp. I flysparge and after a 154 mash, I raise the temp to 170 for mashout and hold for 10 minutes. Then, after recirculating the first few quarts of runoff, I sprinkle the sparge water to maintain the 170 or so temp. My sparge water is kept at 180 and I feel this accounts for any temp lost from the sprinkle. I use a cheap plastic bucket with holes drilled in it, hanging from the ceiling of the garage a few inches over my mash tun to fly sparge.

A lower temp can gum up the mash or not draw enough sugars. If hit your target OG and didn't get stuck, you're probably fine. Relax.

I appreciate all the responses for some reason i thought i was doing the easy process , glad to know it can be easier... I am going to check out the batch sparge method for next time ! Got lucky hitting the OG I suppose lol I did not mash out... I think i had my two methods confused... Been reading to many beer books!

+1 on batch sparging. Just dump in some water and you are good to go.