Sparging times

Prey for the noob question, but I'm moving to AG and am going to batch sparge. How long do I sparge for?

time is not the issue with batch sparging... though I prefer to add my sparge water, stir, and wait 5-10 minutes before vorlaufing and draining.

What I do is sparge until I have my boil volume but I also watch the wort to see if there still seems to be sugar remaining - I don't like to miss out!

B

I concur. Mash for 60 minutes, vorlauf a a few times, drain the MT, add the sparge water (mine is usually around 185F if I got it on the burner in time) and stir it up well. Wait 5 minutes for the sugars to rinse out and vorlauf and drain again until you hit your pre-boil volume. Don't forget to take a well-mixed sample from the kettle before you boil to calculate your mash efficiency.

I do a double-batch sparge, so I add half of my heated water, do the thing, then add the rest and stir and sit a second time.

SilverZero said:

I do a double-batch sparge, so I add half of my heated water, do the thing, then add the rest and stir and sit a second time.

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do you get better efficiency doing double?

ElevenBrewCo said:

do you get better efficiency doing double?

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I don't know about Silver but I absolutely get better efficiency doubling up. The only issue is when you do a big beer and the initial mash in gives you a large first running so your sparge volume is too small to split.

shafferpilot said:

time is not the issue with batch sparging... though I prefer to add my sparge water, stir, and wait 5-10 minutes before vorlaufing and draining.

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This is exactly what I do, I also mashout with the volume lost to absorption before draining my first runnings.

ElevenBrewCo said:

do you get better efficiency doing double?

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Since I started mashing out with the absorbed volume (I bring it to a boil to get the grainbed temp up) and splitting my sparge into two separate sparges I have been getting 85-89% efficiency. I also drain the tun fairly slow, maybe 50% open on the valve, it makes for a clearer runoff too.

OHIOSTEVE said:

I don't know about Silver but I absolutely get better efficiency doubling up. The only issue is when you do a big beer and the initial mash in gives you a large first running so your sparge volume is too small to split.

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Thats when I shoot for a longer boil, so I need to sparge with more water to make up for the long boil.

It really comes down to your equipment and the time you have available.

Start with a single sparge, mashout with your calculated absorption amount, and then start fine tuning your process each brewday to see if efficiency goes up, if not keep doing a single sparge.

ElevenBrewCo said:

do you get better efficiency doing double?

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Maybe, never done single-batch. My first one calculated out to some ridiculous 90s efficiency, which maybe I did something wrong but I couldn't find a mistake. My last batch was mid-70s, but I was also mashing at a low temp in a larger tun (chest cooler). I have also shot for 1.5qts/lb for mash thickness. Honestly, I'm too new to know what's helping and what's not. I read a lot and decided what I would do based on research, not experience, but I'll hopefully be able to back it up someday. Then again, if it's not broke, I probably won't try to fix it.

This is awesome, guys. Thanks for the input. Depending on how overwhelmed I get on my 1st AG batch, I may double sparge w/ half volume as some of you do. I love this place!

Cheers!

Is it OK to sparge with water @ 185 *F? I was under the impression that getting it above 170 *F was somehow detrimental. Or are you assuming the soaked grains will bring the sparge temp down?

djfriesen said:

Is it OK to sparge with water @ 185 *F? I was under the impression that getting it above 170 *F was somehow detrimental. Or are you assuming the soaked grains will bring the sparge temp down?

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It depends on the temp of the grains, when I add my mashout water, say for an 11 lb grainbill I use just over 5 quarts of water, if I bring it to a boil and add it to a mashtun sitting at 154° it will bring the temp up to about 165-168°, after this addition I make all remaining sparge additions at 170°

azscoob said:

Since I started mashing out with the absorbed volume (I bring it to a boil to get the grainbed temp up) and splitting my sparge into two separate sparges I have been getting 85-89% efficiency. I also drain the tun fairly slow, maybe 50% open on the valve, it makes for a clearer runoff too.

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+1 for all of this. I have seen significant improvement from a slower lauter.

azscoob said:

It depends on the temp of the grains, when I add my mashout water, say for an 11 lb grainbill I use just over 5 quarts of water, if I bring it to a boil and add it to a mashtun sitting at 154° it will bring the temp up to about 165-168°, after this addition I make all remaining sparge additions at 170°

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OK, that answers my question. I work on a much smaller scale than that, so 185* sparge water seemed a little excessive.

As a sidenote, how do you get the degree symbol? I'm sick of using the asterisk.

djfriesen said:

OK, that answers my question. I work on a much smaller scale than that, so 185* sparge water seemed a little excessive.

As a sidenote, how do you get the degree symbol? I'm sick of using the asterisk.

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Try Alt+0176 (all while holding down Alt). Works on Firefox. ° <- See?

There it is. Thanks. I forgot all about those

SilverZero said:

Try Alt+0176 (all while holding down Alt). Works on Firefox. ° <- See?

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Or try Alt+248 (again while holding down Alt)