Heat Exchanging Sparge Water?

I am planning on building a Heat Exchanger within my HLT. I have read a lot about the virtues of using a HEX to dial in Mash Temps but I have never seen anything on using a HEX to dial in Sparge Water temps.
The reason I ask is that I have read where sparging with water over 170 degrees can cause problems.
With a HEX I could raise my Mash Temps to Mash-out, then Drain my first runnings. Then add my first Sparge. At this point I could use the HEX to dial in Sparge temps to no more than 170, right?
This may be a newb question but I am trying to wrap my head around all the processes prior to building the new rig.
Thanks!

Sparge temperatures are nowhere as critical as mash temperatures, but you could do that.

Let's say you mash out at 170F. To do the mash out, you raises the temp of your sparge water in your HLT to 170F and pump your wort through the heat exchanger in the HLT. As you circulate your wort through the heat exchanger, eventually all of your wort will be raised to nearly 170F. At that point, you're ready to sparge and your sparge water is also at 170F so you're right where you want to be.

Is my understanding of the process correct (besides my assumption of perfect heat transfer for simplicity)? I'm looking to build my first HERMS soon as well.

seanmichaleen said:

Let's say you mash out at 170F. To do the mash out, you raises the temp of your sparge water in your HLT to 170F and pump your wort through the heat exchanger in the HLT. As you circulate your wort through the heat exchanger, eventually all of your wort will be raised to nearly 170F. At that point, you're ready to sparge and your sparge water is also at 170F so you're right where you want to be.

Is my understanding of the process correct (besides my assumption of perfect heat transfer for simplicity)? I'm looking to build my first HERMS soon as well.

Click to expand...

Yeah, you got it. Or at least, that's how I do it.