3 tier system overkill for batch sparging?

So my rig is half heartedly a 3 tier gravity set-up. Meaning I have the 3rd tier for an HLT but have not gotten around to putting it into use. For one I do not have all the parts yet for the HLT. I have used an insulated bucket with my liquor up there, but I find I usually just scoop water from the pot into the MLT to sparge and such. Kind of feels pointless boiling the water and then pouring it into the bucket and then having to hoist it up there. Not to mention dangerous.

Is a 3 tier really only useful/necessary for fly sparging? Other batch spargers what do you use?

A 3 tier will do you alot of good, regardless of which sparging technique you use. If you want to go a step further, get a good march pump from ebay (I have two AC-3CP-MD's) then you can just pump your heated water from the kettle up to the HLT.

Good Luck!
-john

Batch sparger here, I also just manually transfer sparge water w/ a pitcher. I have set my HLT up higher and drained to the mash tun, but, I tend to agree w/ you. for the effort involved, the pitcher / scoop method seems fine. I usually brew 7.75 gal ( 1/4 keg) batches or about 9/10 gal. pre. boil.

I think for me, if I expandeed to say 20-40 gal. batches I would look at a pump or gravity. For anything less than 10 gal, no big deal IMO.

It all depends if it's worth it to you. I think it'd be nice to have a HLT with a sight glass to do batch sparging. It wouldn't be much of a leap to upgrade to fly sparging either.

mysteryberto said:

It all depends if it's worth it to you. I think it'd be nice to have a HLT with a sight glass to do batch sparging. It wouldn't be much of a leap to upgrade to fly sparging either.

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I don't think of fly sparging as an upgrade

Staunch advocate of batch sparging here.

I'm kind of in the same position as you; I've thought about building a sculpture, but I don't see much benefit for just batch sparging. My setup as it is completely portable. I have one of those folding tables from Home Depot that I use to hold the mash tun (perfect height for draining into the keggle), then it's just lifting the keggle onto the (low) burner.

The only ADVANTAGE I can think of is that if I were boiling at height, I could use the CFC I bought from Dude (I wouldn't want to just set up cinder blocks that high. But, if I had a pump I'd be able to pump through the CFC regardless.

They're cool, but it's just one more thing that I need to figure out how to store, and it makes life more difficult when it's time to brew at someone else's house.

Zymurgrafi said:

Is a 3 tier really only useful/necessary for fly sparging? Other batch spargers what do you use?

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Well, here's my ghetto three tier and it's plenty useful for a batch sparge.

Since this picture I've upgraded the sparge kettle with a temperature probe and a sight glass for controlling sparge amounts. A sculpture may be in my future, but getting everything functional was more important.

To the OP's original question, "3 tier system overkill for batch sparging? " It's all a matter of how hard you want to work. Using gravity to do the heavy lifting for you can never be overkill and you don't need a fancy rig to do it.