How long should it take to batch sparge?

Been trouble shooting my efficiency problems and have discovered that I am definately not using hot enough sparge water and I may be draining my runnings too quickly.

How long should it take to drain?

Batch or fly sparge?

I usually open up my ball valve all the way when I drain. Once the sugars are into solution, it shouldn't matter how fast you drain. Definitely make sure your sparge temps are high enough though.

For batch sparging after you vorlauf you just want to let 'er rip. What temperature water you using right now?

I know my temps have been way to low. Been adding 170F to the grain and stabalising at about 154F. Definately going to raise temp to about 185F at least next time.

If you don't do a mash out (sounds like you don't) you definitely want to use hotter sparge water to get that sugar flowing more easily.

Getting the mash to 168 to 170 degrees helps a lot. Using the correct amount of sparge water is also very important although, with big beers, the resulting higher wort volume leads to an extended boil to get the volume where you want it.

rate of outflow does not matter when you batch sparge, just make sure you vourlaff long enough to compact the grain bed so you don't get a stuck sparge.

I agree with everything above when batch sparging, but nobody said the most important thing.
After adding each batch of sparge water, stir the cr@p out of it before vorlaufing and draining.

-a.

I notice that when barge sparging that if you stir vigorously before I add my sparge water my efficiency improves. In the past I have just dumped the sparge water and stirred a little bit and I was typically around 75%. Today I stirred vigorously making sure that there were no clumps and today I hit 80% efficiency.

is there any advantage to doing two half batch sparges instead of one large batch sparge. For example sparge with 2.75 gallons twice instead of 5.5 gallons once??

nl724 said:

is there any advantage to doing two half batch sparges instead of one large batch sparge. For example sparge with 2.75 gallons twice instead of 5.5 gallons once??

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I thought you were supposed to do this. One addition at whatever strike temp to get to your desired mashing temp, and then one to get the temp to 170 to sparge.

I'm just curious (never batch-sparged)... no one has posted a timeframe. How long does it take (in minutes) to do a 2-part batch sparge on a 10-12 gal batch? (Starting at the point that the sparge water is heated and ready to go and you've vorlaufed.) Sure, everyone's equipment is different, but are we talking 5 minutes or 20 (or 30)?

It takes me about 20 minutes for a 5 gallon batch doing 2 sparges.

bwitt said:

It takes me about 20 minutes for a 5 gallon batch doing 2 sparges.

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when you say two sparges are you referring to two sparges in addition to the mash so three runs total??

nl724 said:

when you say two sparges are you referring to two sparges in addition to the mash so three runs total??

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Yes. I mash in with about 2.5 to 3 gallons and split 6 gallons for the 2 sparges. I collect 8 gallons to boil.

bwitt said:

Yes. I mash in with about 2.5 to 3 gallons and split 6 gallons for the 2 sparges. I collect 8 gallons to boil.

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I don't want to take this too far off topic, but I am curious what your efficiency is with this method?

steelerguy said:

I don't want to take this too far off topic, but I am curious what your efficiency is with this method?

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I tried this split sparge approach on my 3rd AG batch
According to Beersmith
Efficiency into boiler was 88%.
Brewhouse efficiency was 77%.

On my first 2 AG batches I used the single sparge method and
Efficiency into boiler was 80% for the first and 85% for the second.
Brewhouse efficiency was 60% for the first and 65% for the second.

The lower brewhouse efficiencies on my first 2 AG's were due to Not setting the trub loss parameter in beersmith so I didn't use enough water to sparge and came up about 1 gal short in the fermenter. My second mistake was topping up the fermenter with just water. I should have added a little DME with it. I also only heated the sparge water to 180f on my first 2 batches.

On the 3rd batch I heated sparge water to 190f which got the mash to 168f.

I do my batch sparge in two parts, because I can't fit 18qts of sparge water into the 5 gallon MLT, when there's already 9 lbs of grain in it.

bwitt said:

I tried this split sparge approach on my 3rd AG batch
According to Beersmith
Efficiency into boiler was 88%.
Brewhouse efficiency was 77%.

On my first 2 AG batches I used the single sparge method and
Efficiency into boiler was 80% for the first and 85% for the second.
Brewhouse efficiency was 60% for the first and 65% for the second.

The lower brewhouse efficiencies on my first 2 AG's were due to Not setting the trub loss parameter in beersmith so I didn't use enough water to sparge and came up about 1 gal short in the fermenter. My second mistake was topping up the fermenter with just water. I should have added a little DME with it. I also only heated the sparge water to 180f on my first 2 batches.

On the 3rd batch I heated sparge water to 190f which got the mash to 168f.

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So do you mash with half of your final volume and then do the first sparge with 25% of final volume and the second with the last 25%? Or do you do something more like 33% mash/33% first sparge/33% second sparge?

steelerguy said:

So do you mash with half of your final volume and then do the first sparge with 25% of final volume and the second with the last 25%? Or do you do something more like 33% mash/33% first sparge/33% second sparge?

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It's not quite that simple, I think you'll want to take a read through www.howtobrew.com to get the details (section 3 specifically).

bradsul said:

It's not quite that simple, I think you'll want to take a read through www.howtobrew.com to get the details (section 3 specifically).

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+1 on what bradsul said.

I use beersmith software and it calculates how much water to use in the mash based on your grain bill factoring the water absorbtion of the grain etc.

It also calculates how much sparge water to use based on your equipment factoring deadspace etc.

A general rule of thumb is to use 1 to 1.25 qts of water per pound of grain and or adjunct. Then measure the volume of your first runnings. Subtract that amount from the total volume that you need in your fermenter. So if you need 5 gals and you collected 2 gals with the first runnings then you need 3 gals for sparging. Now you need to account for boil off. I lose about 1 1/2 gal during a 60 min boil so I would need to add another 1 1/2 gallons in my sparge water to make up for it. You also need to account for equipment dead space and trub loss. If your mash tun leaves 1/2 gal below the drain valve add another 1/2 gal to you sparge water. If you stop siphoning your wort in the transfer to the fermenter when you get down to the trub you need to add that volume into your sparge water total. I average about 1 gal loss to trub so In this example I would need about 6 gallons total of sparge water to wind up with 5 gallons in the fermenter.

I may have missed something but that should get you pretty close.

bradsul said:

It's not quite that simple, I think you'll want to take a read through www.howtobrew.com to get the details (section 3 specifically).

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Absolutely, I completely over simplified it. I have actually read all that before, but not having actually done it (just getting ready for first AG batch in a few weeks) it has not really set in yet.

My train of thought was do you do mash around 1.3 qt/lb and then not do a mash out so you run more sparge water and split that 50/50 or do a mash out and get the temp up to 168 or so, then do the two sparges (using less sparge water). My percentages were completely pulled out of my butt.

Thank you for the explanation bwitt and thank you bradsul for the link to refresh my memory. I'm sure it won't really sink in until I actually do it though and get the experience.

Now...I must apologize to Redweasel for hijacking the thread!

steelerguy said:

My train of thought was do you do mash around 1.3 qt/lb and then not do a mash out so you run more sparge water and split that 50/50 or do a mash out and get the temp up to 168 or so, then do the two sparges (using less sparge water). My percentages were completely pulled out of my butt.

Thank you for the explanation bwitt and thank you bradsul for the link to refresh my memory. I'm sure it won't really sink in until I actually do it though and get the experience.

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Your welcome.

I don't do a mash out and since I don't I heat my sparge water to 190f so when I add the first half the mash temp gets to about 167f.
By the time I stir that in and drain it the rest of the sparge water has cooled to about 180f then when I add the rest of the water the mash temp is stiil about 169f.

I use the same method (it's outlined in the link in my sig) and I get between 88-92% brewhouse depending on how tight I am with my sparge temps.