To all the batch spargers

Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Walker

I use secondaries. :p
HBT Supporter
Joined
Sep 8, 2005
Messages
10,982
Reaction score
122
Location
Cary
I do thick mashes with 1.0 to 1.2 qts/lb, and I batch sparge. I use an additional 2.0 to 2.2 qts/lb after the mash. Some of this post-mash water is in the form of a mash out (a small hot infusion at the end of the mash, before I run anything off). The rest of this post-mash water is used after the first runnings are in the kettle, and I do one dump of water into the tun, stir, and drain again.

The amount of mashout water is determined by the goal of wanting 50% of my total wort come from the first runnings and the other 50% from the second runnings.

There have been a couple of times where I felt I was over-sparging this way.

Now... I've been reading a lot on HBT lately about people doing thin mashes to keep proper pH and doing only a little sparging, and I've been thinking about making adjustments to my own process to follow along these lines.

What I was wondering was... has anyone ever done their mash and then, before draining ANYTHING to the kettle, just dumped all of their sparge water into the tun and just done a single large runoff to the kettle?

I'm pretty sure I can get all of my water into my 10gal cooler at one time, so I was thinking about trying this on a batch.
 
I don't see anything wrong with that. Of course with a single batch sparge, you might loose some lauter efficiency. No big deal as long as you hit your targets. It might be a good idea to use Kai's efficiency spreadsheet to see exactly what is going on.
 
It's called no sparge. There has been some discussion on it, but I'm not sure how you'd search for it.
 
It's called no sparge. There has been some discussion on it, but I'm not sure how you'd search for it.

I saw one thread on no-sparge, but the person had a pump and was just constantly recirculating the water in the tun. I'm not set-up to do that, but perhaps that person was not doing typical "no-sparge" brewing??
 
I doubt recirculating will help with no sparge. Kia has a chart that will show the gravity of the first run off with complete conversion. Recirculation or not you can't do much better than that and without much recirculation I get close.

I mash 1.4 qt:lb, mashout and double batch sparge. With my stock barley crusher and a 10-12 lb grain bill I usually get 85% or higher efficiency.
 
Do you ever get tannins using your process? The pH of the wort on your third running seems like it would be getting far off course, no?
 
I usually do a double batch sparge because I have a 5 gallon round cooler, and that's the only way I can get all the water through (I don't really make small beers).

I have checked pH with a pH meter a few times through all the sparges. I had been targeting 5.6 pH. In my experience the mash will be to the low side -- 5.3 - 5.4 with a thickish mash, and the first and second sparge will be at 5.6-5.7.

One time I did a third sparge because I was pushing the limits of my mash tun and the pH went out of range, over 6. If I could do it over I would have just poured the extra water into the kettle.

Another thing to note is I always use the same water profile for my sparge as I do my mash.

In short, in my experience it's been fine pH-wise to do 2 sparges but not 3.
 
I mash in with 4 gallons every time, unless its an extra large grain bill. No mash out, collect runnings and measure. Then I batch sparge twice with enough water to hit my target volume, divided evenly. I could add it all before first runnings, or just sparge once, but I follow the advice of Bobby_M who contends that double batch sparge is the sweet spot for efficiency. If you were rinsing soapy water from a dish in the sink, it is more efficient to rinse twice with enough water, than once with a lot. Just my $.02, but I've been happy with the results.
 
After reading some post/comments by Pol, I am now trying to avoid a large sparge and trying to get most of my wort from First wort. Definately trying to avoid 2 sparges. On Monday I did 2qt/pound and it was great.
 
After reading some post/comments by Pol, I am now trying to avoid a large sparge and trying to get most of my wort from First wort. Definately trying to avoid 2 sparges. On Monday I did 2qt/pound and it was great.

I'm going a step farther, im going to try ye old recirculating mash with the whole nine yards in it. I'm hoping to shave an hour + off my brew days.:mug:
 
It might be a good idea to use Kai's efficiency spreadsheet to see exactly what is going on.

Holy cow! I just took a look at Kai's website. I didn't realize Kai had gone off the deep end on the brewing science.

I've been away from HBT for a while... pretty much every since Kai moved away from here in NC and up to Mass. He was always very technical with is brewing, but... I mean... WOW. He's been busy since I last saw him, that's for sure!

Anyway, according to his little "first wort OG" table, my old method of single batch sparging will get me only a teeeny bit higher OG than just mashing the whole thing with all my water and running it all off an once. (The delta is less than 0.001.

Sounds fine to me. I think I have just become a thin-mashing non-sparger.
 
Im in my second all grain batch sparge, and for that I decided to do 2 sparges just so I could better control my system(rubbbermaid MLT) that I am not that familiar with yet. The efficiency I got for my first batch with 1 sparge was much worse then my 2 sparge. But then again, its a first vs second brew so I think I learned alot.
 
I've been double-sparging with my 5 gal Igloo since I started. If I use around 10 lbs of grain, 1.25 qt/lb makes it up to the 4 gallon mark, but I'm left with 4.5 gallons of sparge water. I just divide it in half and do it twice. It's been working well for me thus far and I've got the whole brewing process down to 6 hours max, including clean up. Just make sure you treat your sparge water. I keep the pH down around 5.8 at room temp.
 
This is sort of what happens when I do a mashout by raising mash temp with a large infusion of hot water. Without doing seperate batch sparging, you're just going to leave a little bit more sugar behind in the mash. Like you said, the efficiency would drop, but it will work just fine.
 
Walker...

I have started determining my sparge volume based on the size of the grain bill.

The formula I am using is grain bill lbs x .25 = sparge volume in gallons.

This way I sparge MORE with larger grain bills and LESS on smaller grain bills. Which is in fact the OPPOSITE of what people typically do. But, it only makes sense, why sparge more with a smaller grain bill?

So my 10 pound mashes, require a 2.5 gallon sparge. The rest of the water comes in the front end of the process.

My mashes range from 7-15 pounds with OGs ranging from 1.041 - 1.087

With a preboil volume of 7.5 gallons:
7 pound grain bill
1.75 gal sparge water
5.95 gallons mash water
.7 gallons absorption
3.4qt/lb mash

15 pound grain bill
3.75 gal sparge water
5.25 gallon mash water
1.5 gal absorption
1.4 qt/lb mash
 
I mash 1.4 qt:lb, mashout and double batch sparge. With my stock barley crusher and a 10-12 lb grain bill I usually get 85% or higher efficiency.

I get the same efficiency with a single sparge. Have you tried that? If so, how much did doing a second one add?
 
This is where the calculation of conv. and lauter eff. is needed.

Even though I mash at 2-2.5qt/lb, and sparge less than many people, my lauter eff is still about 92%. I am trying to bring that down a bit. Tracking my conv. and lauter eff. on each session is the only way to monitor the changes. Eff. to the kettle means nothing to me, but the breakdown certainly does as this sayes a lot about the process. Eff. to the kettle doesnt tell you what is happening in your process, the truth about your process is in the individual #s IMHO
 
I just got done brewing, and from what I noticed, I'm not sure all the water would fit into a 10 gallon mash tun....I had 12 #'s of grain, mashed in with 18 qts. (1.5 qts per gallon) Drained then single batch sparge of 21 qts......(1.3 qts per gallon).

By looking at the space on the top of my mash tun during the sparge,I don't think all the water would have fit in there.....
 
I mash in with 4 gallons every time, unless its an extra large grain bill. No mash out, collect runnings and measure. Then I batch sparge twice with enough water to hit my target volume, divided evenly. I could add it all before first runnings, or just sparge once, but I follow the advice of Bobby_M who contends that double batch sparge is the sweet spot for efficiency. If you were rinsing soapy water from a dish in the sink, it is more efficient to rinse twice with enough water, than once with a lot. Just my $.02, but I've been happy with the results.
__________________

this is what i have found to be the best and most efficient method. it is easy and highly repeatable.
 
This is where the calculation of conv. and lauter eff. is needed.

This might seem a silly question, but is there a way to figure the percentage of conversion efficiency, or just the iodine test that will tell me if I've converted everything?
 
This might seem a silly question, but is there a way to figure the percentage of conversion efficiency, or just the iodine test that will tell me if I've converted everything?

Nope, you can actually calculate the actual percentage. Then you can take your lauter eff. percentage... after doing both of these you can see where the bottleneck is (if any) in your system.

Eff. to the kettle is a dumb number, you cannot refine a process based on that #. If you can get your conversion eff. and lauter eff. numbers, than you can work on your process.

www.braukaiser.com

He has a conversion eff. chart there based on malt/water grist ratio and SG. He also has a KILLER spreadsheet that will take inputs from your brew session and give you conversion eff., lauter eff., eff. to the kettle and eff. to the fermentor.

IMHO, these numbers are important, because without them you really have no idea what you are doing. You just know that somehow, somewhere, everything adds up to 70%. Well, you may not be converting 20% of your sugars... how else will you know? Or, you may be leaving 30% of your sugars in the mash when you lauter... how else will you know?

I have been tracking these #s lately as I am starting a push toward setting my sparge volume as a ratio of my grain bill size.(which is basically the opposite of what everyone else does) This way I can reduce my lauter eff. (yes I want to reduce it) and keep it consistent by keeping my sparge volume small for small grain bills and make it a larger volume for large grain bills. I cannot do this without these specific #s.
 
Cool.

I've read a lot of the stuff Kaiser has on his site, but it was before the two ag batches I've done. I didn't remember the part with the conversion effieciency, just the iodine test.

I think I've learned more about brewing from the people on this site than the total of what I learned in all of high school. And both times I was drinking beer, go figure...
 
I get the same efficiency with a single sparge. Have you tried that? If so, how much did doing a second one add?

Yes I did, it adds 3-5%. Not much but it's not much more effort. It's easy because I heat my sparge watter in two pots on a electric stove. It's easier to move it ~10 quarts at a time instead of about five gallons at a time. I didn't think my beer tasted any different either way.
 
You may as well start no-sparge brewing. It works fine for me (BIAB).

:)

Depends on the grain bill though. Right now, YOU tell the software what grist ratio you use, IT then assigns a sparge volume to make up for what is NOT in the mash. My thinking is that is backwards... because it will have you oversparging small grain bills and undersparging large ones. Which is one reason why people report lower eff. with large grain bills.

If you use a set ratio to mash, you are using MORE sparge in a small grain bill. You also then use LESS sparge in a large grain bill. Where is the logic in that?

BIAB is awesome, but I cannot do that, not enough gadgets.
 
I work with different ratios to get a manageable sparge. Depending on the grain bill it could be 1.3 to 1.6, most of my grain bills are 1.4. Keep in mind I mash out so the first run off will be closer to 2qt per lb. A sparge with 1 qt per lb is manageable, much smaller and it's difficult to stir. You need to stir until the whole mash has equalized in gravity.
 
I typically get about 74% efficiency, so dropping a little would be fine by me.

When I no sparge my efficiency drops below 50%, I would continue to calculate your sparges to make multiple runs. I often hit 74-76 and will continue to do so with the method you essentially described above.
 
This might seem a silly question, but is there a way to figure the percentage of conversion efficiency, or just the iodine test that will tell me if I've converted everything?

OG to FG will give you your attenuation. Most well modified (Properly Malted) grain will convert in about 60 minutes. As long as you don't sparge over 170 degrees your conversion will take place all the way into the kettle.
 
OG to FG will not give you eff. That will give you attenuation though.

Conversion can be complete in 30 minutes, or can take 90 minutes depending on mash thickness, temp. etc. The idea is to mash until you have complete conversion, high 90% area. I take periodic SG readings during the mash to check for complete conversion.

The actual % of conversion is more complicated to calculate, sort of, except Kaiser has made it easy.
 
When I no sparge my efficiency drops below 50%, I would continue to calculate your sparges to make multiple runs. I often hit 74-76 and will continue to do so with the method you essentially described above.

Then your conversion efficiency is lacking....

OG to FG will give you your efficiency. Most well modified (Properly Malted) grain will convert in about 60 minutes. As long as you don't sparge over 170 degrees your conversion will take place all the way into the kettle.

I don't know what you mean by these statements.

You can convert nearly 100% in 60 minutes if your process and equipment is right.

What do you mean that if you don't sparge over 170 you'll get conversion all the way to the kettle?
 
Then your conversion efficiency is lacking....



I don't know what you mean by these statements.

You can convert nearly 100% in 60 minutes if your process and equipment is right.

What do you mean that if you don't sparge over 170 you'll get conversion all the way to the kettle?

True, conversion should be complete by the time you get to the sparge, and if you mash out, it is definatley over.
 
I agree AZIPA... if someone is getting 50% eff. when no sparging, then thier conv. eff. is bad. That is awfully low. There is no way you are leaving 50% of the sugars back in the grain, you arent converting them in the first place.

This is the exact reason that determining conv. and lauter eff. is so important. Doesnt matter if you are getting 65% or 85% to the kettle, this tells you nothing at all about the process. The numbers that make up your eff. to the kettle, are very important to you.
 
I agree AZIPA... if someone is getting 50% eff. when no sparging, then thier conv. eff. is bad. That is awfully low. There is no way you are leaving 50% of the sugars back in the grain, you arent converting them in the first place.

This is the exact reason that determining conv. and lauter eff. is so important. Doesnt matter if you are getting 65% or 85% to the kettle, this tells you nothing at all about the process. The numbers that make up your eff. to the kettle, are very important to you.

Yup - we've had these discussions on many threads Pol; and we'll agree. If your conversion sucks; it doesn't matter what your lauter efficiency is.

If your brewhouse eff. sucks, check your conversion first, then your lauter....
 
Pol/ IPA what would you say is most important to conversion. I am not disagreeing with you just curious as to what I can do. I got higheer the exp, effiency last batch, I was just wondering what factors you guys say most influence conversion %. I assume mash Temp throughout the hour or any other timeline.
 
Pol/ IPA what would you say is most important to conversion. I am not disagreeing with you just curious as to what I can do. I got higheer the exp, effiency last batch, I was just wondering what factors you guys say most influence conversion %. I assume mash Temp throughout the hour or any other timeline.

Crush? pH? Doughballs? Mash temp?

Id say mash temp is the least of these, since the temp. range is pretty wide.
 
Back
Top