missed my efficiency..alot. first AG

well, bought a MLT converted cooler from a popular seller. 5 gal igloo, with round stailness hoop shaped "manifold"... looks very similar all the DIY setups i see here, but most use a straigHt piece of ss tubing, this one as i said is roundish.
anyway, i was trying ed's haus ale. i ordered an extra 2lbs of 2 row assuming the worst.
put into beersmith, O.G. should have been 1.071, i ended up @ 1.063.

made a few mistakes as is customary, added about 4 lbs of 2 row after my first gallon and stirred well, more water, then 3lbs (2 of vienna, 1 of munich) and then more water, and more 2 row. i used green bay rackers strike calulator which had me very close....went inside to clean some tools, wondering why my cooler was about 6" from full.....remembered, crap, there is more 2 row in the bag!!!
ran back outside, and added at least 3 more lbs of 2 row after a bit more water, and then added the last of my 4.0 gallons of strike water, could barely stir at this point... took temp before my first mistake, 149.8, and after i was all done, with correct amount of grain i was at 153.5... i thought, SWEET! dumb luck, or over preperation, i dont care...

anyway, still lost on sparging. i started releasing the mash slowly into the brewpot, and once about a gallon was in the pot, i added about 2 qts at a time of sparge water @ 175 . mixed as well as possible, and defienately areated it a little (woops!) and temp in mlt said 159 then up to a max of 169...
still not sure, am i to add half my sparge (double sparge) and let it run dry, then add the second running?? ( palmer said "leave at least 1" of water above grainbed AT ALL TIMES) anyway, when i hit my 6.5 mark i made on my 7.5 gallon pot, i stopped sparging...i let the first spare run at least 50% or more dry...

wow, this is getting long...

anyway, not altogether bad, still ended up higher OG than ed's recipe...i guess i over anticipated my efficiency.
i ended up using 8 gallons of water total, 6.5 into brewpot. my pale was at exactly 5 gallons when i dumped the brew pot into it ( i did airate 2.5 galls with a measuring cup dumped from about 4' over bucket-same as i do extract)

again, sorry so long...


can ya give me some pointers for the next batch....i was straight strugglin to get sparge water to temp, knowing i needed the brew pot to get teh mash out water...

ohh, last, i did add the hooeter sparge water about 5 mins into letting the first runnings out....i guess thats "mash out" ?

i would be doing only extract for life if it was not for HBT! thanks all

nosmatt said:

anyway, still lost on sparging. i started releasing the mash slowly into the brewpot, and once about a gallon was in the pot, i added about 2 qts at a time of sparge water @ 175 . mixed as well as possible, and defienately areated it a little (woops!) and temp in mlt said 159 then up to a max of 169...
still not sure, am i to add half my sparge (double sparge) and let it run dry, then add the second running?? ( palmer said "leave at least 1" of water above grainbed AT ALL TIMES) anyway, when i hit my 6.5 mark i made on my 7.5 gallon pot, i stopped sparging...i let the first spare run at least 50% or more dry...

ohh, last, i did add the hooeter sparge water about 5 mins into letting the first runnings out....i guess thats "mash out" ?

Click to expand...

Well, it sounds pretty good overall! The first one always has a learning curve, but it gets smoother each time. I'm not sure what you're asking about in the sparge. It sounds like you're reading about fly sparging from Palmer (keeping at least 1 inch of water above the grainbed, mashing out) and actually doing a batch sparge?

When I sparge, I batch sparge. When my mash time is up, I open the ball valve, and drain the runnings. I recirculate the first couple of quarts, but then let the rest drain into my kettle. Then, I close the valve, and add 1/2 of my sparge water- usually about 181 degrees to bring my grainbed up to 168 degrees. I stir well, vorlauf (recirculate) and drain it all. Then I do it again.

I know there are other methods- fly (continous sparge), where you keep 1" of water over the grainbed and sprinkle in more water slowly as it drains slowly over about 50 minutes. There is also a hybrid-fly type sparge that I think Biermuncher does. So, I think it's easy to mix up the different ways when you're trying to figure it out. The easiest way for me is to just batch sparge as I described.

It does sound like you did quite well on your first attempt!

cool, thanks. i was hoping you would reply, the pretencious replies get old. thanks.


anyway, i read, and reread a few times, and weather you batch, or fly sparge, you are to leave at leave an inch of water over the bed... i did not.

as i read on another site, many batch spargers (damn, that almost sounds dirty!) will run the first runnings through, till the flow ends, then close the valve, and add the second sparge, open, varlauf, and so on....

i did not do quite that, but i ended up with utensils, and thermometers are sticky, so conversion took place damnit!


so, should i let it run totally dry? should i wait till just the top few inches of grainbed are drying?? then move on ....

anyway, not sure where i gave up 8 gravity points from beersmith's estimate, or if i will ever get them. not that i wanted a 1.071 beer, not at all, i was trying to be realistic in my $2.50 extra spent on the grain bill!


i guess this all comes with experience, but i have well over 100 hours of reading, and only about 20 hours of brewing under my belt.

I don't know where you read that bit about batch sparging and leaving an inch of water over the grain bed. It doesn't work that way. Batch sparging requires you to drain the tun dry at least twice. My all grain primer might help you.

Bobby_M said:

My all grain primer might help you.

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-1 on Bobby's all-grain primer. It's confusing and doesn't have any helpful information at all...

okay, just kiding obviously - read it. Twice. Maybe even three times, and then follow it. It's an easy read (I read Palmer and Papazain and didn't "get AG" until I read Bobby's thing...)

Thanks for the replies. i will definately read that primer...

as for where i read that, "how to brew".

Our goal in the lautering process is to rinse all the grain particles in the tun of all the sugar, despite all of the non-ideal conditions. To do this we need to focus on two things:
keeping the grainbed completely saturated with water, and making sure that the fluid flow through the grainbed to the drain is slow and uniform.

By keeping the grainbed covered with at least an inch of water, the grainbed is in a fluid state and not subject to compaction by gravity. Each particle is free to move and the liquid is free to move around it. Settling of the grainbed due to loss of fluidity leads to preferential flow (a major cause of poor extraction) and can result in a stuck sparge.

The more uniformly the water moves through the grainbed, the more sugar it can extract from the grain. This results in better extraction efficiency. Fluid flow through the grainbed is complex and depends greatly on the design of your lauter tun.

I am guessing i took that out of context, he did not specify if that was for only fly sparging.... i did read on another site about completely draining, but my brew procedure was already set.

again, thanks for the tips, i shall do more reading before next brewday!

Bobby_M said:

I don't know where you read that bit about batch sparging and leaving an inch of water over the grain bed. It doesn't work that way. Batch sparging requires you to drain the tun dry at least twice. My all grain primer might help you.

Click to expand...

Thanks for the primer. That was a really well written and descriptive article. I'm reading up on what it'll take to go AG and that was probably the most comprehensive article I've read so far.

I like this picture because it reminds me of Homebrewing for Dummies.

I have it as the cover of my brewbook.

I like that graphic, but it falls short for folks who want a little more "why" to go with the "what".

I haven't read Palmer in a while but I don't think he touches on batch sparging at all. I suppose it was a relatively new movement when he originally wrote How to Brew.

Bobby_M said:

I like that graphic, but it falls short for folks who want a little more "why" to go with the "what".

I haven't read Palmer in a while but I don't think he touches on batch sparging at all. I suppose it was a relatively new movement when he originally wrote How to Brew.

Click to expand...

Granted, but it's a good primer for when I have "greenhorns" as helpers.

Bobby_M said:

I haven't read Palmer in a while but I don't think he touches on batch sparging at all. I suppose it was a relatively new movement when he originally wrote How to Brew.

Click to expand...

I believe you are right...Palmer focuses mainly on fly sparging when he gets wordy. The batch sparging process is limited to less than a paragraph, because 'you get better efficiency from fly sparging...'

of course those of us that follow the experiments that you and others carry out know that batch sparging can be extremely efficient if done well