Batch OR Fly? Whats a sparger to do??

Hello all, just have to ask. Ive been a All-Grain brewer for a few years now and I have always batched sparged on all my brews. I was reading on the Stone Brewing website about how they make their Vertical Epic Ale. The Head Brewer "Mitch" had said that you shouldnt batch sparge because you could introduce oxygen to the mash and that "could" affect your brew....
Here is my question, doesnt boiling the wort take out any oxygen and thats why we need to add oxygen back in the wort before yeast is added? So what am I to do? Switch to Fly Sparging or stay with Batch Sparging? Does this theroy hold water? Please enlighten me.

wjjohnson said:

Hello all, just have to ask. Ive been a All-Grain brewer for a few years now and I have always batched sparged on all my brews. ..."could" affect your brew....

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You tell us. Has it? If it ain't broke don't fix it.

Did he explain why oxygen is bad for your mash?

Here is a qute from Mitch...."A note here about batch sparging, which is the technique of drawing the wort off until you pull the grain bed dry, then adding sparge water until you are over the level of the grain bed, and repeating the process until you are at kettle full. Yes, you will increase your extract recovery using this method, and it is easier than trying to maintain a liquid level over the grain bed while filling your kettle. But you are also oxidizing your grain bed by exposing it to air, which can reduce the freshness of your final beer. Also, when you pull until the grain bed is dry, you compact the bed, and adding more sparge water on top can cause stuck run-offs, though that problem is rare. I still don’t recommend batch sparging. "

Wouldn't this assume that a fly sparge method is done under closed conditions? He says you "expose the grain bed to air" but if I switch to fly from batch using my same cooler I would still have my grain bed exposed to air.

Am I missing something about setups for fly sparging where they are closed or something?

Sounds like another Hot Side Aeration debate... I think it's been shown that HSA isn't something to worry about on a homebrewing scale. I wouldn't worry about it.

wjjohnson said:

Also, when you pull until the grain bed is dry, you compact the bed, and adding more sparge water on top can cause stuck run-offs, though that problem is rare.

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This sentence shows that he doesn't understand the batch sparging process that we do as homebrewers.

Do we really need to revisit the HSA discussion again? Most people are of the opinion that it's not an issue in a homebrew environment. If these are his arguments, he doesn't have much of a platform.

pretzelb said:

Wouldn't this assume that a fly sparge method is done under closed conditions? He says you "expose the grain bed to air" but if I switch to fly from batch using my same cooler I would still have my grain bed exposed to air.

Am I missing something about setups for fly sparging where they are closed or something?

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Fly sparging keeps adding water at the same rate as runoff. This keeps the liquid level above the top of the grainbed.

Scimmia said:

Fly sparging keeps adding water at the same rate as runoff. This keeps the liquid level above the top of the grainbed.

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Doh!! I knew that!!

For some reason I didn't consider the level of water a protection against the air.

Did I open a hole new can of worms with the HSA? What is HSA in a nutshell?

The idea is that if you splash things around a lot and introduce oxygen pre-boil, it'll have an adverse effect on long-term stability. It's sort of similar to oxygenating post-fermentation (which IS an issue), except with different effects. It's only really an issue if you have gallons and gallons of wort waterfalling over 12 feet into some large tank or something.

one of the differences that big brewers face that we don't is loss of money over consistency. if stone gets a slight off flavor from something like HSA, it ruins a gigantic batch of beer that they need to sell to keep in business. with us, it adds to our "house flavor". every large scale brewer i've talked to has talked about oxidation in beer, and basically told me that everything we do puts our beer at risk. i'm beginning to think it's not that big of a deal on the small scale that we deal with. imagine batch sparging a commercial size beer though... that's a lot of freaking air being mixed with a lot of wort... might make a difference on the big scale.

but i wouldn't worry for our small scale. keep it simple.