Batch sparging a 1.100 brew

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Salsgebom

Salsgebom

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On thursday I'm batch sparging my first double IPA that should hopefully get around 1.100. I'm trying to do everything possible to increase efficiency. The higher the better.

I'm using 20lbs of grain. I'll be sparging with 6 gallons. Should I add it in two 3gal phases or should I dump it all in at once? or.. should I lengthen my boil to allow me to sparge with more? hm?

Thanks
-Salsgebom-
 
I haven't actually donr it yet, but I'm researching batch sparging since that's how I plan to do my first AG batch.

Won't you need more water than that to adequately get the sugars from 20 lbs of grain into solution?
 
cweston said:
Won't you need more water than that to adequately get the sugars from 20 lbs of grain into solution?
Click to expand...

I'm thinking so. I'm mashing with 6gal (1.2qt/lb). Now if I sparge with another 6g and do a 100 minute boil- I should end up with 5.46g in the fermenter. I dont want a thicker mash, so the only other thing I can think of is a longer boil.
 
I haven't done this, so take my advice with a grain of salt, but most recipes I've seen for high-gravity brews recommend collecting 8-10g of wort and boiling that down to 5-5.5g. You may need to boil for 3 hours before you get to your 'normal pre-boil volume' and start adding hops. You're going to have to collect quite a bit of wort to get all the sugary goodness out of 20# of grain.
 
Most batch sparging instructions that I have read do 2 runnings of the water. Sometimes it is mentioned to do 3 depending upon the gravity readings. You will need to account for water absorbtion of the grain (.1 per lb.) and dead space of your system. This is what I am planning on for my first run later this week. Have you read this page -> http://www.hbd.org/cascade/dennybrew/it contains some very good information.
 
I don't think the batch sparging technique is the question. I think the question is How do you batch sparge a high gravity beer with out ending up with too much water.............??? Am I right Salsgebom?
 
Rusty said:
I don't think the batch sparging technique is the question. I think the question is How do you batch sparge a high gravity beer with out ending up with too much water.............??? Am I right Salsgebom?
Click to expand...

Right: I'm guessing it will take two batches of about 5 gallons of water each to adequately get the sugars into solution before emptying the tun.

If he loses, say, 2.5 gallons to grain absorbsion, that's 7.5 gallons of wort.

That's not too bad--maybe a 90 minute boil to get it down to 5.25 or so.

But maybe it will take more than 5 gallons per batch. It seems that the more typical formula is two three gallon batches for 10 pounds of grain. So maybe he'll need 2 six-gallon batches, which would mean something like 9.5 gallons of wort to boil down.
 
Salsgebom said:
I'm using 20lbs of grain. I'll be sparging with 6 gallons. Should I add it in two 3gal phases or should I dump it all in at once? or.. should I lengthen my boil to allow me to sparge with more? hm?
Thanks
-Salsgebom-
Click to expand...
There were a couple of questions there but I read it as should he do 1 or 2 infusions.
 
I collect 7-7.5g on my normal gravity batches (1045-1060 or so); I think it'll take more volume than that for 20# of grain. I'm guessing 9-10g. In terms of how many infusions, that's really dependent on how much capacity your lautertun has. Do it 2 if you can, or 3-4 if you can't.
 
This is how I would calulate it using 1.15 quarts per pound ratio.

20lbs x 1.15 = 23quarts / 4 = 5.75 gallons of infusion water
plus grain absorbsion water of 20lbs x .14 = 2.8 gallons of water
plus another 5.75 gallons of sparg water.

Total water needed = 14.3 gallons.

In my opinion thats too much for a high gravity beer making a 5 gallon batch. You will have to use a stiffer mash.
 
I'd go with three 3 gallon sparges and a longer boil if you have the space. I stir the grain, gently, after each addition and recirculate until clear.

Personally, I do high gravity ales as partial mashes, about half grain/half extract. I only do a couple a year and can't justify getting a larger kettle.
 
If you can stomach the formulae in the info from the ken schwartz link found in the dennybrew site, it will give some good calulations and reasons for the calculations to get the proper volume from any amount of grain. In the schwartz (may the schwartz be with you!-spaceballs) paper, there is a downloadable excel spreadsheet that do these calculations for you.

Now as far as boiling a volume down to increase OG, I can't be much help.
 
I'm following this with interest because I'm also planning on doing a 1.100 brew and I batch sparge. Hopefully you'll post your results.
 
I did a high gravity pale (20 plato) with 19 lbs of grain a couple of weeks ago I used 6 gal in the mash and after sparging I had almost 10 gal of wort for a 6 gal batch. My pre-boil gravity was 1.057 and I had to boil for over 2 hrs to get my post-boil OG of 1.085. Bigger beers do pose some extra problems but that's how you learn.
 
I did my CA Doppelbock a few weeks ago. It was only a three gallon batch, but I had about the same amount of grain for a regular 5 gallon batch. I collected about 7.5 gallons of wort, but boiled for about 3 hours to get it down to about 4 gallons before starting the boil. The OG ended up at 1.095. You are going to need alot of water, no matter what you do, batch sparging or not. Just be prepared to boil a while.
 
I know squat about batch sparging, so I might be out to lunch here:

The only time I've batch sparged, I just cranked the valve on my MLT wide open, and collected the wort quickly. This was for a fairly low gravity brew, so I wasn't too concerned about it.

Assuming your MLT will maintain a fairly constant temp, can't you just slow the runnings WAY down and increase your gravity? This would kind of defeat the purpose of batch sparging, but wouldn't it increase efficiency a fair amount?
 
The efficiency is lower when doing a high gravity beer.
The 3 solutions that I know of are:
1. Increase Grain (cheap)
2. Sparge with more water. (Tannins?)
3. Get more grain and make two beers. (Mash twice, make high gravity brew from 1st runnings, lower gravity brew from 2nd.) :)


:mug:
 
Ok, thanks for all the input! I've been hitting volumes pretty well, I'm really just asking what you would do to get the highest efficiency possible on this one. I'll be using sugar, DME and re-crushing milled grains through my corona mill. I'm mostly concerned about the sparge; I wasnt sure if 3gallon sparges would even be functional in 20lb of grain, so I wanted to hear some personal accounts from people who have tried this. It seems most of you fly-sparge, I'll have to look into that soon.

Here are my numbers to give a clearer idea of what I'm lookin at. These are from Promash

Total Grain: 20lb
Mash Gallons: 6 (1.2qt/lb)
Grain Absorption: 2.8g
Kettle Loss: .25g
Total First Runoff: 2.95g

Sparge: 6.5g
Kettle Loss: .5g
Total From Sparge: 6g

Total Preboil: 8.95g
120 minute boil @ 1.3g per hour evap rate

After Boil: 6.35g
Kettle Loss: .6g
To Chillers: 5.75g
After Cooling (4%): 5.52
 
Salsgebom said:
Ok, thanks for all the input! I've been hitting volumes pretty well, I'm really just asking what you would do to get the highest efficiency possible on this one. I'll be using sugar, DME and re-crushing milled grains through my corona mill. I'm mostly concerned about the sparge; I wasnt sure if 3gallon sparges would even be functional in 20lb of grain, so I wanted to hear some personal accounts from people who have tried this. It seems most of you fly-sparge, I'll have to look into that soon.

Here are my numbers to give a clearer idea of what I'm lookin at. These are from Promash

Total Grain: 20lb
Mash Gallons: 6 (1.2qt/lb)
Grain Absorption: 2.8g
Kettle Loss: .25g
Total First Runoff: 2.95g

Sparge: 6.5g
Kettle Loss: .5g
Total From Sparge: 6g

Total Preboil: 8.95g
120 minute boil @ 1.3g per hour evap rate

After Boil: 6.35g
Kettle Loss: .6g
To Chillers: 5.75g
After Cooling (4%): 5.52
Click to expand...

Sounds bout right. You've got it figured out pretty well. I know when I do a regular gravity beer with about 12 pounds of grain, I start with 8.33 gallons of water and end up with 5.5 gallons of wort post boil.
 
Those look like good numbers, Salsgebom.

Swami, it seems like slowing a batch sparge down would increase efficiency, but in reality it won't. Since you're not continuously sparging, you're not actually rinsing anymore sugar into solution, so whether you drain fast or slow, you got what you got in solution (and hence we drain fast :D ). You won't rinse anymore sugar into solution until you add your next batch of 1.000 SG water making the sugar want to equalize again.

Or something like that (haven't had coffee yet) :drunk:
 
Baron von BeeGee said:
Those look like good numbers, Salsgebom.

Swami, it seems like slowing a batch sparge down would increase efficiency, but in reality it won't. Since you're not continuously sparging, you're not actually rinsing anymore sugar into solution, so whether you drain fast or slow, you got what you got in solution (and hence we drain fast :D ). You won't rinse anymore sugar into solution until you add your next batch of 1.000 SG water making the sugar want to equalize again.

Or something like that (haven't had coffee yet) :drunk:
Click to expand...

That makes perfect sense. You'll extract more sugar with the constant top-to-bottom rinsing you get from fly sparging, whereas with batch sparging, it's one big top-to-bottom rinse, regardless of how fast you drain it.

Thanks!
 
A little mandolin intro, maybe a little fiddle...

"I'LL FLY ALL DAY, OH LORDY, I'LL FLY ALL DAY, I DON'T KNOW WHY YOU WOULDN'T JUST FLY, I'LL FLY ALL DAY..." :D
 
Theoretically, the amount of water added for each batch may make a difference in the efficiency. But I don't want to worry about this.

Kai
 
alemonkey said:
I'm following this with interest because I'm also planning on doing a 1.100 brew and I batch sparge. Hopefully you'll post your results.
Click to expand...

Well its mashing away! I ended up getting pre-milled grains and re-crushing half of them to increase efficiency a little. I'm going to do a 3gal sparge and a second 3.5gal sparge. I'll have the results this evening!
 
I hit 1.095 @ 61% efficiency. I'm pretty happy with it. Only negative is the CFC got clogged by a combination of 6oz of pellet hops and the high gravity. I had to scoop the last half gallon with a cooking pot and got tons of hop trub in the fermenter. Its bubbling away, hope it turns out great!
 
Sounds good and the efficiency looks right for a beer that big. Let us know how it comes out.
 

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