Please walk me through fly sparge...

I've done several AG batch sparges and am trying my hand at fly sparging and getting my ass kicked. I know I am not hitting my temps which is certainly the cause of my poor efficiency. Please walk me through how I would go about hitting this mash schedule:

I do 10 gallon batches and use beersmith, so I will break down my process for 18 lbs of grain.

Mash Schedule
153° F for 60 minutes
170° F for 10 minutes

heat 1.25 quarts per pound to about 168 (actual number computed by beersmith, but I don't have it on this computer) and add that and the grain to MLT. stir vigorously to remove any dough balls. Let sit for 60 minutes.

THis is where I think I mess up. I heat my sparge water to about 180, put it in my HLT and begin sparging at about 1qt per minute. when I take a temp reading of my mash in the MLT at this point i get about 155 degrees...


I know I want that temp to be about 168 degrees and the 180 degree sparge water should raise the temp up, but it never seems to get it hot enough...

What am I doing wrong?

Sounds like you are skipping the mashout step in your mash schedule and trying to use the 180º sparge water to raise the grain bed temperature.

This is the approach we take at the Soggy Bottom Brewery. Our sparge water temp is right at 172 degrees. We don't go much higher because of the hose we use. We have a pump that moves the water from our HLT up to the MLT. We use the same process to fill the MLT through our sparge arm/ring, then use a metering valve to slow down the flow for sparging. In our case the sparge arm is a ring of tubing in the cap of the Igloo with small holes drilled all around it to create a rain effect in the MLT. We don't worry about getting the total mashtun temp up to 168, and apparently a lot of other folks don't either. I have noticed the temp does slowly creep up to that point during the sparge. You aren't going to achieve a step change in temperature without calculating how much boiling, or very hot water to add, and stirring again. We get very good efficiencies and are hitting our targets as far as the gravities are concerned. The biggest concern we had was avoiding over-sparging, but we typically get our pre-boil volume of 13 gallons before the last runnings get below 1.012 specific gravity. That is almost impossible to check in real-time with a hydrometer. We do it by taking samples and letting them cool and recording the readings later during the boil. It was scary the first time, but we haven't made a batch yet that went too low.

I think your efficiency problem is coming from something else. In our case, we found efficiency was tied to our water profile, and grain crush. We have very hard water with a high alkalinity. Until we modified it with distilled water and a few carefully chosen salt additions we had very poor conversion in the mashtun. We then made significant improvement by monitoring the grain crush, particularly with wheat in the grain bill. The last batch we just brewed we used the malt conditioning process described elsewhere on the board and it added a few more points to the OG than anticipated in the recipe.

We have maintained the same sparging process through all the changes, mainly because we are lazy. One of our brewery rules defined by the brewmaster Gracho are "If it can't be done with one hand, it isn't being done right." The point being you need to be able to have a beer in the free hand at all times to enjoy the day!

The grain absorbs around a gallon or more water of course, and the grain also has its own starting temp. which is a little odd to think about, but like everything in our extreme cooking, it is a fact of the process.

Put in slightly higher temps, record them before and after and repeat for future batches.

I just did a batch last night, I used:
strike water temp=168
mash temp after doughing in=153
1:20 pm +90mins = 2:50 (time for first rest)

sparge1 (batch sparge 2 gals) sparge temp=187
temp of mash after 10 mins=168
sparge2 fly sparge 2gals also at =187

sparge3 (batch) 3 qts sparge=185 and let that sit 10 mins.

My last runnings noticeably thin, the pour looked clear, but the little pot I collected it in has some color to it. I hit my highest efficiency ever doing it this way.

So long story long; use higher temps, the obsorbtion takes up some of it.
Strike water: 168 in, ended up at 153.
Sparge: 187 in, dropped to 168 on the nose.
Now I have it written down, for my process, my equipment and can duplicate the process.
You only have to make your best beer once, the trick is repeating it 1000 times

Cookiebaggs said:

Sounds like you are skipping the mashout step in your mash schedule and trying to use the 180º sparge water to raise the grain bed temperature.

Click to expand...

so I should be adding approximately 2 gallons of whatever temperature water will raise my mash to 168 degrees and then fly sparge after that?

with only one burner, how can I heat up that water while simultaneously heating my sparge water?

The two methods of batch and fly sparging both aim to get the maximun amount of sugars out of the grain, both require whatever volume of water that is needed after mashing to add up to your preboil-volume.

The most obvious thing I spotted in your post was that I think you needed slightly higher temps.

If you took the amount "2 gallons" from my post, you can pretty much disregard that. I combined the two techniques. That was just 2 gals I fly sparged with after letting 2gals sit and cook in for 10 mins. I knew I needed 4 gals of sparge regardless. I wanted to be sure I was well over a volume of 5gals post-boil. This recipe (that I'm repeating) lost like .6 gals to trub/fallout after fermentation last time.

It's a never ending debate, and you can search and read forever on both topics.
Here are two on each:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f36/fly-sparge-vs-batch-sparge-facts-78743/

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f36/maximizing-efficiency-when-batch-sparging-77125/

I think regardless of which method you go with, or use a hybrid method, you will need the same amount of water. With either method, it is critical to take your time, and hit the exact temps.

shoebag22 said:

I've done several AG batch sparges and am trying my hand at fly sparging and getting my ass kicked. I know I am not hitting my temps which is certainly the cause of my poor efficiency. Please walk me through how I would go about hitting this mash schedule:

If you're not hitting your temperatures, that may contribute to poor efficiency, but there could also be several other reasons.

I do 10 gallon batches and use beersmith, so I will break down my process for 18 lbs of grain.

Mash Schedule
153° F for 60 minutes
170° F for 10 minutes

heat 1.25 quarts per pound to about 168 (actual number computed by beersmith, but I don't have it on this computer) and add that and the grain to MLT. stir vigorously to remove any dough balls. Let sit for 60 minutes.

I use Promash rather than Beersmith because I find it much easier to use. I make 5 gallon batches instead of 10, and usually mash thicker than you. I don't think that any of this makes any difference if I divide your volumes and weights by 2, and account for the difference in mash thickness.
I heat my strike water a little higher, but this is because I use less water per lb. Your stike temperature looks OK if you preheat the MLT, but have you checked your mash temperature after doughing in, and leaving it for a few minutes for the temperature to stabilize? If your mash temperature is low, you may find that you need to mash longer to get complete conversion.

THis is where I think I mess up. I heat my sparge water to about 180, put it in my HLT and begin sparging at about 1qt per minute. when I take a temp reading of my mash in the MLT at this point i get about 155 degrees...

As Cookiebags said, it looks as though you are skipping the mash-out.
I used to do the same, and got a similar temperature for the sparge. At this temperature, I got a consistent 75% efficiency (although my first few batches may have been at a lower efficiency as I was getting used to the process). When I started doing a mash-out, my efficiency instantly increased by 10% I initially jumped to the conclusion that the increased efficiency was caused by sparging at a higher temperature (high 160's versus mit 150's), but now I'm not so sure.
I performed the mashout by adding some near boiling water at the end of the mash, and stirring vigorously before recirculating a couple quarts, and then starting the sparge. I now think that the stirring, rather than the higher temperature could be (at least partially) responsible for the increased efficiency.

I know I want that temp to be about 168 degrees and the 180 degree sparge water should raise the temp up, but it never seems to get it hot enough...

With a fly sparge, you are only adding water very slowly. Slowly adding 180F water to a large amount of mash will not appreciably increase the temperature of that mash, especially as the delivery mechanism will cool the water to some extent.
With my system, I need to heat the sparge water to 185F. When added to an unheated cooler, it maintains the grain bed temperature during the sparge in the high 160's. You're mileage may vary.

What am I doing wrong?

Click to expand...

You're worrying too much.

-a.

Size: 10.0 gal

[size=+1]Ingredients:[/size]
18.0 lb 2-Row Brewers Malt

[size=+1]Schedule:[/size]
Ambient Air: 70.0 °F
Source Water: 60.0 °F
Elevation: 0.0 m

00:26:37 Mash - Liquor: 5.5 gal; Strike: 164.18 °F; Target: 151.4 °F
01:26:37 rest - Rest: 60 min; Final: 151.4 °F
01:31:37 mashout - Water: 2.6 gal; Temperature: 212.0 °F; Target: 169.0 °F
02:16:37 fly sparge - Sparge Volume: 9.0 gal; Sparge Temperature: 169.0 °F; Runoff: 11.74 gal

[size=-1]Results generated by BeerTools Pro 1.5.6[/size]

So at a 1.2 qt/lb mash thickness it would take 2.6 gallons of boiling water to be stirred into the mash prior to vorlauf and starting the sparge.

Thanks for the help boys. With only one heating vessle (keggle) how can I heat that 2.6 gallons to boiling while simultaneously heating my sparge water?

Ehhh I'll let the more experienced people answer, I'll be interested in what they say too.

Well, there's a trick that I know of.

If you need 2.6 gallons @ 212F and directly afterwards you need 9 gallons of 169F sparge, you can start by heating 10 gallons to boiling. Remove the 2.6 and stir it into the mash then add 1.6 gallons of 55F tap water back into the kettle. You'll end up with 9 gallons at 171F. Of course, if you're going to transfer the sparge water to a holding tank for the long sparge, you would want to go in way hotter than 171.

Bobby, how did you know to add exactly 1.6 gallons of 55F tap to reach 171f?

Hmm, I used an online calculator that I can not find now... but I did find this formula which is contradicting my previous result.

I put the formula in a spreadsheet and I get a resultant temp of 186F.


((Va * Ta) + (Vb * Tb)) / (Va+Vb) = Tf


Va = volume in tank A whose temperature is Ta
Vb = volume in tank B whose temperature is Tb
Tf = the temperature of the water after mixing.

So,
temp 1 volume 1 temp 2 volume 2 Resultant temp total vol
212...........6.5....... 55...........2.5 ........ 168.3888889.... 9


In practice you don't have to be this exacting.

Not to hijack this thread, but I have a question. I use my kettle for my mash, then transfer to my bucket system for lautering (waiting for warmer weather to set up my three tier keg system), and I always mash out at 168 over the burner. It was my understanding that once the mash is at those temps(168f), the sparge water (I fly-sparge) does not need to keep the grain bed as high a temp since enzymes are deactivated, and sugars should run free from the grain. Am I misunderstanding the process, or the science? I am getting 75% efficiency, so I'm pleased....but could do more with less by upping sparge temps?

Well, once you've got the initial wort and mash up to 168, what's the value in sparging cooler? You have to get that up to boiling soon anyway.

Bobby_M said:

Well, once you've got the initial wort and mash up to 168, what's the value in sparging cooler? You have to get that up to boiling soon anyway.

Click to expand...

Well, I always mash out, but find that I have to heat my sparge water up to 185 to maintain the sparge temperature. Part of the extra heat goes to warming the MLT, much of it goes to the delivery mechanism which acts as a radiator, and the remainder goes to warming up the grain bed, because my mash out never quite reaches 168.

-a.

shoebag22 said:

Thanks for the help boys. With only one heating vessle (keggle) how can I heat that 2.6 gallons to boiling while simultaneously heating my sparge water?

Click to expand...

another pot?
or just skip the mash out

shoebag22 said:

Thanks for the help boys. With only one heating vessle (keggle) how can I heat that 2.6 gallons to boiling while simultaneously heating my sparge water?

Click to expand...

I don't currently do a mash out but after reading this I might give it a try. I'm in the same boat as you because I only have one heating vessle. What I was thinking is that I would heat my sparge and mash out water together. Once it hits near the sparge temp transfer the needed amount to the HLT (insulated cooler) and continue heating the remainder (mash out water) to near boiling.

I am using a SS pot as a mash tun. Is it okay to kust bring the mash temp up by the burner for mash out?

SOB said:

I don't currently do a mash out but after reading this I might give it a try. I'm in the same boat as you because I only have one heating vessle. What I was thinking is that I would heat my sparge and mash out water together. Once it hits near the sparge temp transfer the needed amount to the HLT (insulated cooler) and continue heating the remainder (mash out water) to near boiling.

Click to expand...

this is along the same lines as what bobby mentioned but this actually makes more sense for us. instead of bringing all 9ish gallons of water up to a boil when only the mash out volume needs to be boiling, just remove the sparge water when it reaches the appropriate temp and let the rest get up to boiling...
thanks for suggestions and I will let you know how I do next brew day.

Julohan said:

I am using a SS pot as a mash tun. Is it okay to kust bring the mash temp up by the burner for mash out?

Click to expand...

If you stir the hell out of the mash during heating yes.

Is it because of scorching and having a uniform temperature throughout the mash?

Bobby_M said:

Size: 10.0 gal

[size=+1]Ingredients:[/size]
18.0 lb 2-Row Brewers Malt

[size=+1]Schedule:[/size]
Ambient Air: 70.0 °F
Source Water: 60.0 °F
Elevation: 0.0 m

00:26:37 Mash - Liquor: 5.5 gal; Strike: 164.18 °F; Target: 151.4 °F
01:26:37 rest - Rest: 60 min; Final: 151.4 °F
01:31:37 mashout - Water: 2.6 gal; Temperature: 212.0 °F; Target: 169.0 °F
02:16:37 fly sparge - Sparge Volume: 9.0 gal; Sparge Temperature: 169.0 °F; Runoff: 11.74 gal

[size=-1]Results generated by BeerTools Pro 1.5.6[/size]

So at a 1.2 qt/lb mash thickness it would take 2.6 gallons of boiling water to be stirred into the mash prior to vorlauf and starting the sparge.

Click to expand...

I just had a brew day tried my hand at BM's centennial blonde and followed all of the calculations from beersmith. I had my mash at about 153 degrees and I needed to bring that up to 168. I used about 2.75 gallons of 210 degree water and i was only able to bring the temp up to 160 degrees... am I missing something?

I use Promash to calculate the mash out volume, and the volume came out very close to the BeerTools estimate. If I follow the Promash volumes, then I get the temperature up to about 165F. Perhaps if I bothered to enter the thermal mass of the MLT it would get closer to 168 but 165 works well for me.
How did you transfer the water into the MLT? I pour mine straight from the kettle. If you use another container to ladle the water, then that will cool the water considerably.

-a.