Batch Sparge Troubles

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scottfro

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I brewed a 5 gal batch yesterday using batch sparging (for the 2nd time). I had 12.75 lb of grain and mashed in with 12.75 L of water. My first runnings gave me approximately 8L which is about right figuring a 0.2 grain absorption and my measured 1.5L deadspace. Following that I ran 21 L of sparge water through. I was shooting to have an initial volume of around 26-27 L which I measure with my dipstick stirring spoon. However after running off all the water I was short on my volume (not sure by how much).

Isn't the sparge water suppose to go through the grains with its volume basically unaltered as the grains are already as wet as they will get?

I ended up having to use some extra water that was just luke warm (added 6-7 L) to finish the sparge and bring my volume up (since I had already used my "safety factor" water) and ended up with pretty bad efficiency (59%). I started my boil with a bit more water than I think I had planned but my final volume was right on.

Can any provide any incite to what might have gone wrong with the sparge?
 
No idea why your grain absorbed more water, but I do have a little advice that helped my raise my efficiency.

I remember reading somewhere that you get the best sugar extraction if the two batches are equal volumes. In other words mash in with your normal ratio, then after your rests and before you do your first runnings add more water until your first running will equal the second. I also have found that lots of stirring and raising the temp with your water additions help efficiency.
 
i have read that too and i forgot to do that this time around.

what temp do you usually try to get the grain bed up to during the sparge?
 
so does not having equal sized runoffs contribute more to my lose of efficiency or would it be adding the extra water just luke warm?
 
Could be both Scottfro...efficiency can be elusive as there are many variables at play. Without actually witnessing the process, its difficult to hypothysize.

Luke warm sparge water certainly didn't help the cause, and If I had to guess I would say that has more effect than unequal volumes. Only guessing here .

Sorry such a bland answer.
 
It takes a while for all the water to drain from the grains. If you are in too much of a hurry then you might think you got all the runnings. Always check your mash tun half way through the boil for more wort. You might get lucky.

Look at this thread as it deals with efficiency and a "Modern Batch sparge method" now being tested by several on this forum.
 
WBC said:
It takes a while for all the water to drain from the grains. If you are in too much of a hurry then you might think you got all the runnings. Always check your mash tun half way through the boil for more wort. You might get lucky.

Look at this thread as it deals with efficiency and a "Modern Batch sparge method" now being tested by several on this forum.

I have noticed that and have collected about one gallon of wort after i thought i was done collecting and at the start of the boil.....if i collect too quickly!!!!:tank:
 
scottfro said:
so does not having equal sized runoffs contribute more to my lose of efficiency or would it be adding the extra water just luke warm?

Equal sizes are not important at all as long as none of the infusions result in too stiff of a solution. I wouldn't want any sparge batch to be less than 1qt per pound of grain. As many different configurations as I've tried, the highest yield is drain the original mash first, then make up your remaining desired preboil volume with two equally sized batch sparge infusions (fully draining in between). Sparging with water under 180ish has killed my efficiency twice now. I'm convinced cold or even warm sparging is wasteful.
 
I have also read that doing 2 equal batch sparges in volume would increase your efficiency %.

I just did a batch yesterday and was shooting for 27L and hit it right on doing the steps you did with no problems. My only guess would be you miss measured the water you sparged with or miss measured your deadspace loss. Now Im no expert but honestly I can't see anything you did wrong in your calculations or process. I would do another batch and measure everything exactly and see if you get the same result.

Hope I could help in my little insight...

Grimmy
 
interesting info, thanks.

it seems that luke warm water would extract at least something and would be better than not sparging at all. unless you are just willing to accept having a batch with less volume than anticipated.
 
Bobby_M said:
Equal sizes are not important at all
...
the highest yield is drain the original mash first, then make up your remaining desired preboil volume with two equally sized batch sparge infusions.

Now Im really confused. Are equal sizes important or not?
 
Gruntled said:
Now Im really confused. Are equal sizes important or not?

It means mash in with your desired water amount (say 1.25 qts/lb)
Then, when you go to sparge instead of doing a single 5 gallon sparge, do 2 double sparge. Making sure that the 2 sparges are the same.
So you would sparge with 2.5 gallons, and then do another sparge with another 2.5 gallons. You are using the same water as a single sparge, just equally dividing it up between 2 sparges.
 
Sherpa FE said:
It means mash in with your desired water amount (say 1.25 qts/lb)
Then, when you go to sparge instead of doing a single 5 gallon sparge, do 2 double sparge. Making sure that the 2 sparges are the same.
So you would sparge with 2.5 gallons, and then do another sparge with another 2.5 gallons. You are using the same water as a single sparge, just equally dividing it up between 2 sparges.

Bobby also said that he wouldn't advise sparging with less than 1qt/lb of grain. So if you are going to sparge with only 2.5 gallons, do so on a grain bed of less than 10# of grain.

I do a mashout with a single batch sparge, and I routinely get 90+% efficiency into the boiler (85% brewhouse). Most of these sparges are at 1.7 to 1.8 qts of water per pound of grain. I think temperature matters more than splitting the sparge into two batches. Sparge too cool and your efficiency will drop like a rock. YMMV.
 
heres a question that goes on to the temperature issue. is it better to wait for water to come up to proper sparge temp and let the mash sit dry if you find out you are short on water or does that lead to potential other issues?

instead of using luke warm water i guess i should have waited to bring a pot up to the right temperature. doesn't seem like it would do much harm to wait looking back.....
 
When you asked about equal runnings, I read "runnings" and not infusions. Equal batch sparge infusions is ideal but slight variation is fine as long as one of them isn't so small as to be not stirrable.

There are so many different variables that it's hard to place hard value on any one of them. We already know that temp is a huge factor. Given.

The factors that seem to confuse and are still being debated are:

1. Infuse prior to first runnings (AKA, the mashout) has proven to be benefitial for some folks. I personally have gotten better numbers by skipping this step and draining first runnings prior to any sparge infusion. The theory on why it helps is making sugar more soluable due to higher equilized temps. Granted, this works but my theory on why it isn't absolutely best practice is that the wort is already highly saturated with sugar and a minor dilution is less than ideal. I get the temp up with hotter sparge water than usual. Fly spargers look at 168F as a brickwall but I know from experience that 185F infusions don't break the barrier.

2. One sparge infusion or two...or more? I "know" that more discrete infusions/drainings is better than less. There's a point of diminishing returns in both physical effort and the mash thickness. Once you get below 1qt per pound, you can't really stir it well enough to get all the sugar in solution. My compromise is always two discrete sparge infusions as close to equal in size as practical. (to be clear, this means I vorlauf and fully drain 3 times).

Good stuff in the wiki: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/wiki/index.php/Batch_Sparging_Analysis
 
Similar question to Scott-fro's...

I did my first AG Friday night, and inadvertently boiled too little water to get my full "equal" batch sparge volume...I too didn't want to sacrifice efficiency, so I was willing to sacrifice a end batch volume loss...so I went ahead...

My measure OG on a Brown ale, was 070, when Beersmith told me it should be around 050'ish at 72% efficiency...??? I was confused, but went ahead and added my dilution water to make up the remainder of my 5 gal and OG then came back down to around 058...

So what the heck was my efficiency in the end, and did I manage to get this batch right in the end after all ???:drunk:
 
Scooter13 said:
Similar question to Scott-fro's...

I did my first AG Friday night, and inadvertently boiled too little water to get my full "equal" batch sparge volume...I too didn't want to sacrifice efficiency, so I was willing to sacrifice a end batch volume loss...so I went ahead...

My measure OG on a Brown ale, was 070, when Beersmith told me it should be around 050'ish at 72% efficiency...??? I was confused, but went ahead and added my dilution water to make up the remainder of my 5 gal and OG then came back down to around 058...

So what the heck was my efficiency in the end, and did I manage to get this batch right in the end after all ???:drunk:

what was your post boil O.G.? If you hit that on target with the target volume than your 72% is correct.
 
scottfro said:
what was your post boil O.G.? If you hit that on target with the target volume than your 72% is correct.


The post boil was the higher number...(070) A discussion we had on another forum topic was that it's possible the lower volume led to the higher reading...It only dropped to the 50's after adding some boil water to my fermenter to bring my overall volume back to the 5gal batch...(I ended about bout 3 qrts shy...)

I guess to gauge my efficiency, I would have to go back in, adjust my boil or batch volume with the same grain-bill and see what that efficiency ended up? I'm guessing if my thinking was right, my efficiency would have shot up...no?

I anticipated that with batch-sparging, I would lose a little on efficiency, so I bumped up my 2-row about a pound or so...but then came up about a gallon short on water volume...

All said, in hindsight I wish I WOULDN'T have added the dilution water to make up the batch volume and left it as is...lol
 
Scooter13 said:
The post boil was the higher number...(070) A discussion we had on another forum topic was that it's possible the lower volume led to the higher reading...It only dropped to the 50's after adding some boil water to my fermenter to bring my overall volume back to the 5gal batch...(I ended about bout 3 qrts shy...)

I guess to gauge my efficiency, I would have to go back in, adjust my boil or batch volume with the same grain-bill and see what that efficiency ended up? I'm guessing if my thinking was right, my efficiency would have shot up...no?

I anticipated that with batch-sparging, I would lose a little on efficiency, so I bumped up my 2-row about a pound or so...but then came up about a gallon short on water volume...

All said, in hindsight I wish I WOULDN'T have added the dilution water to make up the batch volume and left it as is...lol

im confused what you are saying. if your final volume and your O.G. in the fermenter were on target to your recipe then whatever efficiency your recipe was made for seems like it was accurate. if either your final volume or your O.G. were off then the efficiency is not correct.
 
sorry....my original gravity reading was higher than anticipated. Root cause (I think...) was that I ended up short on my total volume...

I guess my confusion is what exactly the definition of "efficiency" is...? My layman's perception is essentially getting the most out of grains you are using based on a theoretical yield of the grain...

And....specific gravity is a convenient (or only...) method of collecting data to substantiate this measure?

:off:

Now I think we have ventured off the original intent of this post, but I am still interested if I am thinking of this correctly...
 
I hope all my noob yammerings didn't drive everyone off the thread...

I honestly didn't mean to hi-jack your thread scott-fro...

Hope you got the answer to your initial questions...sorry....:eek:
 
Scooter13 said:
sorry....my original gravity reading was higher than anticipated. Root cause (I think...) was that I ended up short on my total volume...

Volume is important to measure accurately. A wort that measures 1.045 at 5.5 gallons will be 1.050 at 5.0 gallons. I use the same bucket to measure my strike+mashout+sparge water and my collected runnings, so at least the measurements are consistent.
 
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