kombat
Well-Known Member
I've been brewing for a few years now, and I've always done batch sparging. However, a couple of weeks ago, I had the opportunity to brew on the "pilot" system of a small brewpub, and they employed fly sparging. But they didn't have any kind of a sparge arm, they just had the hose from the HLT draped into the mash tun, and the flow was so constricted by the ball valve on the pump outlet that the hot water coming out of the hose was really more like a gentle spray.
It got me wondering if I could do this on my home setup. I'm wondering if it would work if I elevated my HLT up above my mash tun (I use a rectangular cooler), and gravity-fed the sparge water from the HTL into the mash tun, with the flow rate constricted to a trickle, and having it dispersed onto a piece of aluminum foil floating in the mash tun, to minimize any disturbances to the grain bed.
Does anyone do this at the homebrew level? Do I really need a sparge arm, or can I fly sparge with just a plain old hose from the HLT to the mash tun if I keep the flow rate low and have it "spatter" onto a piece of foil in the mash tun? Is there any reason I'm missing why this wouldn't work?
It got me wondering if I could do this on my home setup. I'm wondering if it would work if I elevated my HLT up above my mash tun (I use a rectangular cooler), and gravity-fed the sparge water from the HTL into the mash tun, with the flow rate constricted to a trickle, and having it dispersed onto a piece of aluminum foil floating in the mash tun, to minimize any disturbances to the grain bed.
Does anyone do this at the homebrew level? Do I really need a sparge arm, or can I fly sparge with just a plain old hose from the HLT to the mash tun if I keep the flow rate low and have it "spatter" onto a piece of foil in the mash tun? Is there any reason I'm missing why this wouldn't work?