Fly sparge Question

[thdewitt]

OK, I have one more simple question. I have been going back and forth between batch and Fly sparging. There is one thing I don't understand with fly sparging. Please tell me if this is the correct way to Fly sparge. Currently, I have my HLT full to the top 14 gallons, I start my sparge with a slow trickle and open the valve to the kettle. Now, how do I know when to stop. Currently, I just measure the wort in the biol kettle and stop when I hit the correct amount. So when I am done, my Mash Tun is full of liquid still. The water stays at 1 inch over the grain bed. Is this correct? Do you even stop the sparge flow and drain the mash tun during the sparge? I hope this makes since. It is different from batch sparging as you drain fully each time. Is this the most efficient way to fly sparge?

Thanks,
Tom

 

[beerthirty]

Your sparge water is calculated (I use BeerSmith). You should run out of sparge water while the mashtun is still draining. Your mash tun should be drained just as you hit your preboil volume.

 

[squeekysheep]

sounds lie you need to look over the process a bit more.

 

[kcstrom]

Most folks, myself included, will only use enough sparge water to hit the target preboil volume when all water has drained out of the mash tun.

I'm not sure how well the wort-laden water gets pushed down to the bottom of the tun, but I suppose in theory it should work to continue to use fresh water. I suspect though that this would be continually watering down the wort leaving the tun a little though.

kcstrom

 

[ajf]

I don't use sparge water volume calculators because I use gravity to feed a sparge arm from a cooler. With this set up, I need about 2g in the HLT cooler to give enough pressure to spin the sparge arm. I simply heat about 7.5g sparge water which is more than enough to do the job, and use the extra water for clean-up.
As to when to stop, I keep an eye on the color of the wort going into the kettle, as well as the volume in the kettle. When the color gets light enough, I start monitoring the gravity. (I use a refractometer for this because it is so much easier than an hydrometer.) I stop sparging when I collect the required volume, or when the gravity of the runnings drops to below 1.010 (whichever happens first). I never completely drain the mash tun, although I usually let the water level drop a bit below the top of the grains at the end of the sparge.
Hope this is of some help.

-a.

 

[thdewitt]

Well, this is exactly what I thought. There doesn't seem to be an answer. When I first started all grain, I used the exact amount of water for the sparge per Pro Mash and I would often come up short. Later I just started filling the hlt with water (14 gallons) and constantly maintaining a 1 inch cover or the grains. I would stop when I reached the batch size in the kettle. But often I would have very low efficiency 60-65. This is why I am confused.

I read sometimes that you should always maintain 1 inch over the grains while sparging. In other places I hear to use the exact amount of water. If you do this, wouldn't you at some point let the water drain below the grain.

Which method is more effective/efficient. Maybe I should just always batch sparge and not worry about it.

 

[Jaybird]

Just calculate your water using promash or others like it. I use paper but that’s just me. Then add about 1 gallon to your calculations. Yes you want to leave about 2" of 175* water over the top of the grain bed (after your recirculation) then use all your water up in your HLT. Close the valve on your MLT once you have reached pre boil volume. Yes the water is going to drop below the top of your grain bed, you drain the MLT. like Beerthirty said. You should empty your MTL just as you hit pre boil volume. I like to have about 1/2 gallon left in the MLT just for kicks and giggles when I am done.
Good luck.
JJ

 

[ajf]

What sort of filtering mechanism fo you use. False bottom, manifold or braid? They are all suitable for batch sparging, but the false bottom is the best for fly.
You also don't want to add all the sparge water before starting to drain to the kettle. You want to add enough sparge water to leave an inch or so above the top of the grain, and then drain into the kettle at the same rate as you add more sparge water to the top.
The next thing is the time it takes to sparge. It takes me 60 - 90 minutes (90 minutes for higher gravity beers) to sparge a 5g batch. I know others report good results at a faster rate, but if I sparge faster, my efficiency goes way down. I end up with 85% efficiency in the 5g MLT or about 80% in the 10g.
It doesn't matter if you don't completely drain the entire tun as the gravity of what is left is so low, that it will make very little difference.

If you are getting poor efficiency, you may want to check for chanelling. See https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f36/channeling-check-fly-sparging-53713/
The reason I get lower efficiency in the 10g MLT is because of channeling.

-a.

 

[TwoHeadsBrewing]

Well, not sure how others do it...but I use beersmith to calculate my water for mash-in and fly sparging. A very basic outline of what beersmith takes into account:

1. #'s of grain * 1.33 quarts = Mash-in water (qts/lb. depends on mash profile)
2. Subtract MLT deadspace and grain aborbtion
3. Sparge Water = (Desired Final Volume + Boil Kettle/Trub Loss + Boil Off - (result from steps 1 and 2).

For fly sparging, beersmith makes it pretty simple.