Fly verses batch sparging

[areams]

would someone explain the difference?

 

[weetodd]

Simply put, with fly sparging, you slowly add hot sparge water to your mash tun while lautering. The key is to slowly add to the tun at about the same rate you are lautering, with a goal of keeping a buffer of water above the grain.

In a batch sparge, you add some additional sparge water to your mash, stir your grain and lauter quickly. Ideally you would collect 1/2 of your total needed boil volume from this first sparge. You would then repeat this process with additional sparge water to obtain the rest of your wort for boil.

There are advantages to each and there are discussions here and other places of those in great detail.

 

[Beerrific]

This should answer all you questions and some: http://hbd.org/cascade/dennybrew/

 

[doubleb]

thanks for the link and info. I'm still a little confused too as to which way I'd like to do.

 

[FlyGuy]

If you are not sure, I would suggest starting with batch sparging. It is a simpler process that requires fewer pieces of equipment. If you want to switch to fly sparging later, you can use virtually all your old equipment, with a few upgrades.

 

[Beerrific]

If you are not sure, I would suggest starting with batch sparging. It is a simpler process that requires fewer pieces of equipment. If you want to switch to fly sparging later, you can use virtually all your old equipment, with a few upgrades.

I agree and check FlyGuy's sig for the link to the easy cooler MLT. This is what I (and many others) based mine off of and it works great.

 

[Bobby_M]

Let me also add that in my opinion, it's easier to screw up a fly sparge and harder to screw up batch sparge. If you know all the pitfalls to both methods and avoid them well, fly sparging eeks out a few more percentage points of efficiency (maybe 92% vs. 85%) but it's not enough to strive for. If you do fly sparging badly, you could be down near 60%.

Fly sparging requires a dedicated hot liquor tank that you can slowly trickle water from (and hopefully hold the temp up as well). Batch sparging does let you use your boil kettle as your hot water source as long as you don't mind collecting wort in buckets or other spare vessels.

Just a warning, the fly vs. batch is just as bad as the aluminum vs. stainless BK and "hey, where'd you steal that keg from" debates.