Spinning fly sparge is awful!

[arch1tect]

This thread got interesting fast.

Don't worry so much about the grain bed. I simply let my HLT trickle down into my MLT from about 6 inches above, once there is a 1 to 2 inch head space of water I'll start to vorlauf then drain.

Should I blur this out since I hope to open up a brewpub one day?

Now here is the real question, how big is your system?

 

[natev]

I'm running two 15g and a 26g boil kettle.

 

[arch1tect]

I'm running two 15g and a 26g boil kettle.

The issue may not be the arm but your processes. What are you using as a filter in your MLT? False bottom, manifold, braid?

Are you preheating the tun? Is it direct fire? If you could give me us a better idea of your setup and processes we could help better.

 

[natev]

The two 15g pots are blickman. So it's that perforated false bottom. I've been heating the water in the HLT and then pumping the needed amount into the mash tun. Using recirculating/vorlauf to maintain temp. Direct heat only on HLT and boil kettle.

The grain crush seems ok, not undercrushed.
I suspected the mash pH.

The highest efficiency came from dark brown ale, which may have been dark enough to acidify the water down to around 5 something. I tried using the 5.2 mash stabilizer, it seemed ok, however I don't like all the stuff that is floating in the water when using it.

The latest batch I used Gypsum and Calcium Chloride since my local water is very high in carbonates but low in sulfates and chlorides. This seemed to work a little but not a huge difference.

We are getting close to good numbers but it seems very hard to achieve above 70% efficiency. When we are sparging, we run out probably 18 gallons and down to 1.007 gravity and then boil for a long time (down to 8-10 gallons). It seems like we shouldn't have to boil off almost 50% of the water to reach below 75%. Actually, sometimes the first runoff is at a lower gravity than what we are shooting for, this can't be right.

 

[arch1tect]

how are you heating the mash water? Herms/Rims or decoction method?

What temps are you striving for during your mash?

What is the grist ratio? Are you calculating the dead space of the false bottom when you mash?

What temp is the water preheated at?

 

[natev]

Mash water is heated by RIMS method, i think. If that's where you run the wort out, through a heat exchanger in the HLT and back on top of the mash.

We tried 154° a few times.
When we did a rye ale, we cooked at 104°-30min/140°-40min/158°-20min
Also, tried a two-step mash at 150° then 160°

Grist is 1.5 qt/lb.
Dead space is .19 gallons. I'm not calculating that, what is the relevance of it.
Pre-heated water is 165° to achieve the 154° after mash in.

 

[jetmac]

Batch sparging just seems so much simpler.

 

[arch1tect]

If your grist is 1.5 it's a little over what I tend to do and that does make up for the deadspace in the MLT. Why you have to worry about that is because that water that's not in there isn't going to be in contact with the grain bed. Now you're recirculating so it shouldn't be an issue.

Do you stir during the mash?

Also, how are you taking temp readings?

Lastly, what you measuring your Gravity with? First Runnings Method? Preboil?

 

[natev]

I stir the mash to break things up when we mash in, but that's it.

The pots have thermometers on them. I have occasionally dropped a second thermometer in the mash to be sure they are accurate. Also so I get an idea of what temp the recirculated mash in coming back in at. I don't use an inline thermometer so it's not perfect.

We used a hydrometer for a while but with the temp adjustments it became tedious. For the last couple brews I've been using a Hanna refractometer.

 

[arch1tect]

Try stirring your mash a little more, if you have a pump to recirc then stirring through out will only help. If the water coming in is too hot and is sitting on top of the grain bed it may halt your conversions so you should stir. Is the refractometer auto temp correcting?
What's your first running gravity at compared to your calculated post boil gravity?

 

[natev]

I will definitely try stirring. Yes it's auto temp adjusting.

Our last brew I got a reading of about 1.066 on the first running. This was promising since we were shooting for 1.060. It quickly dropped and we had a 1.038 at the start of the boil and a 1.052 at the end of the boil.

 

[arch1tect]

what was the grain bill? I can do some calcs to see how far off you were.

 

[cwi]

what was the grain bill? I can do some calcs to see how far off you were.

Very sneaky. Anxious to see if it works.
Just need someone to follow up by asking what his hop schedule is, just in case that may be the issue.

 

[arch1tect]

Very sneaky. Anxious to see if it works.
Just need someone to follow up by asking what his hop schedule is, just in case that may be the issue.

I really want to help but apparently he doesn't want it.

 

[natev]

Sorry, went to lunch.

17# 2-row
2# marris-otter
2# cara-pils
11oz crystal 40

 

[bja]

Sorry, went to lunch.

17# 2-row
2# marris-otter
2# cara-pils
11oz crystal 40

Is this for 10 gallon?

What brewing software do you use?

 

[natev]

Yes 10 gallon, I've been using that "beer calculus" site and "brew pal" app since they give slightly different results.

 

[arch1tect]

So you should have an OG of about 1.059 for a 10 gallon batch with 21.73 lbs of grain.

8.26 gallons of mash water.
about 4 or 5 for the sparge.
preboil: should be 1.052

Not sure how far off you were.

 

[natev]

What are you using to crunch those numbers?

Also, we've been using a ton of sparge water. I'd say we mashed with something close to your suggested 8.26, but we must have sparged with 20 gallons of water. If we were to use 4 or 5 gallons sparge we would end up with a very low gravity. As I was saying earlier we probably fill the pot up with 18 gallons then boil down to 9 or 10 to achieve our still-low gravities. (it must take an hour or two boil time to cut it down, not including the hour for hops)

Let me also mention, when we sparge, we continuously run sparge water until the wort coming out is below 1.008. So, when we finally call it enough and close the valve on the mash tun, it still has many gallons of water in it that didn't get through. Is it in any way better to let the mash compact as you get to the end of your runoff?

 

[arch1tect]

What are you using to crunch those numbers?

Also, we've been using a ton of sparge water. I'd say we mashed with something close to your suggested 8.26, but we must have sparged with 20 gallons of water. If we were to use 4 or 5 gallons sparge we would end up with a very low gravity. As I was saying earlier we probably fill the pot up with 18 gallons then boil down to 9 or 10 to achieve our still-low gravities. (it must take an hour or two boil time to cut it down, not including the hour for hops)

Let me also mention, when we sparge, we continuously run sparge water until the wort coming out is below 1.008. So, when we finally call it enough and close the valve on the mash tun, it still has many gallons of water in it that didn't get through. Is it in any way better to let the mash compact as you get to the end of your runoff?

Why are you sparging so much?

For a 10 gallon batch that's way overkill especially on such a light recipe. Here is my process:

1) Heat up 10 gallons of water to about 180F then empty my mash volume into MLT. ****I use 1.25 or 1.15qt/lb.
2) Let MLT preheat and temp come down to Strike Temps. Then Dough in. For most beers with similar grain bills I'll dough in roughly between 170 and 163 depending on the temp of the day/grain. I'll stir thoroughly for about 10 mins then let it rest for 15.
3) After 15 mins I'll take another temp reading and if it's good I'll stir a little more.
3)30 mins later I'll stir more and start to raise the temp to 160 for a mash-out. I use a HERMS coil in my HLT to do this. So at this point my HLT is heating up the sparge water as well. i'll keep stirring to ensure the temp raises properly and doesn't go over as my water is roughly 180 at this point.
4) Once my mash out is achieved I'll do a quick vorlauf and while it's still pumping start to fill my BK.
5) as MLT is starting to drain I'll gravity feed in my sparge water that's at about 180 and let it drop onto the top of my MLT. The grain bed gets disturbed a little but because it's a tall vessel it doesn't impact much.
6) after about 30 mins or so I light up my BK and get that rolling while the sparge finishes up.
7) bring to boil and start hopping.

 

[natev]

I would have to have to agree with you that it's overkill. Perhaps the stirring will help my situation. Using less water would be great, but if we find our gravity is very low we would have to continue sparging to get back up there. That has basically been the problem so far.

 

[bja]

Sounds to me like you may have channeling issues. Why don't you try batch sparging next time and see if anything changes?

 

[Tyrone]

if your gravity is low from your first x minutes of sparging I'm having trouble figuring out how it increases as you sparge more...

 

[arch1tect]

I would have to have to agree with you that it's overkill. Perhaps the stirring will help my situation. Using less water would be great, but if we find our gravity is very low we would have to continue sparging to get back up there. That has basically been the problem so far.

This is where you're wrong unfortunately. If your gravity is low then you didn't have enough conversion. Sparging will not give you enough to make up for the loss. Try mashing for longer than an hour and at 150 and see what happens.

 

[natev]

Right on, I'll give that a try.

Does anyone use iodine to check how well the conversion has worked?

if your gravity is low from your first x minutes of sparging I'm having trouble figuring out how it increases as you sparge more...

It doesn't increase until we boil 10 gallons of water away.

 

[Tyrone]

It doesn't increase until we boil 10 gallons of water away./endquote

sweet mary, son... i agree with arch1tect, you are having seriously low conversion.. i get what you're saying, now..

 

[cwi]

As was mentioned, if your first runnings are low, your conversion could be bad, or you have dough balls, or pockets in the mash/grist that never get exposed to the wort. If your first runnings are OK, but you require highly increased sparging to get the total amount of sugars out of the mash, you may have mild channeling issues. If you first runnings are OK, but no amount of sparging gets the total amount of sugars out, you may have severe channeling.

You say you are using a HERMS (that is what you have, not a RIMS), but don't have any probes on the in/out. Those are very helpful, and would be a worthwhile addition. You also say you are using thermos mounted in the pots. I know they say Blichmann and all, but those bi-metal thermos really shouldn't be used for precise measurements in your mash. (Waits for the impending wrath from the cult of Blichmann.) Used just as a sanity check, they are great.

Calibrating your thermos is a good idea. Pegging it to boiling water is a good calibration method for the hot side if you don't have any other reference.

What temp are you using for the HERMS/HEX bath? As long as your 'HEX out' temp is within 1-2 degrees of the mash temp, it isn't a huge issue, but I try to keep the bath within 7F or so of the mash temps during steady state. Higher than that and I worry, possibly falsely, that I am cooking enzymes in the HEX. If you are having to go higher than those temps diffs for either the HEX bath or HEX out, increasing flow or HEX size, or insulating the tun, can help. Agitating the bath also helps, for which there are many solutions.

FYI: Longer or more vigorous boils to increase boil off to concentrate the wort to get back to the desired final volume/SG is not a good way to tune or repeat a recipe. One way to compensate for a unplanned reduction in efficiency without increasing boil time or rate would be to adjust your final volume on the fly. It would require having some calcs/formulas ready, but if you notice your first runnings are not up to snuff, it wouldn't be too hard to run some new numbers for pre-boil volume and SG, possibly more than once. I started down this path when I was having large fluctuations, but that stopped after some process and equipment improvements.

Check those thermos for cal. If your issue was your wort (and beer) looking like dirty starchy pasta water, I would say your thermos had you mashing 15F low. Take a wild guess how I know.

 

[natev]

Yes quite low.

What temp are you using for the HERMS/HEX bath? As long as your 'HEX out' temp is within 1-2 degrees of the mash temp, it isn't a huge issue, but I try to keep the bath within 7F or so of the mash temps during steady state. Higher than that and I worry, possibly falsely, that I am cooking enzymes in the HEX. If you are having to go higher than those temps diffs for either the HEX bath or HEX out, increasing flow or HEX size, or insulating the tun, can help. Agitating the bath also helps, for which there are many solutions.

What is a HERMS/Hex bath? is that the HLT water that the recirculating wort is running through?

 

[cwi]

Yes quite low.


What is a HERMS/Hex bath? is that the HLT water that the recirculating wort is running through?

Yes, the HERMS is Heat Exchanger Recirculating Mash System.
HEX coil- Heat Exhanger coil (The coil in your HLT)
HEX bath - The fluid in your HLT that exchanges heat with the wort through the coil. Although I am not sure that is the technically correct term, it was just the first one to come to mind.

 

[GilaMinumBeer]

And, FTR, Yes! the spinning sparge whirlygig is awful.

I use mine as a sprinkler head for a cold frame (after I crammed JB weld in the ends).

 

[cwi]

And, FTR, Yes! the spinning sparge whirlygig is awful.

Maybe one those polls at the top of the thread would be helpful to keep score.

I use mine as a sprinkler head for a cold frame (after I crammed JB weld in the ends).

It would have been more satisfying to have jammed your caulk in it.

 

[509inc]

Had to do it.

 

[GilaMinumBeer]

It would have been more satisfying to have jammed your caulk in it.

Tubes are far too large for that.

 

[cwi]

Tubes are far too large for that.

Do you drive a Porsche?
I didn't think the whirly gig tubes were that large, but I haven't seen one in person.

 

[GilaMinumBeer]

Do you drive a Porsche?

Gawd no. 3/4t, extended cab, long bed, 4x4, with a 9' lift.

But just for grocery shopping and such.

 

[cwi]

Gawd no. 3/4t, extended cab, long bed, 4x4, with a 9' lift.

But just for grocery shopping and such.

So you are short, too?

This is turning into another Thread Killa Thread.

Back to the issue at hand.
I think the OP's defenses are down.
Somebody ask for his hop schedule using some lame theory about how it could be affecting his OG. All that would be left then would be yeast and ferm temps.

 

[GilaMinumBeer]

This is turning into another Thread Killa Thread.

Back to the issue at hand.
I think the OP's defenses are down.
Somebody ask for his hop schedule using some lame theory about how it could be affecting his OG. All that would be left then would be yeast and ferm temps.

Meh.

He is having mash issues plain as day. Might be channeling. More likely dough balls.

OP, I usually sparge with 2 to 4 gallons MAX and spread that over a 45 minute period.

 

[cwi]

Meh.

He is having mash issues plain as day. Might be channeling. More likely dough balls.

Resolving his efficiency issues became the secondary objective long ago. The primary objective is to get that secret recipe. The rest is just a ruse to lull him into divulging.

 

[Shooter]

The primary objective is to get that secret recipe.

Good going cwi, now he KNOWS!!!!!

 

[cwi]

Good going cwi, now he KNOWS!!!!!

At least we changed the subject from all that caulk and balls nonsense.
Dough balls, that is.