Thoughts on the efficiency of 'semi-sparge'

[mbes]

Hi Everyone,
It's my first post on the forum, so just wanted to say hello!

I've recently upgraded my rig to two vessel HERMS system (one kettle is an HLT/boil kettle and the other one is a mash tun). Something similar to Craft hardware HERMS Duo system (you can google it if you're interested), but home-made.

One of features of this system is that you cannot really do a fly sparge or a batch sparge (assuming you are using only two vessel you've got). Once mashing is done you transfer the rest (or as much as you need) of hot water to the mash tun and then sparge it at once to the HLT that now becomes the boil kettle.

Do you have any thoughts on this method of sparging? I was a bit worried about diluting the "first runnings" (they are not really first as everything in the end goes at once). Is this bad for the wort?
Any advice on maximizing the efficiency of this method?
My two main points so far are: to transfer hot water slowly on top of the wort no to mix it too much and sparge really slowly.

Cheers and thanks for giving it a thought!

 

[3 Dawg Night]

I would think this sits somewhere between no-sparge (or BIAB) and batch-sparge.

 

[day_trippr]

Am I understanding correctly that the entire "sparge" volume is added to the undrained mash tun - and then the whole thing is lautered back to the "HLT"? If that's true it's going to be important not to "over-sparge" as all that'll do is further dilute the run-off and require more boil time to hit the recipe OG.

This will be a lot closer to a full-volume mash than anything else, I believe, as there's no real "sparging" going on...

Cheers!

 

[doug293cz]

You are correct in trying to minimize the mixing of the sparge water with the mash wort. This will maximize your lauter efficiency. Once you have added the sparge water on top of the mash, you want to run off slowly so that you don't get channeling in the grain bed (which will severely degrade your lauter efficiency.)

It seems to me that this method would be difficult to get consistency with. Variability will depend on how much mixing you have of the sparge water with the mash wort, which is likely to vary from run to run.

Brew on

 

[bnut]

I'm not familiar with the Craft Hardware setup, but it sounds like the same setup I use. BK/HLT and a MT using a counter flow for heat exchange. This is a new setup for me and only have around 6 batches under the belt, but I'm getting efficiencies around 75%. I'm still making adjustments though. Need to get another 6 batches under the belt.