Upgrading Mash/HLT - Fly Sparge/ Mash Re-Circulation

[ChappysBrewing]

Hello everyone. So on my current new system I had upgraded my HLT and Mash tuns into Keggles but overall just didnt enjoy the limitations due to the top opening and overall experience and wanted to get some normal type kettles instead. I ended up going with Bru-Gear as I already had a 20 gallon boil pot and they had 1 hell of a sale the past week with 50% off due to moving prices so picked up their 30 gallon mash tun and another 30 gallon kettle for around 500 bucks which was a steal in my mind.

Regardless, I now have to decide my new setup as far as how I want it to function. So I built myself a nice single tier stand which holds both my burners, pumps, and everything to make my life easier. I have been using a HERMS system with gas and have really enjoyed the process and overall product. I guess my main question is more in regards to my mash tun. Currently I have been pumping my wort through 50' ss coil in my hlt and just letting it come back on top of my mash and letting the process happen the entire mash. Now it has worked well so far, but just dont know if maybe doing something different could help my efficiency and create an even better beer.

My thoughts were to do more or less 2 different ways but willing to listen to ideas or other peoples setups. I have thought about drilling a hole into the lid and having a sparge arm coming through to drop the wort back onto the grain but more in the middle and should be able to do it better than my current setup. I would probably buy the SS brew tech and instead of using their arm, will create my own but do like the piece that shoots the wort out in different directions. The other item I have been looking at is also by SS brewtech and is their Manifold mash re-circulation where it basically sits on top of the mash and the wort is pushed through the manifold and releases on top of the entire grain bed. I had seen it before but just havent been sure if really its purpose is the exact same as fly sparging or not. I do not batch sparge nor do I plan on going in that direction.

So ultimately looking for advice between those 2 products at least or rather what people find to be the best as far as getting the best bang for your buck. And would you go through the lid or through the side of the kettle? I figure you could lose some room in the mash tun if you do that depending on how much of a batch someone is trying to do and figure the lid would be cheaper to replace if I needed to.

So yeah, write away! And Thanks!

 

[mredge73]

Increasing your efficiency doesn't create a better beer, it creates a cheaper beer. Knowing your efficiency and being able to hit it consistently makes for better recipe design, therefore better beer.
Anyway, I have a similar setup to yours when it comes to the mash. My HERMS coil consumes nearly 1/2 gallon of water; so my mash thickness of 0.32 gallon/lb + .5 gallons yields me ~73% efficiency.
I can hit this consistency batch after batch; so I use it when making my recipes.

To increase your efficiency you will need to increase your mash thickness giving you more water to sparge with.
On mash thickness, you want to try to get close to 0.25 gallon/lb + whatever your coil traps. Using a shorter coil will help here.

For sparging, I have built my own manifold similar to the SS brewtech one that sit on top of the grain and showers the grain.
I was never happy with mine because it never showers the grain uniformly, I think their sparge arm is probably the better of the two products.
I would also consider the lockline arm as a viable alternative to these: https://www.brewhardware.com/product_p/mashspargering.htm

The amount of time needed to fly sparge vs the few efficiency points earned never appealed to me so I scrapped the whole thing and went back to batch sparging.
An option that I am considering is to add a mechanical mash stirrer to my batch sparge step to increase my efficiency but am a bit worried how this will affect my consistency.

 

[eric19312]

I recirculate and sparge though a blichmann autosparge. During recirculation I unscrew the float so the valve stays open.

I am not a fan of recircultating through a showerhead as this seems to be asking too much splashing/aeration. Maybe good for fly sparging but I am happy enough with maintaining liquid on top of the bed. I did use the lockline from brewhardware for a long time but got tired of manually balancing the input and output during sparge.

 

[ChappysBrewing]

Increasing your efficiency doesn't create a better beer, it creates a cheaper beer. Knowing your efficiency and being able to hit it consistently makes for better recipe design, therefore better beer.
Anyway, I have a similar setup to yours when it comes to the mash. My HERMS coil consumes nearly 1/2 gallon of water; so my mash thickness of 0.32 gallon/lb + .5 gallons yields me ~73% efficiency.
I can hit this consistency batch after batch; so I use it when making my recipes.

To increase your efficiency you will need to increase your mash thickness giving you more water to sparge with.
On mash thickness, you want to try to get close to 0.25 gallon/lb + whatever your coil traps. Using a shorter coil will help here.

For sparging, I have built my own manifold similar to the SS brewtech one that sit on top of the grain and showers the grain.
I was never happy with mine because it never showers the grain uniformly, I think their sparge arm is probably the better of the two products.
I would also consider the lockline arm as a viable alternative to these: https://www.brewhardware.com/product_p/mashspargering.htm

The amount of time needed to fly sparge vs the few efficiency points earned never appealed to me so I scrapped the whole thing and went back to batch sparging.
An option that I am considering is to add a mechanical mash stirrer to my batch sparge step to increase my efficiency but am a bit worried how this will affect my consistency.

Thank you for the reply! A couple of questions for ya! How does increasing my efficiency make it a cheaper beer? I would think if I could increase my efficiency then that would mean I got more sugar out of the grains which just adds to a higher OG potentially.

You definitely gave me something to think about as far as being consistent and creating the beer recipes to my own technique.

I dont think I will be able to use a shorter coil as well I already spent 100 bucks for the 50' ss and figure I can keep using it, but you're right, it does hold a certain amount of the beer or rather traps it.

I actually just bought a new mash tun / either boil pot or HLT that are kettles instead of keggles and moved it up to 30 gallons to be able to do larger batches or heavier abv batches easier compared to being limited to 15.5 gallons of space. With that being said I will have to do some rework with my setup, but still believe I will continue to fly sparge as I dont see the benefit of just batch sparging. I would think if I am adding water on top of my mash and its trickling through the mash and then going to the boil pot that it would get me some extra sugars compared to dumping a bunch of water on top and then doing the same thing. But I too have been contemplating if I should be stirring during that stage or letting it just go as well as how long I should let that step take.

I did go with the manifold as I believe I will drill into the lid to connect the hosing to the manifold which will sit on top of the mash and should hopefully let the water out in a more uniform way than just spraying on top, I guess we will see.

For your batch sparge, do you let the new water sit with the mash for a while to try and get the sugars out or just stir and then start taking the wort?

 

[wilserbrewer]

For your batch sparge, do you let the new water sit with the mash for a while to try and get the sugars out or just stir and then start taking the wort?

While it seems that it would help to let the batch sparge water sit for a few minutes, experienced batch sparger Denny Conn claims it makes no difference. Stir the sparge water in well and drain the tun as fast as you are able.

 

[mredge73]

Thank you for the reply! A couple of questions for ya! How does increasing my efficiency make it a cheaper beer? I would think if I could increase my efficiency then that would mean I got more sugar out of the grains which just adds to a higher OG potentially.

Increasing efficiency makes for a cheaper beer because you need less grains to reach your designed OG. I think you answered your own question here.

The point that I am making is that consistency is more important, I am never surprised by my OG as it will be on point. My efficiency is not the best but I think I hit a sweet spot between time/efficiency/complexity.

The benefit of batch sparging is time; I probably let it sit about 10 minutes or so to recirculate and compact the grain bed after stirring in. This is mostly just to keep bits out of the BK.
Still much better compared to 60-90 minute fly sparge. You don't want to stir during a fly sparge.

 

[eric19312]

but still believe I will continue to fly sparge as I dont see the benefit of just batch sparging. I would think if I am adding water on top of my mash and its trickling through the mash and then going to the boil pot that it would get me some extra sugars compared to dumping a bunch of water on top and then doing the same thing.

I think the efficiency gain (this is what you are describing ... more sugars) is not reason to choose fly vs batch sparge. I agree with #mredge73 about value of consistency and predictability at acceptable level of efficiency.

But I fly sparge too. For me the fly sparge process is just smoother than batch sparging which I did for a long time. I basically just switch from recirculating from MLT drain to MLT return to lautering from MLT drain to BK return and turn on sparge water. The time savings, again for me, for batch sparging is minimal because my bottleneck is heating the sweet wort to a boil. I have natural gas plumbed to my brew stand which I dearly love for convenience of not having to buy propane, quietness of the burner, and lack of CO concerns, but even with 3/4" piping, it doesn't put out the BTUs of a high pressure propane burner. If I batch sparge 14 gallons of wort it might still take me 60 minutes to reach a strong boil. With fly sparging the kettle is heating as soon as I've collected first 2 gallons of wort and by end of lautering I'm almost almost at a boil.

 

[ChappysBrewing]

I think the efficiency gain (this is what you are describing ... more sugars) is not reason to choose fly vs batch sparge. I agree with #mredge73 about value of consistency and predictability at acceptable level of efficiency.

But I fly sparge too. For me the fly sparge process is just smoother than batch sparging which I did for a long time. I basically just switch from recirculating from MLT drain to MLT return to lautering from MLT drain to BK return and turn on sparge water. The time savings, again for me, for batch sparging is minimal because my bottleneck is heating the sweet wort to a boil. I have natural gas plumbed to my brew stand which I dearly love for convenience of not having to buy propane, quietness of the burner, and lack of CO concerns, but even with 3/4" piping, it doesn't put out the BTUs of a high pressure propane burner. If I batch sparge 14 gallons of wort it might still take me 60 minutes to reach a strong boil. With fly sparging the kettle is heating as soon as I've collected first 2 gallons of wort and by end of lautering I'm almost almost at a boil.

I do the exact same thing myself as far as heating my boil when I am transferring over from the MLT as it does get the boil starter quicker and the evolution moving forward. I soo want to do NG to my brew stand and plan to later. When you mention that you use the 3/4 piping and it doesnt put out the BTUS of your burner, why is that? Does the piping need to be larger or smaller to give the burners enough pressure to get them working the same? I currently have 2 of the bayau classic 220k btu burners and boy do they work. Am hoping when I change it over to NG it doesnt change the way they function but thats just something I havent researched enough as its 1 of the projects id like to do in the next few months.

 

[eric19312]

I do the exact same thing myself as far as heating my boil when I am transferring over from the MLT as it does get the boil starter quicker and the evolution moving forward. I soo want to do NG to my brew stand and plan to later. When you mention that you use the 3/4 piping and it doesnt put out the BTUS of your burner, why is that? Does the piping need to be larger or smaller to give the burners enough pressure to get them working the same? I currently have 2 of the bayau classic 220k btu burners and boy do they work. Am hoping when I change it over to NG it doesnt change the way they function but thats just something I havent researched enough as its 1 of the projects id like to do in the next few months.

Household NG is low pressure. Even with big fat lines and the larger banjo there is only so much gas you can get to the burner based on the pressure supplied to your house. I did a boil time measurement once and seem to remember calculating I was actually delivering a bit less than 50k btu. (there is a calcualtion based on mass of the water, temperature increase and time you can work it out). I doubt the 220k btu claims on the burners out there are really delivering that much heat to your kettle. There is loss around the kettle etc.

 

[ChappysBrewing]

Oh wow, yeah I will have to see how viable it would be. I mean I would still think it would be an advantage as then I wouldnt have to use propane any longer and no more picking it up and all that jazz, wheel out my rig, hook it up and light it up.

Oh I doubt that they get the 220k btus, but ive used several burners including the blinchmann and these 2 burners blow it away. Had the blinchmann on my rig but after 1 use took it off and bought another of the banjo as it by far out performed it and it sounds like a damn airplane jet is taking off and can just keep making it more and more and more. But yeah, wouldnt want to lose that aspect if possible by switching to NG.