What kind of sparge am I doing?

[anonon2]

So, lacking a real mentor nearby, I've been doing the following:

1. Mash
2. Mash out with appropriate amount of water.
3. Start draining the wort and recirculate until clear
4. Add 170 degree sparge water to the top as the water starts to drain into the grain bed.

So what kind of sparging is this? My efficiencies seem to come out just fine. It is my understanding the for real batch sparging you drain the whole grain bed, stir in some more sparge water and drain again. So this isn't really batch sparging. Maybe this is continuous or fly sparging but without fancy gear?

My way does take a while, so maybe the full batch sparge is faster? I could definitely stand to save a few minutes on brew day.

Is my method 'bad'? Why? What is the middle road between efficiency, time and equipment costs?

 

[Bobby_M]

The process is definitely fly sparging but what exactly is your efficiency? What makes it a "proper" fly sparge is really related to what kind of separation medium you have in the bottom of your tun.

 

[Darwin18]

Your method isn't bad. I prefer batch sparing because it is simple and doesn't require any additional equipment. Both fly and batch work well.

 

[anonon2]

The process is definitely fly sparging but what exactly is your efficiency? What makes it a "proper" fly sparge is really related to what kind of separation medium you have in the bottom of your tun.

To be honest, I haven't exactly calculated the efficiency... I'm only a few batches into AG and I have really only gone by the target gravity on the recipes that I've used. I've nailed the target on both batches for which it was provided.

 

[afr0byte]

It sounds like you're probably at 70 or 75%, which I'd say is fine. With fly sparging (or batch sparging, but you're doing fly at the moment) you can get higher efficiency than that if you care to pursue it, but it's not big deal if you don't.