Apartment Fly Sparging/Wort Chiller

Look I'm not trying to reinvent the wheel here and I did not come up with the concept but I thought I would post this for apartment PM/AG brewers in need of solutions for there confined space.

Not a bad set up and a good use of space but I do have two questions, do you get enough dispersion through the colander for the fly sparge, and secondly my immersion chiller wouldn't get enough temperature out of the wort just sitting in cold water. Maybe your water is a lot colder than mine.

I don't think i get the best dispersion through the colander but its works well enough. As far as the immersion chiller I fill the sink with ice as well as cold water. Used this setup tonight to brew and it chilled my wort down instantly.

you really don't have to worry about a sprinkling device when sparging. You want 1-2" of water above the grainbed at all times during the sparge, so as long as you defuse the flow from the hose end so it doesn't dig holes in the grainbed causing channeling, the sparge arm isn't needed. Just make sure you match the input and output flow rates to maintain the 1-2"

The more important part is keeping the grainbed warm enough during the sparge to get the best extraction. Wrapping the HLT bucket up top to keep the sparge water hot is your best bet. Try to keep the grainbed between 165-168*F during your sparge.
This thins the viscosity, allowing you to collect the sugars more easily. Nice setup

This setup and a detailed tutorial on sparging from my LHBS helped me hit my marks. Ever since I started partial mashing I've been having problems hitting OG. After using this to brew Saturday it was spot on (+/- 2). The system I was using before I was off by as much as 10! I went geek and got calculators and programs to help. Don't want to start a debate but mashing out seemed to of worked for me.

mashing out brings the grainbed up to sparge temps 165 168*. this has two folds.
one.. thinning the viscosity of the liquor, and two.. over time denatures the enzymes.

mash-out will gain you a few points.
slow sparge with keeping the bed up in those temperatures, will yield you the best extraction.

The colander is probably keeping the heat in somewhat. the only problem is, you can't keep an eye on the grainbed with it in there.

next brew day take a reading on your sparge water when you first start, then another reading towards the end. That will tell you the thermal loss of your hlt during the sparge.

how long did your sparge go for last brew?

OLDBREW: Ok just brewed an IPA last night and timed the sparging 48 min. Thermal loss was 17 degrees. I kept about 1-11/2 in of sparge water on top of grain bed 1.040 pre-boil gravity which according to an online efficiency calculator comes in at 71.5 percent(according to my grainbill and gallon yield). BUT I am by no means proficient yet but I am feeling like im making much better beer.

Might i recommend something for your wort chiller. I also live in an apartment, although i run my wort chiller from my sink using this bad boy.

Just unscrew the aerator from your sink screw this bad boy in and hook your hose up to it. Works awesome

xjncoguyx: That is awesome but my setup has the wort going through the copper coils. I wish I would've found this before I chopped my chiller

shamrockdoc said:

xjncoguyx: That is awesome but my setup has the wort going through the copper coils. I wish I would've found this before I chopped my chiller

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Oh so its set up kind of like a counterflow?

xjncoguyx said:

Oh so its set up kind of like a counterflow?

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yeah works like crazy !

After the boil do you just dump the hot wort into the bottling bucket and then run it through the copper coil to chill it into the fermenter?

With the sparging: I would stop using the colander and just place some tin foil with some holes poked in to to disperse the energy. Easy and you can still watch the grain bed. You may not even need anything to disperse the energy with that deep of a grain bed (because the cooler is tall).

Also, you could always slow the outflow from the cooler to get a better mash efficiency, say only open the ball valve half-way. When fly sparging, the slower is better.

funkswing said:

After the boil do you just dump the hot wort into the bottling bucket and then run it through the copper coil to chill it into the fermenter?

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Is this a bad idea? It seemed to me a logical and efficient method. Plus has been sanitized.

funkswing said:

, you could always slow the outflow from the cooler to get a better mash efficiency, say only open the ball valve half-way. When fly sparging, the slower is better.

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I tried this on last night brew but not half-way I will note this and try.

Is this a bad idea?

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This is quite a debatable process. Its called hot-side aeration. Most would say not to do it post-boil, b/c the boil drives out oxygen in the solution (the wort). So, if you aerate post-boil, you are introducing oxygen to the beer, which could lead to off-flavors.

That is why I was asking. I have a very similar setup to yours, but I use my copper coil as an immersion chiller. I understand why you started running your wort through the coil, it obviously chills the beer much more efficiently than using it as an IC.

But you may be negating any benefit from cooling the wort really fast if you are dumping the hot, post-boil wort into that bottling bucket. Now you could always autosyphon it into the bottling bucket if you thought your beers had an off-taste (to avoid the aeration from dumping it in).

You just made me decide to drill my kettle and put in a spout with hi-temp tubing for wort transfer. Off-flavors BAD. Good beer GOOOD!

shamrockdoc said:

OLDBREW: Ok just brewed an IPA last night and timed the sparging 48 min. Thermal loss was 17 degrees. I kept about 1-11/2 in of sparge water on top of grain bed 1.040 pre-boil gravity which according to an online efficiency calculator comes in at 71.5 percent(according to my grainbill and gallon yield). BUT I am by no means proficient yet but I am feeling like im making much better beer.

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If you can throw some sort of lid on the plastic bucket and use a down jacket, blanket, or sleeping bag you'll cut the heat loss down a lot. This alone will boost your efficiency.

I use a 5 gal igloo water cooler as my HLT for sparging, works amazing and has a lid! Just replace the default spigot with a ball valve (use brass, its just hot water going through it and its cheap!)

If plastic has a melting point of 250 degrees can I use my racking cane to transfer hot wort to the bottling bucket? (I think I answered my own question but I await the GURU's to chime in)

Well, its not the best solution, but would prolly work.

You could start a siphon from the brewpot with a copper racking arm to a hose then through the chiller to the fermenter. That way its done all at once (you don't use the bottling bucket at all!). That would be the best IMO.

I would practice with boiling water first a couple of times, but should work.

funkswing said:

Well, its not the best solution, but would prolly work.

You could start a siphon from the brewpot with a copper racking arm to a hose then through the chiller to the fermenter. That way its done all at once (you don't use the bottling bucket at all!). That would be the best IMO.

I would practice with boiling water first a couple of times, but should work.

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You just blew my mind?!

Well, your "Republic of Cascadia" thread made me want to blow out my brains, so we are even

If you try this and it works, do post back!

Be careful running your wort directly through that copper chiller. My buddy did the same thing and it worked great, once. The second time he tried it he sanitized, etc. but the wort came out green due to all of the tarnish that built up inside the chiller. That thing will become a major pain to clean/sanitize.

He also melted an autosiphon before converting his chiller into an immersion chiller like mine.

That's some good info. I didn't think the autosiphon would work with hot wort.

You have to really make sure you rinse out the copper coil if wort is going through it. After rinsing, do you think you could heat it up in the oven to get rid of particulates in it to avoid tarnishing (like how ppl put their plate chillers in the oven)?

The tubing feeding the chiller isn't rated for that hot wort to run through. You'd be better off using that coil as an immersion chiller, and stick the boiler in one sink with an ice bath, then run cold tap water through the chiller, draining in the other sink. It will chill pretty quickly that way, and you don't have to worry about sanitizing the inside of the chiller or baking it.

I also don't think those plastic buckets are rated at 250*F either. The hdpe buckets I have are rated at 180* fda approved working conditions, and that is high for hdpe. A lot of them I looked into, were only rated at 120*F.