Has anyone tried 2 batch sparges?

Just curious if anyone of you have tried this? I'll use 5 gallons as an example.

Mashed 11 lbs with 3.5 gallons of water. 60 min
Batch sparged with 3.5 gallons of water. 15 min
2nd batch sparge with x amount of water, to up the volume?

 

I typically do a double batch sparge.

 

I always do a double sparge with half of the sparge water each time.

 

Same here, double batch sparge with about 2/3 of the water for first sparge and 1/3 of the water for second sparge.

 

if you can put up with the added volume of water (and diluted pre-boil wort) you really bump up the efficiency with more batch sparges. I usually do 2 but have done 3 batch sparges to find out how high of efficiency I can get. (with three it is usually just drain the mash tun, 1st batch sparge addition, stir like heck for a few minutes, wait a few minutes, vorlauf, drain tun, 2nd batch sparge addition, stir like heck, volauf, drain). and occasionally rinse grains once again. Doing a barleywine I was still getting runnings of almost 1.040 after collecting my pre-boil volume! I can see why people do partigyle! Lots of sugars left in the grains.

That being said, I don't really obsess about efficiency...grain is cheap. I don't mind that my efficiency is in the upper 60%'s...just know what it is and move on.

 

Ok, great thanks all. I'm just thinking maybe I could get about 6 gallons in my fermenter instead of the usual 5 - 5.5, to make a hair more beer I'll try this next time.

So what do you think something like this? With 11.5 lbs of grains, brew target puts this at 6.778 gallons pre-boil and 6.055 batch size.

3.5 gallons mash 60 min - vorlauf - drain
3 gallons batch sparge 15 min - vorlauf - drain
2 gallons batch sparge 5 min - vorlauf - drain

 

I do 2 batch sparges. Its more about my equipment(small sparge water kettle) and process than it is about efficiency.

Many report no change in efficiency between 1 and 2 sparges. I suspect the people that do report a difference have a lot of dead space in their MLT.

OP, you dont need to wait that long, just put the water in, stir the hell out of it, vorlauf, and drain. No waiting needed.

For normal gravity beers I typically mash at 1.33 quarts per pound at the minimum, usually closer to 1.5. Also, is that your measured boil off rate? My system is usually just north of 1 gallon per hour.

 

You really do not need to wait any amount of time between sparges if you are batch sparging. You just beat the heck out of it stirring and then let it drain.

If you can put a BIAB bag over your brew pot and then you do not need to vorlaff either. After beating the grain silly just open her up wide open and let it rip

 

I do pretty much the exact same thing.

 

It looks like Brew Target has it set at 1.891 qt per hour for evaporation rate. One thing on my to-do list, is to make a measuring stick for my kettle, just haven't done that yet to do better measurements. Next time I do a 5-6 gallon batch, I'll make sure I have a measuring stick handing, so I can enter this data into Brew Target for more accurate measurements.

 

I have always thought that double-batch sparging was pretty common. I do it pretty much every batch.

 

I would be shocked if its less than .75 gallons per hour. If it is, then your boil isn't hard enough to drive off DMS and other off flavors.

 

I have never done two batch sparges, but my concern would be over-washig the malt and extracting tannins. Has anyone had this issue? Thanks!

 

I'm sure the software rate is wrong. I need to make a measuring stick, and get a better amount for my gear.

 

Nah, never really a concern with batch sparging. Even on the 2nd sparge you still come out ~1.030 or 1.020 or so usually. The buffering concern really only gets to be an issue with fly sparging when you get down to 1.010 or so. And if you treat your sparge water, no worries.

 

If you are only getting upper 60's for efficiency with 2-3 batch sparges my guess is your grain crush is too coarse. Homebrew stores purposely crush on the coarse side so you will have to buy more grain from them! When I got my malt mill I went from 65% to 80% efficiency just like that with all else equal!

 

I only do a double if it looks like I won't get enough preboil volume from my first sparge. To be clear, since I'm confusing myself, I typically get two run-offs: the first is from my initial strike (the mash) while the second runnings are from my first sparge.

I haven't noticed an efficiency change from multiple sparges on my system, and only do single sparge to save a little time. Kyle

 

I always do two batch sparges. Better efficiency.

 

And I switched to no sparging. That is the great thing about making beer. You can tweak the system to fit your needs and still end up with beer

 

Seems like some peeps here have there terms mixed up. It's common to refer to

One drain as no sparge
Drain twice as single
Drain 3x as double

I've never done a double, which would imply collecting 1/3 of the total desired volume three times.

 

I typically mash with 1.33 qt/lbs and split the total sparge volume in half or so and do two sparges.

Then, I'll add another gallon or two and run that off, measure the gravity, and either add some water or a little DME to get 1.020 or 1.040, respectively. Then I can it in the pressure canner and use it for making starters. Usually the 3rd batch "sparge" runnings are still higher than 1.020.

MT