Herms brewing

I am new to herms brewing and had a question about sparging. Should I fly or batch Sparge? Before I’d batch with my ice chest mash tun. Also how much time should I spend if I fly Sparge

 

I fly sparge. I run my pumps continuously during the mash. So my wort is running crystal clear. I just don't see any reason to mess up up the grain bed by batch sparging. Just a quick hose swap and I'm lautering. With the slower pace of fly sparging I don't feel rushed in taking my readings and notes during the process.

I know batch sparging is quicker but on my system not by much. I start my boil kettle the second the element is covered. So when my 45 minute fly sparge ends I'm right at boil temps. When I batch sparged I turned the boil kettle on right after the first runnings. The kettle is full 5 minutes later. Now that large volume of wort seems take a little more time to reach a boil. Now it doesn't take 45 minutes but it does take some time not sure how much but I'm guessing batch sparging could save me 20 minutes or more depending on the batch size.

Honestly, I don't think it matters. Efficiencies will be about the same. I think it comes down to personal choice.

 

I sort of batch/fly. I also run my pumps continuously. Pump 1 is wort and pump 2 is recirc on the HLT. After mashout I switch pump 1 to the boil kettle and switch pump 2 to the input at the top of my mash kettle. I have a float valve at the top and when the mash kettle is full it stops. It reaches an equilibrium where the water in from the HLT equals wort out to the boil kettle. When I reach the volume I need to get to my transfer volume (e.g. transfer vol. + boil off) I cut it off.

I also start heating the boil kettle as soon as the wort gets over the element.

 

fwiw, I run a 3V/2P single tier herms rig, recirculate during all but the first 5 minutes of the mash, and fly sparge.
One pump recirculates wort then draws from the MLT to the BK, the other pump stirs the HLT during the recirculation phase and then pushes sparge liquor through an auto-sparge to the MLT (that pump never sees wort).
I set a one quart per minute flow via the first pump output valve, leave the second pump valve wide open, and the auto-sparge does the rest...

Cheers!

 

My brew club (Bend Oregon) is chock full of real experts. Almost all of them fly sparge and take at least 30 minutes to an hour to sparge for a 10 gallon batch.

 

Man great minds think alike.
One of my pumps is recirculating the sparge/HEX water in my HLT. I too fly sparge. I just open a valve to set my flow since I can gravity to my MLT. I had abandoned my HERMS and recirculating. After doing some step mashes, I feel they have had a real impact on my beer. So I’m going to be back at using it as well as some of the O2 reducing practices. I will add that I usually do 12-20 gallon batches. Fly sparging to me was so much easier. Plus all the stirring just introduces more 02 into the mix.