Batch sparge question

[trapae]

Getting ready to do my 1st all grain and have a couple questions to any who wish to chime in.-(Denny?). Be gentle, this is my first time.

I am going to do a batch sparge. From my research it seems that many people will mash at a certain water/grain ratio, then calculate and add additional water after the mash (taking into account dead space and grain absorption) to get approx 50% of the total boil volume (don't know if this is a true mash out or not or if it even matters). Then do 1st running after vorlauf. Measures first runnings volume (hopefully close to 50%), then calculate volume of sparge water needed (hopefully close to 50%), pour sparge water in at 85-90deg, stir, vorlauf, and drain for total boil volume.

My questions:
1. Is there anything wrong with plugging each recipe into a brew calculator and adjusting the water/grain ratio each time so you add the correct amount of water at the beginning of the mash so as to be able to skip the post mash addition, i.e. increase/decrease the ratio as needed so the original mash water volume gives you as close to 50% total boil volume as possible.

2. When calculating sparge volume, do you add more than the needed volume to account for any additional grain absorption/dead space, or is the grain already saturated and dead space now constant?

3. Am I completely confused and should take up knitting?

Thanks, T

 

[DPBISME]

My questions:
1. Is there anything wrong with plugging each recipe into a brew calculator and adjusting the water/grain ratio each time so you add the correct amount of water at the beginning of the mash so as to be able to skip the post mash addition, i.e. increase/decrease the ratio as needed so the original mash water volume gives you as close to 50% total boil volume as possible.

2. When calculating sparge volume, do you add more than the needed volume to account for any additional grain absorption/dead space, or is the grain already saturated and dead space now constant?

3. Am I completely confused and should take up knitting?

Thanks, T

I was using the on-line sparge Calculateor at Tastybrew.com but.


1. Is there anything wrong with plugging each recipe into a brew calculator and adjusting the water/grain ratio each time so you add the correct amount of water at the beginning of the mash so as to be able to skip the post mash addition, i.e. increase/decrease the ratio as needed so the original mash water volume gives you as close to 50% total boil volume as possible.

DPB: No problem with this as all you need is the right amount of water for the first run off... and a Spage Calculater will help.

So you you could MASH OUT and then add more water (wait ten minutes for everything to desolve in the new water.

or

Lower your temprature and mash out with the amount you expect your first runoff to be... no difference.


2. Yes: When calculating sparge volume, do you add more than the needed volume to account for any additional grain absorption/dead space, or is the grain already saturated and dead space now constant?

Before you run your first runoff you should have all the water needed to include that to be lost from grain-absorbtion... figure .15 to .2 loss of water. (Me I figure .15 and then just make it up if needed as I describe below.

BUT

if you are off a hair don't worry, you will learn how much you get from your first runoff with your equipment in time

JUST MEASURE EVERYTHING!


EXAMPLE:

1. You did you calculations and do you first run off.
2. It looks like you are a gallon short
3. That missing gallon gets added to the second runoff

SECOND SPARGE WATER IS ADDED and wait 10 to 15 minutes for sugar to disolve... you can start the boil on what is in the kettle.


3. Am I completely confused and should take up knitting?

Well first you need to use Fahrenheit because that is what all civilized brewers use. (well not the Germans but who said they were civilized!)

Second you need to brew to beer and let me try it first and then I will give you my answer.

BUT Really: You will not have time for knitting unless you spend a lot of time in front of the TV when you are not brewing.

 

[Yooper]

I think you're overthinking this!

Mash in with 1.5 quarts per pound. After the mash, drain the runnings. Measure them. Then use the difference for your sparge volume.

As an example, you have 10 pounds of grain. That's 15 quarts of strike water (call it 16 quarts, because I suck at math ). That's four gallons, then.

The grain should absorb one gallon (+/-) so you'd get out 3 gallons. Measure those runnings- you might have 2.75 gallons, or 3.25 gallons. So it's important to measure them before adding your sparge water to the MLT.

If you have 3 gallons in first runnings, and your desired boil volume is 6.5 gallons, sparge with 3.5 gallons.

That's really all there is to it!

 

[ApothecaryBrewing]

Answer to #1:
You don't need 50% of your boil volume from your first runnings. Just pick a water/grain ratio and go with it. 1.50qt/lb. will yield slightly more than 1.25qt/lb. Just use your sparge water to make up the difference. I typically mash around 1.33qt/lb. then sparge with around 4 gallons to hit my pre-boil volume of 6.5 gallons. I think somewhere on here in a batch sparge thread Denny admits that the post-mash/pre-sparge addition of water is unnecessary. Either way, mash with a ratio, take you runnings and then sparge until you hit your pre-boil volume.

Answer to #2:
The grain bed and dead space will all ready be saturated with strike water. You only need to account for dead space in your initial strike water volumes. Take your mash ratio, multiply it by your lbs. of grain and then add your dead space volume. You don't need to worry about dead space or absorption with sparge water.

Answer to #3:
Knit me a mash insulator, would you?

 

[RmikeVT]

My questions:
1. Is there anything wrong with plugging each recipe into a brew calculator and adjusting the water/grain ratio each time so you add the correct amount of water at the beginning of the mash so as to be able to skip the post mash addition, i.e. increase/decrease the ratio as needed so the original mash water volume gives you as close to 50% total boil volume as possible.

2. When calculating sparge volume, do you add more than the needed volume to account for any additional grain absorption/dead space, or is the grain already saturated and dead space now constant?

3. Am I completely confused and should take up knitting?

Thanks, T

1. I would just use a ratio and stick to it for the mash. Between 1.25-1.5 qts per pound of grain and not worry about 50% of Volume. I typically have much less mash water than sparge water (unless Im doing a big brew).

2. No extra volume for grain absorption on the sparge, you should get 100% of the sparge water back, the mash water is already occupying the dead space.

3. No - Keep brewing - we make it harder than it is sometimes.

Some simple steps:
1) 1.25 qts per pound of grain
2) heat that volume to 171 or so (if mash tun and grain are room temp)
3) Add to mash tun, stir break up dough balls, stir. I usually stir for about 2-5 minutes
4) It will take about 5-10 minutes for temps to settle out, so don't take temp until then -- you should be in the 150-154 range
5) Rest for an our
6) Vourlouf
7) Add Sparge Water I usually heat to about 187 or so.
8) Stir Stir Stir
9) Rest 10-15 mins
10) Vourlouf and drain

What type of Mashtun are you using? I have a Rubbermaid 10gal cooler w/ manifold. I know I get about 1qt deadspace and will lose about 3qts an hour boiling in my 30qt kettle with Bayou Classic SP10.

 

[LoloMT7]

I gotta say i like your answer yoop! Don't over-think it. Use the Kiss method or if all else fails I've even heard that the SWAG method will do it

 

[Yooper]

I gotta say i like your answer yoop! Don't over-think it. Use the Kiss method or if all else fails I've even heard that the SWAG method will do it

Well, the absolute beauty of the batch sparge is the simplicity. It saves time, too, of course, but really it is as simple as I laid out.

It's good to have enough hot water on hand, so a good guess as to how much you may need is great, but you can simply sparge up to your boil volume after the mash. If you need more wort, you can always sparge again.

It's quick and simple, and I'm one of the people that tends to overthink things so I can often complicate things for myself- so that's why I'm encouraging the OP to relax and just go with the very simple technique.

 

[lpdjshaw]

Batch sparging should be easy so don't complicate it too much.
Start off with 1.25-1.5 qts of water to each lb of grain
Do you mash
Vourlaf the last few minutes
Drain into your boil kettle and measure what you have. Now your grain has absorbed pretty much all it's going to absorb so subtract how much you just transfered to your boil kettle from how much you want to have total and that's the amount of your remaining sparge water. Split in two and sparge twice or just add that amount and sparge once. Just remember to stir for a few minutes when you add your sparge water, let sit for 10 or so, vourlaf for a few and drain. If you don't have enough in you BK by now add a little more water and do it all over again. Chances are you may have a little extra, no worries, just drain into your BK 'till you get your pre-boil amount and toss the rest
Use 170-180 degree water for sparging.
Your first couple times won't be perfect, don't sweet it. Once you brew a few times you'll get to know your system and you'll get your measurements down.

 

[Flykilbosa]

You didn't ask this but because it's your first time...don't rush the sparge, I rushed the first to AG I did and I missed my numbers big time. I simply sparged (runoff) too fast. Open the valve to get a "slow trickle" of wort when you drain your mash tun/sparge.

 

[ApothecaryBrewing]

You didn't ask this but because it's your first time...don't rush the sparge, I rushed the first to AG I did and I missed my numbers big time. I simply sparged (runoff) too fast. Open the valve to get a "slow trickle" of wort when you drain your mash tun/sparge.

Everyone does a batch sparge slightly different, but there has been no science to back up a slow runoff from your sparge doing anything for efficiency or extraction. I split my batch sparge so I sparge with 2 smaller volumes of water and I used to wait 10 minutes after adding the water each time.

I have since stopped that and noticed no drop in efficiency and have saved myself 20 minutes. I also runoff my sparge with a fully open valve (after vorlaufing). You only need to trickle it if you are fly sparging.

 

[kapbrew13]

I just use the calculations from beersmith software and my water volumes are right on.

 

[choosybeggar]

Does anyone perform a mash out? At the end of the mash, I've been adding a volume of boiling water to increase the temp to 168 prior to vorlauf. Takes extra time and mare importantly for big beers or 10 gal batches, more volume (48qt MLT here). Seems superfluous as the sparge water addition achieves the same temp. I'd love to stop but I just can't help myself

 

[Flykilbosa]

Everyone does a batch sparge slightly different, but there has been no science to back up a slow runoff from your sparge doing anything for efficiency or extraction. I split my batch sparge so I sparge with 2 smaller volumes of water and I used to wait 10 minutes after adding the water each time.

I have since stopped that and noticed no drop in efficiency and have saved myself 20 minutes. I also runoff my sparge with a fully open valve (after vorlaufing). You only need to trickle it if you are fly sparging.

Oh man I have to try that...I had 2 bad experiences when I went too fast. I would absolutely love being able to open her up all the way! That would save me a boat load of time on my brew day.

 

[ApothecaryBrewing]

Oh man I have to try that...I had 2 bad experiences when I went too fast. I would absolutely love being able to open her up all the way! That would save me a boat load of time on my brew day.

Just make sure once you add your sparge water, you stir thoroughly, vorlauf, then drain. The vorlaufing should set the bed so you can just let her rip.

 

[ApothecaryBrewing]

Does anyone perform a mash out? At the end of the mash, I've been adding a volume of boiling water to increase the temp to 168 prior to vorlauf. Takes extra time and mare importantly for big beers or 10 gal batches, more volume (48qt MLT here). Seems superfluous as the sparge water addition achieves the same temp. I'd love to stop but I just can't help myself

Mashing out seems to be redundant when you are batch sparging. It is added water to confuse your volumes even more and you effectively doing the same thing as a batch sparge.

Mash-outs are used more for fly sparging I believe. That step raises the temperature to stop all enzymatic activity, since fly sparging takes about an hour you would continue to convert if you didn't. It also loosens the sugars up and allows them to flow out better.

When you batch sparge you are effectively doing all that with your sparge water, rendering the mash-out step redundant and useless.

I 2 step sparge for safety (split my sparge volume and do 2 additions) and use water that is around 180 to ensure I am raising the temperature and rinsing the grains well enough. Denny mentioned that as long as your pH is in range, the higher temperature up to 190F should not extract any astringent flavors from the husks and so far my practice supports that.

 

[trapae]

Thanks for all the advice everyone. Really helps

 

[lpdjshaw]

You didn't ask this but because it's your first time...don't rush the sparge, I rushed the first to AG I did and I missed my numbers big time. I simply sparged (runoff) too fast. Open the valve to get a "slow trickle" of wort when you drain your mash tun/sparge.

When I batch sparge I open the valve slowly at first and once I see things flowing smoothly I open my valve all the way and pump my mash tun down in a couple minutes. That's one of the main advantages of batch sparging - it's quick. If you're gonna "slow trickle" it may as well fly sparge.
And I agree with ApocatharyBrewing about mashing out when batch sparging. Once you've drained your first runnings you're effectively mashing out (stopping enzymatic activity) by adding your batch sparge water at "mash out temp".

 

[Flykilbosa]

When I batch sparge I open the valve slowly at first and once I see things flowing smoothly I open my valve all the way and pump my mash tun down in a couple minutes. That's one of the main advantages of batch sparging - it's quick. If you're gonna "slow trickle" it may as well fly sparge.
And I agree with ApocatharyBrewing about mashing out when batch sparging. Once you've drained your first runnings you're effectively mashing out (stopping enzymatic activity) by adding your batch sparge water at "mash out temp".

So the first runnings, do you slowly drain that?

 

[DirtyOldDuck]

So the first runnings, do you slowly drain that?

No. After vorlauf you can drain as fast as you want.

 

[kapbrew13]

No. After vorlauf you can drain as fast as you want.

Who's this vorlauf guy?

 

[dzlater]

>>>>>>>>>>>>
My questions:
1. Is there anything wrong with plugging each recipe into a brew calculator and adjusting the water/grain ratio each time so you add the correct amount of water at the beginning of the mash so as to be able to skip the post mash addition, i.e. increase/decrease the ratio as needed so the original mash water volume gives you as close to 50% total boil volume as possible.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Thanks, T

That's what I usually do.
I like this calculator http://www.brewheads.com/batch.php
But like others said it is easier to just stick with a certain mash water ratio and measure the runoff to figure the sparge water.

 

[lpdjshaw]

So the first runnings, do you slowly drain that?

No, I just get things started slowly for 30 seconds or so just to make sure everything is flowing smoothly. Vorlaufing (especially for 10 min with a pump) pretty much sets your grain bed, I just like to slowly increase how much I'm flowing out of my MLT.