Could use a little help please!

[GABrewboy]

I have one of those 64qt square igloo coolers for my mash tun, but my effic. has not been very good at all and I think it's because the way I batch sparge. Is there a way to fly sparge with a sqaure cooler like mine since a sparge arm would not fit this cooler, only round ones or smaller ones then I am using...

 

[Orfy]

What manifold do you use @ the bottom of your cooler?
How about replicating it at the top and using that to flow the sparge water through?

Hope that makes sense?
I batch sparge and ham happy with around 65-70% efficiency.

 

[GABrewboy]

I use the SS braided hose! Well I have been getting about 65% effic., but would like to bump that up to about
75-80% if possible. I am not sure I understand:

" How about replicating it at the top and using that to flow the sparge water through? "

Thanks

 

[sonvolt]

Yeah . . . you can fly sparge. Take some thin CPVC pipe and rig up a large "fork" with a nipple on one end that fits to a hose connected to your HLT. Make sure that the fork is big enough that it can rest on the sides of your cooler so it is suspended above the grain bed. Then, put caps on the "tines" of said fork. Drill tiny little holes on the bottom side of the CPVC pipes so that the holes are positioned equally over the whole grain bed.

By the way, you will need some sort of ball valve on your HLT to regulate the flow of water through this "sparge arm (fork)". Then, you can just turn it on so that the water drips through your new contraption at the same rate your wort is trickling out of the mash tun (cooler).

Make sense?

 

[clayof2day]

How fine is your crush? That is generally the first thing to consider. I batch sparge in a rectangular cooler and stainless steel braid as well. I have been getting ~75%+ eff. on all barley mashes and ~65% with anything else (wheat, etc.) I use the mill at the HBS, which is a fixed gap JSP malt-mill.

 

[Orfy]

The anly reason people use those rotating arms is to give a steady flow across the grain to stop channels forming.
If you make a rectangular plastic/copper tubing manifold to sit above your cooler then that will have the same effect.
I've even seen some one use foil with holes in it to spread.

But batch sparging negates all this. I think the money I save by buying my grain bulk lets me up my grain bill iff I want stronger Ale. Much easier to throw in 1lb more grain and batch sparge than get extra equipment and time to fly.

I want to keep it simple and short if I can.

 

[david_42]

Are you stirring the mash after each addition of sparge water? I stir for about two minutes, let it sit for ten, then stir again, before draining.

If you really want to fly-sparge:

Find a square baking pan that fits into the cooler and drill 1/16" inch holes 1" apart. Set the pan o the mash and pour in the water. Aluminum foil pans are great for this and re-usable.

 

[GABrewboy]

Hmmm.....okay well this is all great advise!!

Let me tell you my step by step!

I usually do my mashin at around 154, strike temp is around 170 or so....for ales this is! I mash with about 4-4.5 gals of water.

I then collect that and start my sparging, which my shop told me to just dump all the sparge water in and let it set for about 15-30 mins and drain and start the boil. I do stir it for a couple of mins as well before closing the lid and letting it rest....I pretty much use water at about 165-170 for the sparging. Strike temp is like around 180 or so.....

Okay, so give me your feedback on how bad this is.....

 

[perry]

I always try to keep a continual flow of 170 degree H2O through the grain bed, start to finish.... sounds like you may be getting some compaction in there, perhaps re-congealing of the sugars that may not be rectified by stirring.... I don't know if this happens-just a guess.

p

 

[GABrewboy]

So your saying then to maybe stir every couple of mins while batch sparging it or what?

 

[boo boo]

You stir well after you add your sparge water to the tun. Recirculate the runnings until clear (relativly) and then drain the tun.

 

[Brew-boy]

I also have the blue Igloo and plan on making a sprinkler system like this one.

http://www.homebrew.com/articles/article09130301.shtml

 

[docbee]

The crush of your grains is very important!!

Another question is how much volume are you sparging with. The ideal is the same amount you drain for your mash should about equal the amount that you sparge with to get the same amount drained.(Since your grains have already absorbed liquid).

 

[GABrewboy]

Hmmmmmm.....Okay maybe I am not understanding this, but your saying if I mash in with say 4 gallons of water that I should also sparge with 4 gallons of water?

 

[docbee]

It all depends on how much grain you are using. But your run off after mashing should equal 1/2 of your goal preboil volume and your sparge should also equal 1/2 preboil volume. So say you have planned to have a total of 7 gal of wort to boil and add hops to then the first run off will need to be 3.5 gal. With grain absorbing about 0.1 gal/lb this is also added during your mash in, mash out so if you used a total of 10 lbs grains then 3.5 gal + 1 gal(for absorption) for a total of 4.5 gal during the mash in/sac rest/mash out steps. You should then get 3.5 gal run off from these steps. Then you will sparge with another 3.5 gal of water at around 170-175 degrees stike temp. Since the grains are already wet they won't absorb any more. This sparge is stirred and rested for about 10-15 min and recirc and run off and added to your first drainage to make up your final volume of 7 gal.

If you haven't done so check out www.hbd.org/cascade/dennybrew/ to see the full explaination of batch sparging and the volumes that you need. This site will make it crystal clear.

 

[bikebryan]

The anly reason people use those rotating arms is to give a steady flow across the grain to stop channels forming.
If you make a rectangular plastic/copper tubing manifold to sit above your cooler then that will have the same effect.
I've even seen some one use foil with holes in it to spread.

Well sort of.

I doubt that most homebrewers have the patience and wherewithall, let alone tools, to drill holes in type of sparge manifold you mention, that will allow it to come anywhere near what a professionally manufactured sparge arm has.

Even the tiniest nail and/or electric drill bit will make holes large enough that channeling becomes a concern. The rotating sparge arms try to prevent this by having little, tiny, small holes that are always moving over the grain bed, so that the water never strikes it in the same place twice. Even with this channeling can occur, but is much less likely than with the manifold you are describing.

 

[sonvolt]

I doubt that most homebrewers have the patience and wherewithall, let alone tools, to drill holes in type of sparge manifold you mention,

A drill . . . and a drill bit

 

[brewhead]

Fly Sparging Rules!! :d

 

[Evets]

A drill . . . and a drill bit

The holes in my "Phils" sparger are laser-cut and so small you can hardly see them. I doubt you could find a drill bit this small.

 

[barside laundry]

I have learned that my efficiently is lower than my target because of pre boil wort volume NOT because I did not get all the sugars out of the grain. For example, I just made Northern Brewers Phat Tyre last Sunday and the gravity should have been 1052 but I got 1041. That sucks I know, but I think I have figured out why this happened. I mashed the 10 pounds of grain in the 2.5 gal of water. I sparged with 5 gallons, yielding about 6-6.5 in the kettle. Because of past experience I have learned that I lose about 1.25 gal due to evaporation but more importantly I am left a gallon of sludge in my kettle that clogs my screen leading to my chiller so I usually only get about 4-5 gallons in my carboy. To fix this I have been adding water to my kettle until I have about 7 gallons (I sparge until 1010 and if that runs out before 7 gallons then I add water). The problem last weekend was that I did not lose too much from evaporation and there was little hop trub so my carboy was full but there was probably another gallon in the kettle

which meant a lower gravity reading which might suggest that I did sparge well enough or I added too much water. I always get screwed because of that counterflow chiller, an immersion chiller and siphoning the wort would be better....I think.

Please give me some feedback and tell me if I am crazy.

 

[bandt9299]

Are you using any brewing software? The pre boil doesn't really matter its what goes into the primary, although beersmith will give you an estimated pre boil gravity based on the size you put in for pre boil gallons.. I often come up under 5 gallons and sometimes add water, then I take a gravity reading and put the OG into my brewing software along with batch size, this is what determines efficiency. If I took a reading before adding water and lowered the batch size the efficiency would be the same.

 

[Hopfan]

The holes in my "Phils" sparger are laser-cut and so small you can hardly see them. I doubt you could find a drill bit this small.

I used a mini diamond etching bit in a dremel and it worked very well.