Evan!
Well-Known Member
Alright, the stout that I brewed yesterday morning was my 3rd AG batch. 78% efficiency, not too bad. My question is this:
I batch sparge, and so what am I supposed to do when, like yesterday, my second (sparge) runnings are still @ 1.030? I mean, mashed with 6 gallons, then sparged with 3, then sparged again with another 1 after I saw how high my runnings OG was. So 10 gallons there. You lose some to the grains, yeah, but I still ended up having to boil two separate kettles (my biggest kettle is 8 gals) and combining them at the end. I also ended up having to do like a 90-minute boil in order to evaporate enough water to end up with 5 gals in the primary.
So, outside of the seemingly wasteful tactic of 90-minute+ boils, or fly sparging, what else is there to do when it comes to high-grav AG homebrewing? Or should I just plan on pre-boiling the wort, sans-hops, before I even start the boil timer?
I batch sparge, and so what am I supposed to do when, like yesterday, my second (sparge) runnings are still @ 1.030? I mean, mashed with 6 gallons, then sparged with 3, then sparged again with another 1 after I saw how high my runnings OG was. So 10 gallons there. You lose some to the grains, yeah, but I still ended up having to boil two separate kettles (my biggest kettle is 8 gals) and combining them at the end. I also ended up having to do like a 90-minute boil in order to evaporate enough water to end up with 5 gals in the primary.
So, outside of the seemingly wasteful tactic of 90-minute+ boils, or fly sparging, what else is there to do when it comes to high-grav AG homebrewing? Or should I just plan on pre-boiling the wort, sans-hops, before I even start the boil timer?