fly sparge question

[bcryan]

going to be doing my first all grain on monday. so i've never sparged before. i understand that when fly sparging you're supposed to keep the water level above the grain bed a couple of inches. so when you get down to the end and you have most of your pre boil wort do i maintain that 2 inches or do i stop my fly sparge and try to drain off my mash tun???? does that makes sense. cheers

 

[apparatus]

Draw down the mash tun.

 

[Yooper]

Draw down the mash tun.

I do the opposite! I fly sparge until I reach my boil volume, or until the runnings are 1.010 or so, whichever comes first. Then I'm done.

 

[ajf]

I do the opposite! I fly sparge until I reach my boil volume, or until the runnings are 1.010 or so, whichever comes first. Then I'm done.

That's what I do, but I stop adding water when I know there is enough in the MLT to deliver the required pre-boil volume. I usually have to stop the sparge early because of the gravity of the runnings, and top up with water.

-a.

 

[Daybis]

I also fly until I reach 1.010. If I undershoot my target volumes, I top off in the boil kettle to my required volumes. If I overshoot my target volumes, I adjust the boil length to drive off some of the excess water.

 

[_JP_]

When checking gravity during a sparge, are you guys using refractometers?

With a hydrometer, you'd have to take a sample, stop the sparge, chill it (5-10 min in freezer?), then take a reading. Resume the sparge if reading is above 1.010, etc. Sounds like a lot of work.

 

[ajf]

Yes, I use a refractometer.

-a.

 

[Yooper]

Yes, I use a refractometer.

-a.

Yes, I do too. But if it's a recipe I've made before and it's a fairly large grainbill (less risk of oversparging since I stop at 7 gallons), I don't check every time. For a beer with a smaller grainbill, there is much more of a risk of me oversparging so I'll check then.

 

[enohcs]

Whatever you decide, be certain to take good notes so you can repeat every time. After a few times, you'll have plenty of info to know exactly what you can expect to extract.
For me, I know that I'm going to need 10gal pre boil. I sparge until I fill to 8 gallons, then shut off the sparge and let the remaining 2 gallons flow in to the kettle from the mash. I don't take gravity readings at this step except from the wort once I reach pre boil volume. This is only for gathering info to determine efficiency.

 

[Northcalais40]

With a large pan of ice water and a cheap pie tin you can cool a wort sample in 15 seconds.

 

[ajf]

But you still need much more than the one drop you need with a refractometer, and if you break hydrometers as often as I used to, the refractometer is much cheaper.

-a.