Fly sparge question

[Gamby]

I am building a new HERMS system and have a question regarding fly sparging. I am thinking about using a Stout sparge arm across the top of my mash tun as apposed to an adjustable arm the would be set more at the top of the liquid level in the kettle (like The Ultimate Sparge Arm).

Is the splashing or aeration that would result from the Stout arm at the top of the kettle a problem? This is the easier and less expensive option.

Please let me know what you think.

Thanks!

 

[Bensiff]

I would not worry about splashing from the sparging process in terms of something like HSA, that is pretty much a non thing. Maybe it might cause a little bit of color pick up from what I have read; but, I can't quote anything specific that affirms that.

For what its worth, a commercial brewing friend of mine who has the Stout sparge arm said he was not too excited about it and ended up fabbing his own to replace it. He also has the ultimage sparge arm he bought for his pilot system. I can't quote him on his opinion of it as that would violate forum rules on language so I will just say he doesn't think kindly of it and it is never used. I have a Stout system, just have been lazy and use a piece of tubing to sparge and recirc, yeah it probably channels it a bit. At some point I'm going to put together a copper tube sparge setup with slots/holes on the top that will sit on top of the grain bed and below the liquid level, something like that would be cheap to build and distribute flow evenly with minimum grain bed disruption which is of greater concern to me than splashing.

 

[day_trippr]

fwiw, I use an autosparge on a 20g mlt with a false bottom and the discharge is through a 3/8" silicone hose with an SS float ball near the end. I take an hour to end up with 13.4 gallons in the boil kettle while fly sparging (so a bit less than 1 quart per minute) and there's been no channeling. Mash efficiency has been running above 90%.

The one concern I would have about drilled or slotted sparge arms is plugging at the beginning of recirculation (or vorlauf for those who don't recirculate the entire mash period). The autosparge is easy enough to clear if it were to clog (hasn't yet) but a sparge arm is unlikely to be that easy...

Cheers!

 

[Bensiff]

The one concern I would have about drilled or slotted sparge arms is plugging at the beginning of recirculation (or vorlauf for those who don't recirculate the entire mash period). The autosparge is easy enough to clear if it were to clog (hasn't yet) but a sparge arm is unlikely to be that easy...

Cheers!

I used a slotted copper pipe manifolds for years on various cooler MT's without them ever clogging, so I would imagine if using one for sparging it wouldn't clog either, especially if the slots were larger on the sparge side than the intake side at the bottom of the MT. One thing I did was not fully soldering them together so I had a few sections that were only slip fit allowing me to pull them apart and get a brush for better cleaning if needed, never had one come apart on me unexpectedly.

 

[day_trippr]

My thought wasn't out of nowhere, I did some research on sparge arms before going with the autosparge.
fwiw, this was the first hit among many on "sparge arm clog"
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=197459

I looked at a few sparge arm vendor FAQs and most of them advised not to run through the sparge arm when recirculating or vorlaufing...

Cheers!

 

[MaryB]

I use a homemade spray bar that sits fairly high above the grain bed. But it only disturbs the top 1/2 inch at most and has worked well so far. Forget the hole size but smaller than 1/16th inch... row of holes that stagger offset down the length about a 1/4 inch each side of center to spread the water flow out a bit.

 

[Gamby]

Thanks for all of the great input!
It looks like having my sparge arm at the top of my kettle as apposed to closer to the water surface in the kettle should not be an issue but now I have a new question...

Since I will be using a HERMS coil in the HLT to recirculate the wort in my mash tun is it still OK to use a sparge arm for this and how do I handle the vorlauf process?

 

[Bensiff]

My thought wasn't out of nowhere, I did some research on sparge arms before going with the autosparge.
fwiw, this was the first hit among many on "sparge arm clog"
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=197459

I looked at a few sparge arm vendor FAQs and most of them advised not to run through the sparge arm when recirculating or vorlaufing...

Cheers!

If the intake allows for larger particles to pass through than the sparge apparatus, clogs might happen. Proper design can easily mitigate such occurrences or make it very easy to fix if it does happen.

 

[Bensiff]

Since I will be using a HERMS coil in the HLT to recirculate the wort in my mash tun is it still OK to use a sparge arm for this and how do I handle the vorlauf process?

When you run a HERMS you will be continuously cycling the wort through which will set your grain bed and give you a clear wort. I use 3-way valves so I can run my recirc through the herms coil and then kick over the valve to switch over to sparging.

If you seem to be getting a lot of channeling, you can do as some German breweries do, they draw off some wort, stir the grain bed and recirc until the wort is clear again, draw some more off, and repeat a few times. IMO at the home brew scale this takes way too much time for too little gain. Better to fix the system to channel less.