Fly sparging question

[uncleben113]

I'm really trying to step up my brewing game recently and am trying to examine every aspect of my process.

One thing I started recently considering is my fly sparging method, which does not entail maintaining a thin layer of wort on top of the grain bed. I use a small Anvil Foundry, all in one system. My mashout/sparge process looks like this:

Bring up mash temp to 168 and maintain for 10 minutes, stirring occasionally. The recirculation pump is off. Pull the grain basket up and restvit on the rack to let the grains drain. Pour the appropriate volume of sparge water over the grain bed at 168. Bring to boil and continue.

I have done this for a long time mostly because it's is so so easy and I don't think I've had any issues with it. Also, my efficiency is consistent and great, around 80% every batch.

Is there anything I need to worry about using this method? My two thoughts turn to pH and hot side aeration. pH could be a concern due to channeling and maybe some grain getting rinsed too much, overly increasing the pH and leading to astringency. Although, I've never had astringency problems. And I've heard that hot side aeration is really not much of an issue so that shouldn't be a problem.

Just to be safe, I will probably start collecting the later sparge runoff to check pH before adding it to the boil, but I'm not very worried about that.

Am I missing anything? What are the downsides of sparging this way?

Cheers!

 

[sibelman]

This sounds like batch sparging, and standard BIAB practice, with no greater hot-side aeration humans than any other BIAB brewer. As far as I know, any pH concerns relate to water chemistry rather than your process.

I'm a three vessel brewer, though. Perhaps another respondent will have something more useful to say.

Happy brewing!

EDIT: sorry for my ignorance re batch- vs. pour-over sparge.

 

[doug293cz]

This sounds like batch sparging

This is a "pour over" sparge. It is kinda like a fly sparge, but not as controllable/repeatable as you cannot control the rate at which the sparge water runs thru the grain bed, only how fast you add the water to the top of the basket. It is nothing like a batch sparge where you hold all the grain and sparge water in the vessel for a short time, with stirring to make sure your rinse is effective at getting high gravity wort adhered to the surface of the grain bits homogenized with the sparge water/wort. It's a legitimate method of sparging, even tho it is not as controllable as a true fly sparge or batch sparge. If it is working well for you, there is no need to change anything,

To the OP: pH increase during sparging is only an issue if your sparge water has high alkalinity. You can avoid any chance of a problem by adding lactic or phosphoric acid to the sparge water to bring the pH down to about 5.8. This will remove enough of the alkalinity to prevent pH problems during the sparge.

I wouldn't worry about oxidation on the hot side until after you have your entire cold side process as oxygen free as you can make it. Once you do that you can start working on reducing hot side oxidation.

Brew on

 

[SFC Rudy]

I use 2 Mash & Boil units, mash in one and batch sparge in the other. After a discussion with Denny Conn I started sparging with 200F water. The only effect is that I get to a boil faster.

Another thing I found is that my malt pipe fits in my anvil fermenter. I have used a pump to recirculate and batch sparge in that when I want to brew two beers at the same time.

 

[kevin58]

That is definitely not a fly sparge. As pointed out its a pour over sparge. Most, if not all, all-in-one systems are basically BIAB systems and BIAB was designed to be a full volume (no sparge) process. That is what I do with my Anvil Foundry. However many AiO users do some some sort of pour over attempting to get more sugars out of the grains.

Someone mentioned batch sparge but that is not accurate for your process. A batch sparge is mashing with enough volume of liquor to get half of your batch total after draining it all... then filling the MT with enough liquor to give you your full volume when it is drained. So its; Mash and drain... refill and drain in two equal batches.

Side note: You don't have to do a mash-out step. That is one of those steps commercial brewers use but are not as effective or necessary to the homebrewers. You can do your pour over sparge with unheated water.

 

[Bobby_M]

The primary reason a pour over sparge can be sketchy is that you don't really know if it's channeling or not. Generally when you fly sparge you're very careful to make sure the whole grainbed is as fluid as possible and that requires not letting the liquid level fall below the top of the grain.

The only way I can figure to simulate that process with a malt pipe/basket is to hoist it up in a controlled manor. Pour in your sparge slowly and simultaneously lift the basket but never exposing the grain.

My hot take is that it's not really worth sparging on an all in one unless you absolutely cannot fit all the water in at once.

You mentioned pH and it's absolutely an overall concern regardless of sparge method but backup a bit. Do you already predict/account for the mash pH in the first place? Do you acidify your strike water for lighter beers already? If so, adding acid to your sparge water is the compliment to that.

But what if you don't sparge? Won't you lose some efficiency? Yes. A no sparge mash is good for about 72-75% in my experience and that's perfectly fine given the fact that you don't need to worry about heating separate water or whether your sparge method is pulling astringency due to pH drift.

 

[doug293cz]

Someone mentioned batch sparge but that is not accurate for your process. A batch sparge is mashing with enough volume of liquor to get half of your batch total after draining it all... then filling the MT with enough liquor to give you your full volume when it is drained. So its; Mash and drain... refill and drain in two equal batches.

Side note: You don't have to do a mash-out step. That is one of those steps commercial brewers use but are not as effective or necessary to the homebrewers. You can do your pour over sparge with unheated water.

A batch sparge does not need to have equal first and second runnings, but that is the ratio that provides the highest lauter efficiency. To get equal volumes:

Strike volume = Expected grain absorption + Target pre-boil volume / 2​

Sparge volume = Target pre-boil volume / 2​

For some brewers, a mash-out provides increased conversion efficiency, but this is only because their initial mash time was too short to allow complete gelatinization and hydrolysis (the two steps required to chop starch up into fermentable sugar) to occur. Since mash out is at a higher temperature than the mash, both gelatinization and hydrolysis occur at a faster rate, but hydrolysis ends when all of the amylase enzymes have been denatured. So, a mash out gives a short, "turbo charged" rest, until the enzymes are dead. I would argue that just mashing longer is a better option. You can monitor mash completeness by continuing the mash until the SG of the wort stops rising.

Brew on

 

[uncleben113]

So much great info here!

This is a "pour over" sparge. It is kinda like a fly sparge, but not as controllable/repeatable as you cannot control the rate at which the sparge water runs thru the grain bed, only how fast you add the water to the top of the basket. It is nothing like a batch sparge where you hold all the grain and sparge water in the vessel for a short time, with stirring to make sure your rinse is effective at getting high gravity wort adhered to the surface of the grain bits homogenized with the sparge water/wort. It's a legitimate method of sparging, even tho it is not as controllable as a true fly sparge or batch sparge. If it is working well for you, there is no need to change anything,

To the OP: pH increase during sparging is only an issue if your sparge water has high alkalinity. You can avoid any chance of a problem by adding lactic or phosphoric acid to the sparge water to bring the pH down to about 5.8. This will remove enough of the alkalinity to prevent pH problems during the sparge.

I wouldn't worry about oxidation on the hot side until after you have your entire cold side process as oxygen free as you can make it. Once you do that you can start working on reducing hot side oxidation.

Brew on

This is good to hear. This process has worked really well for me so far. My cold side O2 exposure is pretty good but I am going to work on this too.

I use 2 Mash & Boil units, mash in one and batch sparge in the other. After a discussion with Denny Conn I started sparging with 200F water. The only effect is that I get to a boil faster.

Another thing I found is that my malt pipe fits in my anvil fermenter. I have used a pump to recirculate and batch sparge in that when I want to brew two beers at the same time.

When I first began using the pour over sparge method, I was using similarly hot water and found that all of my batches were just awful. I thought that the reason was that I was stripping out excess tannins with that high of sparge water. I wonder how you're not running into this problem. Or maybe that was not my issue back then?

Side note: You don't have to do a mash-out step. That is one of those steps commercial brewers use but are not as effective or necessary to the homebrewers. You can do your pour over sparge with unheated water.

Wouldn't skipping the mash out step possibly lead to excessive starch conversion while sparging? Especially if not using water at 168F?

My hot take is that it's not really worth sparging on an all in one unless you absolutely cannot fit all the water in at once.

You mentioned pH and it's absolutely an overall concern regardless of sparge method but backup a bit. Do you already predict/account for the mash pH in the first place? Do you acidify your strike water for lighter beers already? If so, adding acid to your sparge water is the compliment to that.

But what if you don't sparge? Won't you lose some efficiency? Yes. A no sparge mash is good for about 72-75% in my experience and that's perfectly fine given the fact that you don't need to worry about heating separate water or whether your sparge method is pulling astringency due to pH drift.

I have not seriously considered full mash boils because I figured the efficiency was really low but 72-75 isn't bad at all. I'll give it a shot during my next batch and see how it goes. I would LOVE not to sparge or worry about heating up sparge water in my little kettle, especially if it'll help me avoid pH and related issues. And yes, I am predicting tracking, and adjusting my pH as needed for each batch. So am I correct in assuming that over sparging can lead to pH issues? I have been intending to track pH of later runoff during the sparge but haven't incorporated that yet.

Thank you all!!

 

[SFC Rudy]

With a fly sparge the hot water is in contact with the grain for a longer period, raising the temperature of the grain itself which will extract some tannins. That and you have to monitor the pH.

I only stir/ recirculate for about 5 minutes then drain, my grain bed doesn’t get hot enough to extract tannins. The sparge goes from 200F to about 180F. I do treat my sparge water using Brunwater.

I’ve done this with a Pilsner, Vienna lager, amber ales, Hefeweizen and have not had a problem.

 

[mac_1103]

When I first began using the pour over sparge method, I was using similarly hot water and found that all of my batches were just awful. I thought that the reason was that I was stripping out excess tannins with that high of sparge water. I wonder how you're not running into this problem.

If you control pH you should not have a tannin problem. You say you're controlling pH now, but were you doing this back then?

Wouldn't skipping the mash out step possibly lead to excessive starch conversion while sparging? Especially if not using water at 168F?

What's excessive? And what are you worried about, making a wort that's too fermentable and a beer that's too dry? Plenty of homebrewers never do a mashout and don't have these problems. I'm one of them. Conversion efficiency should be close to 100% anyway.

So am I correct in assuming that over sparging can lead to pH issues?

Only if the sparge water has too much alkalinity. And if it does you can solve the problem with a little bit of lactic or phosphoric acid.

 

[doug293cz]

Wouldn't skipping the mash out step possibly lead to excessive starch conversion while sparging? Especially if not using water at 168F?

I don't think there is such a thing as excessive starch conversion. You want to convert all of the starch to fermentable sugars, unfermentable sugars, and dextrins. What brewers do want to do is control the ratio of fermentable to unfermentable sugars and dextrins. The primary control method for this is the temperature and length of the early mash steps, before the limit dextrinase enzyme is denatured. Limit dextrinase action determines how much dextrin is left after the amylase enzymes have done as much hydrolysis as they can.

If the conversion is not complete when you start sparging, then yes, conversion can continue during the sparge process. But to have good control of things, you want to make sure conversion is complete before you get to the lautering/sparging step.

I would LOVE not to sparge or worry about heating up sparge water in my little kettle

You don't have to heat your sparge water for the sparge to be effective, but using hot sparge water will reduce the time required to heat up to boiling. No-sparge is also a valid process, and the one I usually use.

Only if the sparge water has too much alkalinity. And if it does you can solve the problem with a little bit of lactic or phosphoric acid.

@mabrungard has posted about the detrimental effects of oversparging, even if the pH stays within acceptable limits. The way to avoid this is to not have sparge runnings go below about 1.010 SG or 2.5°Plato. This is never a problem with single batch sparging, or fly sparging when the sparged wort volume is less than the initial runnings wort volume.

Brew on

 

[doug293cz]

With a fly sparge the hot water is in contact with the grain for a longer period, raising the temperature of the grain itself which will extract some tannins. That and you have to monitor the pH.

It takes very little time for the sparge water to heat up the grain bed - only a matter of 10s of seconds. So, batch sparging heats the grain bed as much as it is going to very quickly.

Brew on

 

[kevin58]

Wouldn't skipping the mash out step possibly lead to excessive starch conversion while sparging? Especially if not using water at 168F?

Continuous conversion is an issue for commercial brewers not for homebrewers. It's due to the scale. Our 5 gallon batches goes from mash to boil in a matter of minutes where it can take much, much longer for a commercial batch. In the time it takes for them yes, starches can continue to convert.

 

[sibelman]

starches can continue to convert.

and, more to the point, other things can continue to convert as Doug indicated in post #11 above.

 

[kevin58]

and, more to the point, other things can continue to convert as Doug indicated in post #11 above.

True, but I was answering a direct question which was... "Wouldn't skipping the mash out step possibly lead to excessive starch conversion while sparging?"

I was trying to answer only the question that was asked and not get into side issues. I know about the other things that Doug mentioned but other things was not the question.

 

[Bobby_M]

True, but I was answering a direct question which was... "Wouldn't skipping the mash out step possibly lead to excessive starch conversion while sparging?"

I was trying to answer only the question that was asked and not get into side issues. I know about the other things that Doug mentioned but other things was not the question.

And the one thing I didn't read carefully enough to see if it was covered was the fact that in these relatively tiny batches the ramp up to a boil in a short few minutes will bring the total wort quantity well past the denaturing temperature that the mash out was intended to accomplish anyway.

I run my BIAB mash up to a 170F target at the end anyway (via heat not infusion). Why? Why not? It's about as hot as I can handle with thin rubber gloves on.

 

[Broken Crow]

It looks like the question has been answered and I don't wanna derail but (why is there no tongue-in cheek emoji?):

It's about as hot as I can handle with thin rubber gloves on.

Are those the Blichmann gloves? I've thought about buying some but they don't look like they can handle heat any better than the cheap Rubbermaids, though I like the length. Have you ever tried a pair of cotton gloves on the inside?
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/threads/life-hacks-for-homebrewers-add-yours.734361/#post-10414766

 

[Imhoppy]

I use a pair of thin lightweight cotton gloves inside the Rubbermaids. It does help some to allow for a longer contact time with a hot grain bag due to the extra insulation. Plus, the cotton absorbs mosture from sweaty hands making the Rubbermaids easier to take off.

 

[Bobby_M]

It looks like the question has been answered and I don't wanna derail but (why is there no tongue-in cheek emoji?):

Are those the Blichmann gloves? I've thought about buying some but they don't look like they can handle heat any better than the cheap Rubbermaids, though I like the length. Have you ever tried a pair of cotton gloves on the inside?
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/threads/life-hacks-for-homebrewers-add-yours.734361/#post-10414766

I don't use the thin Blichmann gloves. I don't know where I got these but they have a thin cloth liner. Just enough thickness that I can handle the 170F ball of grain for short periods of time but leaves me enough dexterity to work the drawstring and hoist.

 

[uncleben113]

Thank you all for the info! I am learning a lot here and have a lot to consider. I'm going to try a full volume mash for my next batch and see what I come up with. I may return to my rinse sparge method because that it what I am used to and know well but I should be able to simplify a lot with what y'all have offered.

Cheers!!