Fly Sparging With a Small Grain Bill

[JesseL]

I usually brew beers with a grain bill well over ten pounds, and I fly sparge. Because of this, I've never had a problem getting my target volume well before the gravity of the runnings hit 1.012. I'm about to brew a session IPA with a grain bill of eight pounds and a 90 minute boil, so I'm aiming for a pre-boil volume of about 6.75 gallons. Does anyone have any recommendations for how to get that much volume out of eight pounds of grain without going under 1.012 during the sparge/lauter?

 

[CadiBrewer]

I brew a lot of small, session beers. They are my favorite styles. I lower my efficiency a bit in the brewing software that I use when I calculate my grain bill, and then I stop my runnings at around 1.010. I always have to top up with water to get my pre boil volume, but I usually come within a point or two of my numbers.

I will warn you, with really small beers, you may have to stop sparging at about half or three quarters of where you would stop with a larger beer.

 

[bleme]

You could batch sparge or BIAB. Or throw enough hops in there to cover up over-sparging...

 

[JesseL]

I will warn you, with really small beers, you may have to stop sparging at about half or three quarters of where you would stop with a larger beer.

So are you saying that the amount of water you're topping off with is half to one-quarter of your pre-boil volume?

 

[CadiBrewer]

So are you saying that the amount of water you're topping off with is half to one-quarter of your pre-boil volume?

Not usually half, but often at least 3 gallons for my 12.4 gallon pre boil volume.

 

[RM-MN]

I'd suggest you batch sparge this batch. The loss of efficiency should be quite small and the time savings quite large so it should balance out. Mill your grains a little tighter and add some rice hulls to avoid the stuck sparge and you might find the efficiency to be the same.

 

[hafmpty]

There's no reason to change your sparging technique from fly to batch...especially if your going for MORE efficiency. If anything slow your sparge down a bit. That or throw a bit more grain in and adjust for lower efficiency and top up. If you keep your crush and sparge rate consistent across batches, the efficiency you get batch to batch should be about the same. The rate I shoot for when I sparge is probably slower than most but I've seen it referenced in some brewing articles and resources is .5 liters per minute. That translates to a gallon about every 8 minutes. I know that's slow in the minds of some. But I keep it consistent across batches so I know where my efficiency will end up.

Not saying you should go that slow but keep a consistent rate across batches and you should get the same numbers.


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