Fly vs Batch

[motobrewer]

from the time i start sparging, to the time i'm boiling, fly is quicker.

 

[Bobby_M]

There are a few factors that would play into it. One is whether you use an electric element in the boil kettle. Even when you start fly sparging, you can't fire until the element is covered. In a gas fired rig, you can fire with 1/2" of wort. The biggest time lag in heating a batch sparge to boil would be in lower BTU situations where that second addition of bulk 160F wort into the kettle would take a while to recover. In a fly sparge, the wort is often right on the very edge of boiling the entire time.

 

[blackbeer]

i recently put together my new system and used batch. it seemed to me that when i fly sparged in the past, my beers were more astringent. now granted, i am now in a different house, different water, etc but my beers now do not have astringent flavors but my efficiency needs some work. i like batch vs fly because of the time involved and the simplicity of batch.

 

[LLBrewer]

from the time i start sparging, to the time i'm boiling, fly is quicker.

To echo what Bobby said, it's dependent on your heat source and size of batch. See, with your fly sparge you are constrained by the time it takes to execute the sparge. In batch you are constrained by the time it takes to get the volume to boil. Go with a smaller batch or get a bigger burner and the time to boil goes down while the fly time to boil stays constant. Probably splitting hairs, but in most cases batch sparging will be faster compared to someone who is doing an hour long fly step.

 

[boganll]

-More 'hands off' than batch - How so? With batch sparge you pour in the batch volume, stir, and then drain. With fly you still need to add the sparge but now you need some mechanism to control the flow rate as you drain.

-Better efficiency (particularly as grain bills increase for very high grav beers) - well ok, but really marginally so. Given a 10% gain in efficiency you're talking about 1lb of extra grain (for a ~1.056 beer). But anyway, is efficiency even a concern? I brew 1-2 times per month max. I guess if you really are producing a high volume then those few points of efficiency would certainly make a difference.


-no vorlaufing (if recircing) - again, for the "reading comprehension challenged" I batch sparge and don't vorlauf.

-Cleaner runoff - nope. My runoff is perfectly clear, for whatever that is worth.

-Used by virtually every commercial brewery in existence - well sure, but how does that relate to this conversation?

"some mechanism to control the flow rate" - you mean a ball valve?

"Given a 10% gain in efficiency you're talking about 1lb of extra grain (for a ~1.056 beer)" - that's if you're brewing 5g at a time. A lot of people who prefer to fly sparge are brewing at least twice that.

"But anyway, is efficiency even a concern?" - You're brewing twice a month, so your 1lb grain weight difference you calculated (which is a low ball) is going to add up to about half a bag grain at the end of the year, if not more. The money you could save with the "marginal" efficiency increase is enough to brew another whole batch each year at the very least.

"again, for the "reading comprehension challenged" I batch sparge and don't vorlauf... My runoff is perfectly clear, for whatever that is worth" - It's not worth much since you had to be so insulting about it. I think most readers understood perfectly clear; probably clearer than your runoff since you don't recirc or vorlauf

"Used by virtually every commercial brewery in existence - well sure, but how does that relate to this conversation?" - It's perfectly relevant since the efficiency increase in fly sparging has been pointed out time and time again. Like you said, "I guess if you really are producing a high volume then those few points of efficiency would certainly make a difference."

 

[Yooper]

The sparge method will NOT change the amount of time it takes for your wort to come to boil

Yes, it does. It has to do with volume. If you have your first runnings on to heat during a batch sparge, say they are 200 degrees when you dump in your sparge runnings (generally 50% or so of the batch). They would be what? 165? So the entire volume goes up, but the temperature goes down. Not a big deal in a 5 gallon batch, where the entire volume of 6.5 gallons still comes to a boil quickly, but more of an impact for sure in 12 gallons.

In a fly sparge, putting your pot onto heat means that the sparge runnings won't have that sort of impact as it goes in at a trickle, so that the entire volume is fully boiling before you finish sparging (or even WAY before if you have a big burner).

It's not a big deal, but that is one of the points made here.

I tend to batch sparge lately, but not always. I go back and forth, depending on my day and what's going on.

 

[boganll]

Efficiency difference is generally negligible, from what I've read. Meaning that a well-performed Fly Sparge may be slightly more efficient than a well-performed Batch sparge, but the difference is pretty small. not enough to make me choose one over the other.

As far as FWH goes, I cannot say as I have never tried it and never personally performed a side-by-side comparison on the same beers brewed with and without, let alone a whole battery of different beers brewed both ways. From what I've read, the whole issue of FWH is debatable, and debated. I can't understand how it would make any difference by the time the beer is finished, but that could be that I'm not knowledgeable enough in the chemistry of the entire brewing process.

Clear run-off isn't necessarily an advantage. I've read a Brulospher ExBEERiment that seemed to indicate that running clear wort into the BK did not improve the final beer. And I've heard a lot of anecdotal reports that indicate boiling all that stuff works as good as a good vorlauf. I know I have a hard time not doing a vorlauf because it seems so wrong to think that clear wort doesn't help make clear beer, but the few batches I've skipped it, and used a healthy does of calcium in the mash and kettle, have come out VERY clear. They seemed to look and taste as clean as any other beer I've brewed.

I'm not sure a fly sparge would save me time. Generally, by the time I'm sparging, I have been sitting there waiting for the mash to complete and have nothing important to do but get the boil going. If I can quickly run the mash tun dry, I can start the heat. Then the faster I can rise those sugars and empty the tun again, the sooner I can clean the mash tun while the boil heats up.

If my equipment were different, then fly sparging might be an obvious advantage, but I don't see it with my current setup.

This really is one of those areas where it's strictly a matter of personal choice.

A "well performed" fly sparge will be substantially more efficient. Commercial breweries I've spoken to are achieving 92 to 95% efficiency and they're not batch sparging.

FWHopping has been in use for centuries. It's been tested by time and in modern labs where it has been shown that the time the hops spend steeping in the wort during runoff exposes them to a higher pH, increasing utilization which results in higher bitterness levels. Because the hops are steeped before boiling, many of the volatile aromas and flavors you'd typically lose in the boil are "locked" in (this is also true for mash hopping) It also helps keep foaming down as the boil starts, reducing the chance of boiling over. It may be debatable and debated, but the technique has been in use this long for a reason. I can suggest some books if you are interested in learning the undebatable facts about FWH and the chemistry behind it.

Clarity is overrated, but I personally prefer my beer to look as nice as it tastes. That said, a vorlauf is among the many things I do to achieve this (whirlpool, finings, cold crashing) The more solids I can remove at each step of the process, the more effective the next method will be.

For a 5g batch, batch sparging makes sense in regards to time. For anything larger where you wouldn't or couldn't lift/pour that volume of fluid you'd need valves. If you're going to go to that length you might as well fly sparge for many reasons, and you won't be losing time since you can heat the wort during the runoff. As it's been pointed out in previous posts, the wort in the kettle will be boiling before sparging is even complete.

I don't worry about time, however. I don't brew unless I've got an entire day to devote to it. It doesn't make sense to me to quicken and cheapen the process as much as possible. That's what AB has been doing to us for decades. A little extra time, effort, and investment means treating myself and my friends to a truly unique, high quality product and I benefit from the joy of perfecting a craft rather than rushing through it.

 

[LLBrewer]

"some mechanism to control the flow rate" - you mean a ball valve?

I mean some mechanism. COULD be a ball valve if you're using gravity. Of course the flow rate will then change as a function of the volume in the sparge tank. I'd think most fly spargers would use a pump. Whatever, it's more complicated than batch sparging.

"Given a 10% gain in efficiency you're talking about 1lb of extra grain (for a ~1.056 beer)" - that's if you're brewing 5g at a time. A lot of people who prefer to fly sparge are brewing at least twice that.

Again... I've conceded that point. Although insignificant for me, and I'd say the avg homebrewer, if you are brewing a large volume of beer ANY drop in efficiency becomes costly. It's common sense of course. Where to draw the line is the question. An extra $2-$3 per batch is just a non issue for me.

"But anyway, is efficiency even a concern?" - You're brewing twice a month, so your 1lb grain weight difference you calculated (which is a low ball) is going to add up to about half a bag grain at the end of the year, if not more. The money you could save with the "marginal" efficiency increase is enough to brew another whole batch each year at the very least.

Oh wow! An extra batch per year.... Yeah, won't persuade me to spend an extra 24 hours per year in extra time on brew day (assuming fly sparge takes ~60 minutes extra vs batch).

"again, for the "reading comprehension challenged" I batch sparge and don't vorlauf... My runoff is perfectly clear, for whatever that is worth" -

It's not worth much since you had to be so insulting about it. I think most readers understood perfectly clear; probably clearer than your runoff since you don't recirc or vorlauf

I was replying to a previous insulting comment. It's why those cryptic symbols called quotation marks were used. And since you "clearly" haven't read the thread, the reason I get away with clear runoff without vorlaufing is because I line my mash tun with a grain bag. I could probably stir during sparging and still get clear runoff. Hmmm, I wonder how that might affect efficiency.

"Used by virtually every commercial brewery in existence - well sure, but how does that relate to this conversation?" - It's perfectly relevant since the efficiency increase in fly sparging has been pointed out time and time again. Like you said, "I guess if you really are producing a high volume then those few points of efficiency would certainly make a difference."

The reason it's not relevant is because most of us aren't producing beer at levels that it makes much difference at all. For me, if my efficiency is better than 70% then it's good enough. Would I start brewing 2 bbls/month with my equipment? Of course not, but that's not my goal.

 

[LLBrewer]

A little extra time, effort, and investment means treating myself and my friends to a truly unique, high quality product and I benefit from the joy of perfecting a craft rather than rushing through it.

Here's my goal: make beer that is every bit as good as yours in every way (taste appearance aroma) in less time with less equipment and easier process. The tradeoff, I guess, is about $2 per batch.

 

[hunter_le five]

Wow. I always thought the actual fermentation was the most critical aspect of making good beer, but judging by the tone of this thread, clearly it's the sparge.

 

[LLBrewer]

Yes, it does. It has to do with volume.

Exactly! And volume has NOTHING whatsoever to do with how you're sparging. I get your point I'm not trying to be pedantic, but the difference in time would be dependent on your batch size and the BTUs of your burner (as well as elevation I suppose). And when batch sparging I don't see why you couldn't fire up the burner as soon as the first runnings are collected to further minimize the delta.

 

[boganll]

Look man, you posted a thread prompting a discussion about the differences between batch sparging and fly sparging and made it clear you prefer the former, but for every person that has challenged your arguments you've responded with insolence.

I've read enough of this thread to know you came from another one where you were no longer welcome, and I read enough of that one as well to know you've got no interest in using the information provided by other HBTers in either thread to improve your process so I'm wondering if you're just here to argue or if it's just because you like listening to yourself talk.

 

[LandoLincoln]

Here's my goal: make beer that is every bit as good as yours in every way (taste appearance aroma) in less time with less equipment and easier process. The tradeoff, I guess, is about $2 per batch.

Well, sheeut, if that's your goal then just go grab a sixer off the shelf. Saves a TON of time, money and equipment and the beer always comes out perfect.

 

[LLBrewer]

Well, sheeut, if that's your goal then just go grab a sixer off the shelf. Saves a TON of time, money and equipment and the beer always comes out perfect.

Maybe saves time not so sure about the money though. If I were making bud light I'd agree with you 100%.

 

[LLBrewer]

Look man, you posted a thread prompting a discussion about the differences between batch sparging and fly sparging and made it clear you prefer the former, but for every person that has challenged your arguments you've responded with insolence.

I've read enough of this thread to know you came from another one where you were no longer welcome, and I read enough of that one as well to know you've got no interest in using the information provided by other HBTers in either thread to improve your process so I'm wondering if you're just here to argue or if it's just because you like listening to yourself talk.

I'm only being intentionally rude to those that are rude. The goal of this thread was to discuss. That doesn't imply that nobody can disagree. In fact it's usually more informative if there's some debate. No one is forcing you to participate anyway.

 

[Homercidal]

A "well performed" fly sparge will be substantially more efficient. Commercial breweries I've spoken to are achieving 92 to 95% efficiency and they're not batch sparging.

FWHopping has been in use for centuries. It's been tested by time and in modern labs where it has been shown that the time the hops spend steeping in the wort during runoff exposes them to a higher pH, increasing utilization which results in higher bitterness levels. Because the hops are steeped before boiling, many of the volatile aromas and flavors you'd typically lose in the boil are "locked" in (this is also true for mash hopping) It also helps keep foaming down as the boil starts, reducing the chance of boiling over. It may be debatable and debated, but the technique has been in use this long for a reason. I can suggest some books if you are interested in learning the undebatable facts about FWH and the chemistry behind it.

Clarity is overrated, but I personally prefer my beer to look as nice as it tastes. That said, a vorlauf is among the many things I do to achieve this (whirlpool, finings, cold crashing) The more solids I can remove at each step of the process, the more effective the next method will be.

For a 5g batch, batch sparging makes sense in regards to time. For anything larger where you wouldn't or couldn't lift/pour that volume of fluid you'd need valves. If you're going to go to that length you might as well fly sparge for many reasons, and you won't be losing time since you can heat the wort during the runoff. As it's been pointed out in previous posts, the wort in the kettle will be boiling before sparging is even complete.

I don't worry about time, however. I don't brew unless I've got an entire day to devote to it. It doesn't make sense to me to quicken and cheapen the process as much as possible. That's what AB has been doing to us for decades. A little extra time, effort, and investment means treating myself and my friends to a truly unique, high quality product and I benefit from the joy of perfecting a craft rather than rushing through it.

Again, comparing commercial breweries is not relevant to the average homebrewer. They fly sparge because they brew such large volumes that batch sparging is not time or effort efficient. This is not the case with most homebrewers.

Again, my point about choosing the sparge method to FIT YOUR EQUIPMENT still stands. Commercial breweries utilize equipment much larger than the average homebrewer. The are pretty much forced to do a fly sparge. They have tuned their processes to utilize as much from the grain as possible because a 5% gain in efficiency is a huge amount of money.

Now if you brew more than, say, 10 gallons, I'd argue you weren't the average homebrewer. More power to you, but the stats force you out of that category.

FWH hasn't been much interest for me, but I'm always ready to read some books on brewing. I'd be curious to see the physics behind FWH explained. I'd also like to see more experiments and tastings related to it. I'd love to sit in on a blind tasting, ala Brulosopher's xBEERiments, but so far the opportunity hasn't arisen.

As far as clarity, perhaps a bit of clarity is in order. What I mean to say is that clarity pre-boil doesn't necessarily equate to clearer beer. I haven't seen any evidence that removing particulates ahead of the boil means clearer beer. From my experience there are other factors, such as yeast selection, temperature, water chemistry, etc. give a higher clarity. Turbidity in preboil wort contains very large particulate. Those are the things that are going to settle very quickly in the fermentor. The wort itself contains proteins, especially when you add hops and other things into the boil. Those proteins are unseen in clear wort, but in the boil are coagulated into larger groups, which settle out as hot break. That, and yeast, are the main contributors to cloudy beer, not the very large particulates that make wort cloudy from the mash. Those larger particles may actually aid the smaller particles in settling to the bottom of the fermentor.

As anecdotal evidence I could point to the many brewers who don't vorlauf at all and who make perfectly clear beer.

I know it seems that clear wort makes clear beer, and as I have said, I still usually do a vorlauf, but test results haven't show it's not nearly as effective as some other things that people could do, and side-by-side tests actually show it's not effective at preventing cloudy beer any better than a good vorlauf. When my recirculating system is finally working, I may fly sparge and end up with perfectly clear wort going into the BK, but I don't expect it to translate into clearer beer.

Your value of time may differ from mine. I am not likely to have a full day to spend brewing, nor do I care to spend a full day brewing. If I can do things that make my brewing fit within my allotted time, I'm glad to not have the stress of brewday extending into whatever else may be going on. I spent years obsessing about homebrewing; reading about it, building things, brewing, doing all aspects of it. But I don't aspire to be a professional brewer. In the end I realized it's a hobby. That makes me beer. It's not worth it for me to focus so much time and energy away from home and family and friends.

So if I can mash for 30 minutes instead of an hour and not notice a difference, I may do that. If I can clean during the mash and boil, I do that. Sometimes I do a no chill (although in my experience I'd rather not) so I can attend a family thing, I do that. Since I've gone to an electric system heating the wort in the BK at first runnings isn't always an option. I have to cover the element and then some, before I can safely start heating. The convenience of electric brewing is worth the very small additional time it takes to heat my wort to boiling. It will be even better when I have a timer built into my system so I can have strike water already hot when I want to brew after work.

Those things that I choose to do to save time are generally the least likely to cause a difference in the final beer. And I still experiment with things to get the best beer possible. I don't delude myself by pretending that I am operating a commercial brewery. There is a difference between brewing at the homebrew scale and operating a financially viable brewery with investors to please.

You can call me lazy and I won't argue. You could say my standard are not up to your standards, and you'd likely be correct. Everyone has their own expectations from this hobby. Bottom line, is that I don't believe Fly Sparging makes a better beer than Batch Sparging. You make points that you feel make it better for you, but some of those are debatable, and many aren't necessarily advantages for others.

 

[peterj]

FWHopping has been in use for centuries. ... Because the hops are steeped before boiling, many of the volatile aromas and flavors you'd typically lose in the boil are "locked" in (this is also true for mash hopping)

Sorry this is a little off topic, I've been reading this thread (and the last one that spawned this one) mostly for entertainment. But this is one my pet peeves when people say FWH contribute flavor and aroma. They don't contribute any more flavor and aroma than a traditional bittering addition (which is very little). From my understanding this misconception came from a misinterpretation of a German paper from the 90's that reintroduced FWH into modern brewing. However, if you have a source or evidence for this "locking in" of flavor and aroma I would like to read about it because this is a topic I'm interested in.

Exactly! And volume has NOTHING whatsoever to do with how you're sparging. I get your point I'm not trying to be pedantic, but the difference in time would be dependent on your batch size and the BTUs of your burner (as well as elevation I suppose). And when batch sparging I don't see why you couldn't fire up the burner as soon as the first runnings are collected to further minimize the delta.

Just to add something on topic, I don't think you're understanding the point that Yooper and others are making about heating the runnings. If you're constantly heating the runnings as you're fly sparging, you can have you're full preboil volume boiling as you finish your sparge. Whereas, even when using the same burner, with batch sparging you would have to wait for the full volume to come to a boil after you add your second runnings.

So the whole process from when you open the drain the first time to when you achieve a boil with your full volume in fly sparging is going to be about 45-60 minutes (or however long you fly sparge for). Whereas the entire time from when you open the drain the first time to when you achieve a boil with your full volume in batch sparging will probably be somewhere around 30 minutes. So you're not saving 60 minutes by batch sparging, you're probably only saving about 15-30 minutes. And this is assuming you're using the same burner with both methods.

And full disclosure, I have only ever batch sparged and done BIAB.

EDIT: Forgot to make it clear that I was saying you're right that there probably is a time savings on batch sparging over fly sparging, but it's not necessarily as drastic as 60 minutes.

 

[LLBrewer]

Just to add something on topic, I don't think you're understanding the point that Yooper and others are making about heating the runnings. If you're constantly heating the runnings as you're fly sparging, you can have you're full preboil volume boiling as you finish your sparge. Whereas, even when using the same burner, with batch sparging you would have to wait for the full volume to come to a boil after you add your second runnings.

So the whole process from when you open the drain the first time to when you achieve a boil with your full volume in fly sparging is going to be about 45-60 minutes (or however long you fly sparge for). Whereas the entire time from when you open the drain the first time to when you achieve a boil with your full volume in batch sparging will probably be somewhere around 30 minutes. So you're not saving 60 minutes by batch sparging, you're probably only saving about 15-30 minutes. And this is assuming you're using the same burner with both methods.

You're right. The actual time savings will depend on how quickly you can get to boil temps. If the time it takes to get there is equal to the time it takes to fly sparge then the time savings is zero if when doing FS your batch is boiling as soon as the sparge step is complete.

 

[peterj]

You're right. The actual time savings will depend on how quickly you can get to boil temps. If the time it takes to get there is equal to the time it takes to fly sparge then the time savings is zero if when doing FS your batch is boiling as soon as the sparge step is complete.

Right, and like I said I've never done fly sparging so I'm just taking other peoples word for it that you can get your batch boiling by the time you finish sparging.

 

[gratefulfloyd]

I batch sparge and constantly hit 80% efficiency with very little effort having to be put in.

 

[JustLooking]

Let's make AG simple:
< 5 gallons BIAB
5-10 gallons Batch Sparge
> 10 gallons Fly Sparge

 

[peterj]

Let's make AG simple:
< 5 gallons BIAB
5-10 gallons Batch Sparge
> 10 gallons Fly Sparge

Ha, that's exactly what I do. Though I've never gone up to the 10 gallon fly sparge (and probably never will).