Hlt

[kmlavoy]

I know this is a stupid question before I ask it (I suspect just about everything has been tried once by people on this site): Has anyone used a bottling bucket as their HLT for fly sparging? I'm about to brew my first all grain, and it has recently come to my attention that my 5 gallon mash tun will probably not hold enough water/grain to batch sparge. So I'm thinking I'll try and fly sparge, but do not possess a cooler type HLT. So I was thinking I'd use my bottling bucket and sort of wing it and see what happens.

My main concern has to do with the heat. Is there any chance of me melting my bucket or the spigot/o-rings with the 170 degree sparge water? I do have an extra cooler conversion ball valve, so if it's an issue of the spigot melting, I could always rig something up.

Unrelated Promash question: There isn't a spot on the water needed form that speaks to water volume for the mash out. If I'm fly sparging, should I just dispense with the mash out altogether? Or is the quarts per pound section taking into account mash out water, but they just don't spell it out?

 

[gruntingfrog]

I batch sparge in my 5 gallon Gott cooler all the time. It usually takes two batch sparges, but it works beautifully. Just heat another pot of sparge water while the first batch sparge is sitting. No big deal.

 

[Lil' Sparky]

When I first started, that's exactly what I used. You'll lose some heat on the transfer to the bucket, so just make sure it's at 180+ before you put it in the bucket.

 

[malkore]

bah, your 5gal MLT will work fine for batch sparging. if the whole sparge doesn't fit, just do two sparges. stir and recirculate each time.

nothing wrong with your idea to fly sparge either...just didn't want you thinking you were really locked out of the batch sparge.

 

[kmlavoy]

Thanks for all the feedback. Like I said, my main concern was fly sparging with my bucket and having the spigot melt mid sparge.

Although I have to say, I'm a little leery about taking any sort of advice from someone who is heading up "Jenkem Brothers Brewery."