How should I sparge most efficiently on my new HERMS setup?

[MaltAndMayhem]

I recently conerted my garage brewery to a 3 vessel HERMS. I've produced three beers on it so far, of which two turned out good but the last turned out quite horrible. Not sure what to pin that on, could be excessive sparging(with too heavy flow), possible infection from fermentation bucket(it does not seem that way tho) or severe overcarbonation(I had it on 1 bar at 20 degrees, due to a regulator fault).

I set up the vessels so that each of the three vessels have their separate pump. Boil kettle and hlt kettle both have Topsflo TD5 pumps, Mash tun also has TD5 pump but with pwm control, meaning I can control the flow of it. Brilliant. I usually recirculate the entire mash, just to keep the temperature in the mash tun up to speed. I see this is not really necessary, as the temperature will stay remarkably stable even with it off. When I finish my mash steps as well as the 77 degree step, I transfer the wort to the Boil kettle. When the mash is dried up, I transfer the sparge water from HLT, through the herms coil(same pipes as the mash tun recirculates through) and back into the mash tun. I have a self made hose manifold that "evenly" distributes water in the kettle. Last beer, the failed one, I went a little hard at it and sparged through in only 5-10 minutes. I usually use 30 minutes and take it slow, but the wife was nagging on me to do something so I had to finish up and go to boil quickly..

How do you sparge on a HERMS? I am a bit unsure on how to do it most efficiently. I am on a Brucontrol system and my plan is to incorporate full automation in the future. I am also not sure if the last beer is ruined by tannines, since the HLT pump is spraying it pretty heavily when sparging. I'm attaching smaller hoses and a ball valve to control the flow one of these days.

 

[day_trippr]

Are you adjusting your brewing water chemistry to assure the mash and run-off pH are appropriate, and making sure you are not over-sparging?
More than anything, too high run-off pH will pull tannins out of the mash, while too low an SG will pull silicates.

Otherwise, there are at least two major methods of sparging to consider and you didn't provide much of a hint which one you are attempting.
The "batch sparge" technique typically calls for completely draining the mash, then thoroughly (even vigorously) mixing in a volume of sparge liquor, draining that off, and perhaps repeating once or even twice more. Otoh, a "fly sparge" will continuously and gently add sparge liquor to the top of the mash vessel while simultaneously draining rich wort from the bottom until the desired pre-boil volume is reached.

Batch-sparging is pretty much fool-proof as all one is doing is diluting the residual sugars trapped in the grains then running off the result. There's no real worries about channeling as the mixing homogenizes what's left. Efficiency is more or less dictated by the number of sparge cycles - with a triple batch sparge approaching if not exceeding a good fly sparge result. Otoh, fly-sparging is an inherently tricky operation because of the potential for channeling - where the added sparge liquor finds a short-cut through the mash bed. And one doesn't really know how well it's working until it's done.

My particular technique is a fly-sparge. However, I first drain the mash tun such there is no wort above the grain bed - for my 10 gallon batches I usually pull almost 2 gallons of rich wort off before starting the sparge. My thinking is there's no reason to dilute the rich initial runnings as long as the mash bed is still highly fluid - ie, hasn't been drained to the point it tightens and is then prone to channeling. After than I start the sparge pump and let the autosparge hold the liquid level 1-1/2" above the top of the grain bed while pulling a quart per minute to the boil kettle.

At the end my typical final runnings stats are below pH 5.5 and on good days just a scoche above SG 1.010...

Cheers!

 

[Bobby_M]

A HERMS system lends itself nicely to a fly sparge. At the end of the mash, you move the flow from the mash pump from the HERMS coil input to the boil kettle. The you move the water pump output from the HLT whirlpool port to the HERMS coil input port. That pushes sparge water through the coil and into the mash. Maintain those two flows at the same pace always keeping 1" of water above the grain at minimum. Start boiling as soon as you have a few gallons collected.

 

[Jag75]

I brew on a stout 3bbl rims set up and @day_trippr is right . Fly sparging can be a booger to nail down. I pretty much do same as Bobby and day trippr . Once the mash is done I pump to the kettle I open the valves all the way to get the bed to compact a bit , then close the valves a bit to slow down the transfer. I run the sparge water through the rims slowly and keep 1 to 2 " above the grain bed as well.