Maintain Sparge Water Temp??

[dmcmillen]

I'm going to post this question again since I didn't get a response.

I have a 2 pump single tier Brutus system with 3 keggles. I am brewing 10 gal batches so I'm typically 12+ gals preboil. That means my fly sparge takes some time, so the water temperature will typically drop from 168-170 at the beginning to 150-155 at the end. Should I maintain temp throughout the sparge?

Thanks for your thoughts!

 

[Indian_villager]

If you could somehow maintain the temperatures through the sparge it could only help. But I'm wondering to what extent. What is your brewhouse efficiency as of right now?

 

[TheLiquidBakery]

You definitely want to keep your sparge water temp up. You want to keep your mash at about 170 deg during the sparge process. Many people use sparge water that is much hotter than 170 deg to maintain the 170 deg mash. You could try sparging with water at 190 deg which would increase your mash temp and would probably fall to about 170 when you are done given that you have a 20 deg delta. Or you could grab a small 120v immersion heater and wire it to a temp controller. You could use gas to get to your temp but then drop the heater in to maintain it.

 

[dmcmillen]

I have burners for the mash and HLT, but I don't want to apply heat to the mash without recirculating and I can't do that because the pump is in use pumping wort from the mash keggle to the boil kettle. I can however apply heat to the HLT to maintain 170 sparge water or whatever temp will keep the mash at 170. This is one of the things I 'm looking at because my extract efficiency has only been 66%.

 

[RM-MN]

Since you say you are fly sparging you need to bring your grain bed to the 170 degree mark and hold it there for 10 minutes to stop conversion. From that point on, the hot water will dissolve the sugars and the difference in solubility of the sugar between 170 and 150 is minimal. Your lower efficiency is mostly from the crush, some of which can be worked around by mashing longer. Instead of a 60 minute mash, consider 75 to 90 minute mashes or better yet, get a better crush so it will convert in the 60 minutes. You also could look at the pH of the mash as that will affect the conversion.

 

[IslandLizard]

Agree to keep the temp up at 170 if you can.
Low efficiency during fly sparging points more to channeling, and/or pumping too fast, not as much the sparge temps.

 

[dmcmillen]

I do a 170 mash out although for only 5 minutes (while recirculating), so when I start the sparge the mash bed is at 170. While I'm mashing out I heat the sparge water to 170. When the mash out is done and the sparge water is at 170, I turn the heat off of the HLT and start a slow sparge with both pumps choked way back. Usually takes a good 45 mins or more to get to volume. It's during that time that the sparge water temp drops. The mash tends to stay hotter because I have the mash tun insulated.

I stir the mash every 10 mins during the mash to eliminate channeling, and I will start stirring during the sparge as well which I have not been doing. Thanks for the tip IslandLizard.

RM-MN - Interesting that you mention my crush, because that is the other thing I am taking a close look at. I use a MaltMill and while the crush looks fine, I thought I'd check the gap. Mine is adjustable although I have never adjusted it since I got it a couple of years ago. The MaltMill has two 10" rollers and had 3 different gaps at the middle and 2 ends, so I thought something was wrong. I contacted Jack Schmidling whose been selling these things for years. He said there will be 3 different gaps because it works like a professional brewery setup with 3 successive sets of 2 rollers starting at .050, then .030, and a final crush at .012. The Maltmill channels grain through a 1.5" x 3/4" slot and the grain is funneled to both ends and the center. The factory setting is supposed to be .045. Long story short, Jack was very difficult to work with and kept insisting that the numbers didn't matter that my efficiency problem was NOT the Maltmill. I believe it was set at .060, .048 and .043. I currently have it set at .045, .037, .038 but have yet to do crush since I have reset.