Mash Tun Fly Sparge

[brewinaround]

Built a fly sparging device from PEX 1/2" tubing. Water runs from 5 gallon GOTT cooler and works on gravity and valves. Washed the grain on my second batch pretty well (65% efficient). I'm on my second batch and loving home brewing!!

Thoughts good or bad on this?

 

[Perzellbrewing]

Great job. The only comment I would have is that there might be some channeling which would reduce your efficiency. I will let more experienced brewers weigh in on whether your 65% efficiency is good or not. I know that batch sparging with a cooler usually runs in the high 70's, low 80's.

Cheers!

 

[501irishred]

As long as your keeping 1-2" of water over the top of the grain bed during the sparge, this setup should be plenty to keep it from channeling. To minimize the possibility further however, you can turn it so the holes are pointing up, which will spread the water even further as it runs over the pipe.
Can I assume your not sparging as fast as shown in your test run photo? If so, slow down. I shoot for about a 30 min runoff to collect ~8gal and stay somewhere around 78% with a very similar setup as yours.


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[jcaudill]

As 501irishred stated, you have to keep the level of water above the grain bed or you would certainly risk channeling.

65% is a little low if this is a normal gravity beer (say 13-15 dP). Are you stirring during the mash? If not, stir If you are and you're still only getting 65% then I would say you have a problem during lautering - with the sparge or the runoff.

Or your mill is too coarse - that is always possible as well. I would expect 75% is more in the line of normal. But all this said, for us to be a little inefficient is not a huge problem because a little more grain doesn't cost a ton of money.

 

[brewinaround]

Thanks for the replies. I definitely ran the system slower than this while sparging. This was for demonstration purposes.

I took 45 minutes to sparge. It was basically a slow dribble. Kept about and inch of water on the top of the grain bed.

My efficiency was just based off Beer Smith's calculations for my gravity pre-boil from the wort. 9lbs of grain total (6.66 Maris, 1 lb Vienna, 1/2 pound malted wheat, 3/4 lb crystal 40, 1/4 lb crystal 80) with pre-boil OG of 1.052. Did i do my efficiency numbers right? Something tells me i'm missing something.

Strike water-3.5 gallons @ 165
Sparge 4.3 gallons @ 170

Total collected-6 gallons pre boil.

 

[jcaudill]

Well there is a lot that goes into answering that - but let me ask you this: what efficiency did you tell Beersmith and what was your planned OG?

 

[brewinaround]

I guess i never input that into the recipe. Now that i have Beer Smith in front of me i'm not even sure where to put that in (newbie learning).

 

[jcaudill]

Haha - it's all good.

To get good and consistent results for BeerSmith, you have to give it some critical information. Most important thing is to make sure your equipment profile is correct. If that's not right there are a myriad of issues that could occur including missing your pre and/post boil targets, not getting the amount of cast out wort you expected, so on and so forth.

Brewhouse efficiency is also part of this profile. This efficiency is carried into your recipes. Open a recipe, and right under Batch Size you'll see Tot Efficiency which is the Brewhouse efficiency. This really has to be adjusted depending on your grain bill. If you're doing say a 13 plato beer (this is around 1.052) then maybe you're around 75-80%. But let' say you're doing a 20 or 22 plato beer (1.080-1.088) - efficiency is probably going to drop because that requires more grain and since we don't have rakes to aid in rinsing every last bit of sugar out of the grain during sparge our efficiency drops. So maybe it is around 65 or 70%. You have to figure out what these numbers are in your system and then you can tweak to see if you can improve efficiency such as adjusting the crack of your grain, stirring during the mash, adjusting your grain to water ratio, etc. 75% is usually a good starting point for most normal beers.

Beersmith will only be as good as the info you give it so be very careful - especially when it comes to hops and yeast.

Hope this helps!

 

[brewinaround]

Thanks! Yes, learning quickly that I need to account for my equipment.

 

[ChocolateMaltyBalls]

Is that braid or did you build a manifold for lautering?


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[brewinaround]

Do you mean for the drain? Stainless braid.