Quick fly sparging question

[withanx]

I've been doing mostly BIAB and batch sparging, but I've been thinking about getting started in fly sparging. I have a 3 vessel gravity system available to do it.

When I load my beer into beersmith and select a fly sparging method on beers with larger grain bills (16lb for 5 gal batch), it tells me to "fly sparge with 1.06 gallons of water"

How do I extract 8 galons of water from the mash ton with 1 gallon of sparge water?

From what I've heard, you just continue running water through until you hit your boil volume. Does that mean I'd actually need 8 gallons in the HLT making my total water need 16+ gallons? I brew with jugs of distilled water, so that could get really expensive (I don't have good brewing water on tap at my house, it's high in salinity).

 

[jrcrilly]

You'll be running wort out of the MLT while the sparge water is going into it. The program is telling you that you'll need to add a gallon of water in the sparge to make up the difference between the strike water that didn't get absorbed and the required boil volume. You will run the sparge until you have the required boil volume - it is just predicting that this will happen after you have sparged with one gallon. Normally you'd be trying to match the flows into and out of the MLT but the program is presuming that your increased strike water due to the high grain bill means that less water will need to be added.

 

[Gavin C]

Doesn't matter what software is saying. Your the brewer not it.

Mash, mashout, vorlauf and flysparge. Keep sparging until you hit your desired preboil volume keeping 1-2 inches of water above the grain bed at all times

Total water needed will be roughly

preboil volume +mash-out water used + strike water

Edit: Listen to @jrcrilly

 

[brick_haus]

Some other setting must me off in Beersmith. Double check your equipment profile and mash type.

Beersmith should tell you "water available in mash". Stop your fly sparge when you are that number shy of your desired boil volume. For instance, if your water available from mash is 3 gallons and your desired boil volume is 8 gallons, then stop sparging when you have 5 in the kettle and the water available will top it off (hopefully) If you come up short, just top off with extra water from the HLT.

 

[withanx]

Thanks for the advice. So it does take a lot more water to fly sparge than to batch sparge, correct?

I.E:

batch sparge: 4 gal in, drain, add 4 more gallons, drain = 7 gallons in the kettle
Fly sparge: 4 gal in, if I want 7 gallons in the kettle I need 7 gallons in the HLT for sparging, correct? The mash ton should have the same amount of water in it when I have my boil volume as it did when I mashed in, right? So you never drain the mash ton, and you waste 4 gallons?

 

[brewing_clown]

Back to your original question about large grain bills, I would definitely look at the water/grain ratio for mashing. I generally have to reduce to below 1.5 qts/lb in order to have what I think is a decent sparge volume.

The risk when you keep it at, say, 1.75 to 2 qts/lb is that most of the volume is in the mash, you have very little to sparge with, and efficiency becomes quite poor.

I always drain the tun into the kettle. I think batch sparge and fly sparge use the same amount of water. It's really a function of how much wort you want in the kettle at the beginning of the boil. Beersmith also takes account of the length of the boil to tell you how much water to sparge with - longer boil, more water.

Hope this makes sense.

 

[Gavin C]

Thanks for the advice. So it does take a lot more water to fly sparge than to batch sparge, correct?

I.E:

batch sparge: 4 gal in, drain, add 4 more gallons, drain = 7 gallons in the kettle
Fly sparge: 4 gal in, if I want 7 gallons in the kettle I need 7 gallons in the HLT for sparging, correct? The mash ton should have the same amount of water in it when I have my boil volume as it did when I mashed in, right? So you never drain the mash ton, and you waste 4 gallons?

It takes more because when your finished a fly sparge the mash tun is still full of grain and water. Kettle of wort to the desired preboil volume and a full mash-tun of very low gravity wort/sparge-water

With batch sparging there is only wet grain in the mash-tun at the end. Your boil kettle is at the same preboil volume as with a flysparge. Less water needed.

 

[withanx]

It takes more because when your finished a fly sparge the mash tun is still full of grain and water.

Thank you. I may have poorly worded my question, but this was the answer I was looking for.

 

[jddevinn]

Thanks for the advice. So it does take a lot more water to fly sparge than to batch sparge, correct?

I.E:

batch sparge: 4 gal in, drain, add 4 more gallons, drain = 7 gallons in the kettle
Fly sparge: 4 gal in, if I want 7 gallons in the kettle I need 7 gallons in the HLT for sparging, correct? The mash ton should have the same amount of water in it when I have my boil volume as it did when I mashed in, right? So you never drain the mash ton, and you waste 4 gallons?

Mash ton should be about out of water/wart when you are finishing the sparge. The last few gallons of wart will be almost water anyway.