Recirculating before sparge, necessary?

[ThatTWirp]

I'm brewing with all grain recipes and I have always recirculated before beginning the sparge. However, I only do this because that's what everyone says to do.

But apart from getting may sparge arm dirty and making clean-up more difficult, is this really doing anything or is it one of those "we've always done it this way because grandmas pan could only fit part of the ham" kind of thing?

 

[BigFloyd]

I'm not sure that anyone here can give you a truly useful answer without knowing more about your system and the type of sparge you are doing.

 

[ThatTWirp]

15 gal spike brewing kettle boiling 5 gallons of water, mash tun is a 30 gallon cooler (rectangle).

I recirculate the wort for 10 minutes using a chugger pump. Then I sparge the boiled water into the mash tun while draining off the wort.

The question is why recirculate for 10 minutes? It seems I'm tossing the best part of the wort back in for the sake of clearing out a bit of grain cloudiness and/or chaffe (hardly any of that) and in the process creating a clean-up headache with the sparge arm, which otherwise would just be pumping water.

 

[JustLooking]

There may be a terminology problem here. Do you mean recirculate before lautering? That is done to set the grain bed and clarify the wort. With either batch or continuous sparging, you normally wouldn’t start adding sparge water until after you begin (or finish) to lauter, but in either case recirculating first is a form of vorlauf.

 

[JustLooking]

. . . in the process creating a clean-up headache with the sparge arm, which otherwise would just be pumping water.

So, don't recirculate through your sparge arm. Hang the tube into the top of your MLT.

 

[BigFloyd]

So, don't recirculate through your sparge arm. Hang the tube into the top of your MLT.

This and reduce the flow accordingly.

 

[ThatTWirp]

I recirculated with just the hoses without the sparge arm. Still funks up the chugger pump, but that can easily be cleaned by pumping water and sanistar.

IDK, I guess I'll keep doing it for now.

 

[bknifefight]

If I am understanding you correctly, that is called vorlauf, and I do it every time. Ten minutes seems overkill. I will run out about 1/2 gallon before my wort is running clear enough to go in the kettle.

 

[hawktrio]

You are describing the vorlauf step. Read up on this at howtobrew by John Palmer. I use half quart pyrex jug to do about 5 fills carefully pouring back in so as to not disturb the grain bed.

 

[Yooper]

I'm trying to understand what you mean. I'm sorry to be thick, but are you adding something or stirring, like mashing out, before sparging?

Are you batch sparging or continuous (fly) sparging? That makes all the difference.

You never need to recirculate for 10 minutes regardless of your method of sparging, but I happen to recirculate for about that length of time because I use a HERMS and that's how I raise to mash out temperatures so that's why I'm asking questions.

If you are batch sparging, for example, you'd drain out the wort, add the sparge water, stir thoroughly, vorlauf (recirculate) about a quart or two, or until the wort is clearer, and then drain.

If you're continuous sparging with no mash out, you don't need to recirculate/vorlauf at all.

If you're continuous sparging with a mash out and stirring in the mash out water addition, you'd want to recirculate/vorlauf until it clears up a bit again, probably a minute or two.

 

[sky4meplease]

The theory is that allowing grain particles even small ones into your boil can increase tannin extraction so anytime you stir up the grain bed you would run some wort to "set" the bed again (aka vaurlof) and carefully add that runoff back to your mash (so not to disturb the bed) then continue to collect clear wort.

 

[hottpeper13]

I think everyone is missing the point. Why is there wort in the HLT? No system I am aware of puts the wort in the sparge water. The wort is in the tube not the water. How are you messing up a sparge arm that should only have water running thru it?
Am I missing something/ This whole thread seems wonky to me.

 

[Yooper]

I think everyone is missing the point. Why is there wort in the HLT? No system I am aware of puts the wort in the sparge water. The wort is in the tube not the water. How are you messing up a sparge arm that should only have water running thru it?
Am I missing something/ This whole thread seems wonky to me.

No wort in the HLT from what I can read. It seems that the wort is just being recirculated via pump vs by hand. I do that every brewday, so my sparge arm has wort in it, plus I have a HERMS, and recirculate all the time. It doesn't mean wort goes into the HLT at all.

 

[hottpeper13]

So if you are recirculating thru and in the HLT for the mash, how do you heat the sparge water?

 

[AnOldUR]

So if you are recirculating thru and in the HLT for the mash, how do you heat the sparge water?

The liquid around the HERMS coil in the HLT is available for sparging.

 

[Clankenbrew]

Sounds to me like your not using a good enough filter and your not creating a good grain bed. Build a manifold and you won't be sucking grain thru your pump. I bet you've got a bazooka tube on there.

 

[lightjt]

I see your point about getting grain stuck in your sparge arm. I have a QD on my sparge arm and I disconnect it and run the vorlauf wort back into the MT gently and slowly along the side so my grain bed stays in place. When I change my hose back to sparge it cleans the pump head from the wort, which gets it prepped for after the boil when I run it into my CFC and into the fermentor.