Sparge until reaches Gravity

[Pdaigle]

Sorry I have a lot of queston lately and new to this and I want to grasp as much as I can.

lot of time I read this or watching videos "Sparge until wort reaches a gravity of 1.010 "

If I added the right amount of water to sparge I should get close to my expected Gravity right? another is how to take a gravity while the wort is still hot. You stop sparging and take a gravity with some a tool to calibrate the hydrometer? If you don't reach to continue sparging.

what if you are over your expected Gravity, does it mean you don't have enought Sparge water?

Thx for the help, you ROCK! :rockin:

 

[Qhrumphf]

It's not really explained well. That's the gravity of the runnings, not the full wort in the kettle. For many beers (and most homebrew efficiencies) you won't get close to 1.010. And there's no need to if you've already got the gravity/volume in the kettle that you need.

What that is, especially when fly sparging, is to prevent over-sparging. Once the runnings gravity drops below 1.010 (or more specifically above a pH of 6), you're into that area where you aren't pulling much sugar out of the grain, and are pulling out things like tannins instead. At that point, it's better to stop sparging, and just add water instead if you're under volume.

If you want to take every beer down to 1.010 last runnings, you're going to be doing some very long boils when it comes to very big beers.

And in this instance, it's helpful to have a refractometer so that you can literally only grab a few drops, chill them down in seconds, and take a quick reading. It's a lot more complicated with a hydrometer, especially because at sparge temps even hydrometer temp corrections aren't particularly accurate, and chilling a hydrometer sample from 168F to 60-68F is a PITA and takes some time.

 

[porterpounder]

In addition to a refractometer for quicker readings of sparge run-off, acidifiying your sparge water to 6.0 or slightly below will reduce the chance of leeching tannins from the mash when you get down toward the end of the sparge.

 

[jrcrilly]

Yes. The problem with using a hydrometer during the sparge is that it can tell you what you should have done or should not have done an hour ago. A refractometer can tell you what you should do or not do now, while the information is useful.

 

[doug293cz]

Sorry I have a lot of queston lately and new to this and I want to grasp as much as I can.

lot of time I read this or watching videos "Sparge until wort reaches a gravity of 1.010 "

You really need to monitor three things when fly sparging:

1. Total run off volume. You don't want to end up with a large excess of pre-boil volume. Many people will stop sparging as soon as they reach their pre-boil volume target, even if current run off gravity is above 1.010.
2. Current run off SG. If the instantaneous run off gravity gets below about 1.010, the pH buffering capacity of the mash becomes very low, and the risk of extracting tannins increases. Tannin extraction can be prevented by adequately acidifying the sparge water, so that the pH in the MLT never goes above about 6.0. Finally, when the instantaneous run off SG gets low, you are in the realm of diminishing returns as far as sugar recovery is concerned.
3. Cumulative SG in the BK. You are trying to hit a target pre-boil volume and SG. If your BK SG is low (after vigorous mixing), you might want to try collecting more wort, and increasing your boil time to have a better chance at hitting your post-boil SG target.

If I added the right amount of water to sparge I should get close to my expected Gravity right? another is how to take a gravity while the wort is still hot. You stop sparging and take a gravity with some a tool to calibrate the hydrometer? If you don't reach to continue sparging.

When fly sparging, the "right amount of sparge water" depends on your equipment and efficiency. If your efficiency is lower than expected, your pre-boil SG will be low even if you think you used enough sparge water. If your efficiency is higher than expected, your pre-boil SG will be higher than expected. You need to learn what efficiency to expect with your system and your process. Then tell your brewing software about it so it can calculate based on your system actuals, not some default values.

If you want to monitor SG while sparging, you really should have a refractometer. It uses a few drop sample size, that quickly cools on the instrument to where an accurate reading can be made. Trying to monitor a sparge with a hydrometer will drive you nuts quickly.

what if you are over your expected Gravity, does it mean you don't have enought Sparge water?

Thx for the help, you ROCK! :rockin:

That depends on whether you have reached your target pre-boil volume. If the volume is below target and the SG is high, then you haven''t sparged enough. If you are at, or above, your target pre-boil volume, then your efficiency is higher than you targeted, and you might want to use lower grain amounts in future brews.

Brew on

 

[philipCT]

Coming back to the topic of the fly sparge, I wanted to put this out there:

I recently watched a vid of John Kimmich, from the Alchemist, talk about how he brews Heady Topper. One thing he said that I thought that was remarkable, was that he "never sparges below 5-6 Plato". In SG this is 1.020-1.024.

This is pretty different from the minimum of 1.010 that I've always used as a guideline.

Thoughts?

 

[Pdaigle]

Coming back to the topic of the fly sparge, I wanted to put this out there:

I recently watched a vid of John Kimmich, from the Alchemist, talk about how he brews Heady Topper. One thing he said that I thought that was remarkable, was that he "never sparges below 5-6 Plato". In SG this is 1.020-1.024.

This is pretty different from the minimum of 1.010 that I've always used as a guideline.

Thoughts?

what beer would be above 1.020-1.024?

 

[Qhrumphf]

Coming back to the topic of the fly sparge, I wanted to put this out there:

I recently watched a vid of John Kimmich, from the Alchemist, talk about how he brews Heady Topper. One thing he said that I thought that was remarkable, was that he "never sparges below 5-6 Plato". In SG this is 1.020-1.024.

This is pretty different from the minimum of 1.010 that I've always used as a guideline.

Thoughts?

It's going to be the best in terms of flavor, as you're minimizing the undesirables that come from the tail ends of the sparge alongside sugars (polyphenols, tannins, etc). However, as long as you stay above that 2.5-3 Plato range, I don't know if it's a significant enough difference to notice.

It's going to be the worse in terms of cost. In that you are necessitating a reduced efficiency, and increasing the cost per batch per gravity. But again, with average strength beers that's not a ridiculously high margin. And with my high gravity beers, I may not even hit 5-6°P with my last runnings, it maybe higher than that. I don't think the Alchemist brews any session beers (if they do I'm not aware of them but I don't follow them so who knows), so they may just never run into it.

So I'm guessing somewhere along someone did a cost benefit analysis and determined that a negligible increase in flavor profile outweighed a slightly more negligible increase in batch cost. In my personal homebrewing experience, it works the other way around. Most of my beers get sparged to 2-2.5°P (I do mostly session beers), with nary an ill effect because I'm fastidious about pH and temps.