Sparging

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Lostkegger

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So I am the in for a penny in for a pound kind of guy. And since I successfully made my first extract Hefeweizen, and currently enjoying, I invested in all wheat equipment. I.e got mad at prices and made it myself. I was curious about sparging. There are many post on this but to be honest my research has left me confused. I am going to make a Pumpkin Ale for holiday season, and wanted some more on how do on batch sparging.

My understanding is you heat water, roughly to ten to fifteen degrees above mash temp. Then you pour in water and let it sit for a bit. Recipe says 90 mins. Simple enough.

My confusion is with this strike water. I heat that up and pour it into the mash then drain? Or do I drain then pour what I drained back into the mash tun and then add strike water?

Videos didn’t help. Lady at brew store says she lets it sit 90 and then strikes then pours and boils. So many different opinions it seems.

Some forum post state what brew store lady said. Others disagree with that. While there are more than one way to skin a cat, it doesn’t makes it any less confusing for new guy. Any guidance on what proper procedure is would be great. Or a good beginner method.

Thanks in advanced; this forum has been super helpful.
 
Strike water is the initial water added to the mash. It's about 10F higher than desired mash temp accounting for the drop in temp when added to the milled grains. For example, want to mash at 150F, then the strike water, rule of thumb, is 160F.
 
Oh well that’s is easy enough to understand. So what this drain and put back in mash thing? Or am I just misunderstanding the process?
 
No, draining until lautering. Depending on your setup, will either transfer the strike water to the mash tun or the strike water is already in the mash tun. Gently stir in the mill grains. Why? Break up dough balls. Cover and hold the mash temp consistent for the desired mash time. At the end of the mash raise the temp to 168 - 170F and lauter, slowing into the brew kettle to collect the desired amount of preboil liquid.
 
Sweet. Your awesome I get it now any extra water is to raise temp. I am using one cooler and gonna drain into to a 10 gallon bucket, for five gallons for beer. Then boil and add hops and what not. Then ferment for a couple weeks and let site for a couple more in a secondary prior to kegging. Should be done with my current beer by then.
 
sugar is sticky stuff. you're trying to get as much off the malt as possible. i fly sparge, very slowly, if you're batch sparginig, i'll confuse you more with this...just for fun! ;)

@doug293cz i can't seem to find your multi batch sparge chart anywhere with search? :mug:
 
Sparging is simply rinsing the spent grain. When you drain the wort from the grain in the mash tun, some of the sugary wort sticks to the grain grits, and you don't get all of the sugar available with a simple wort run-off. You can recover some of the sugar adsorbed by the grain by using less water for mashing, and using the withheld water to rinse the grain. You rinse the grain with fresh water, not drained wort, for the same reason you don't rinse dishes after washing by putting them back in the soapy water.

The easiest way to brew is just use all of the water you need to reach your pre-boil volume for mashing. This is known as full volume, or no-sparge mashing. The volume of water you need to mash with (your strike volume) is equal to your desired pre-boil volume plus the volume you expect the grain to absorb. The typical apparent grain absorption rate for a traditional MLT is about 0.12 gal/lb of grain. That means if you mash 10 lbs of grain you can expect to collect 1.2 gal less wort than your strike water volume. So, if you want 6.5 gal of wort pre-boil, you would mash your 10 lb of grain with 7.7 gal of strike water.

Now it turns out that with 10 lb of grain and 7.7 gal of strike water, you will actually create 8.28 gal of wort in the mash. The extra 0.58 gal of wort volume is due to the volume of sugar (and other components) dissolved in the wort. When you drain the mash, you will collect 6.5 gal of wort, which means the grain is still holding 1.78 gal of wort. The mash created 7.68 lb of extract (sugar and other dissolved material), the run-off in your BK contains 6.03 lb of that extract, and 1.65 lb of your extract is still in the spent grains. Your mash efficiency (assuming you got 100% conversion) is then 6.03 / 7.68 = 78.5%

Now, let's see what happens if we batch sparge instead of doing a full volume mash. In this case we want to collect 3.25 gal of wort from the initial mash run-off, and 3.25 gal of wort from the sparge run-off. In this case our strike volume is 3.25 + 1.2 = 4.45 gal. We will still create 7.68 lb of extract in the mash, and our initial run-off of 3.25 gal will contain 4.96 lb and the grain will retain 2.72 lb.

We now add 3.25 gal of fresh water to the spent grains, and mix thoroughly, and drain 3.25 gal of sparged wort. The sparged wort will contain 1.76 lb of the 2.72 lb of extract left in the grain after our initial run-off. There will only be 0.96 lb of extract left in the grain after draining the sparged wort. This compares to 1.65 lb of extract left in the grain from the no-sparge process. The total extract collected in the two run-offs is 4.96 + 1.76 = 6.72 lb vs. the 6.03 lb in the no-sparge case. Our mash efficiency with sparging is 6.72 / 7.68 = 87.5% vs. 78.5% for the no-sparge case.

So, using the same amount of brewing water, and getting the same pre-boil volume, we have increased our mash efficiency by 9 percentage points by doing a single batch sparge step.

Here is the basic mash and sparge process for batch sparging.
  1. Heat strike water to mash-in temperature (slightly hotter than desired mash temp) and mix in the crushed grain. Strike water volume is 1/2 pre-boil volume + expected grain absorption volume
  2. Hold mash at target temperature for desired mash time (usually about an hour.)
  3. Stir mash well, and drain all the wort into your boil kettle (drain speed doesn't matter.)
  4. Add sparge water to spent grain in mash tun, and stir aggressively for about 5 minutes. Sparge water volume is 1/2 pre-boil volume.
  5. Drain all sparged wort into the BK with the initial wort.
  6. Mix well (again about 5 minutes) and take your pre-boil volume and SG measurements.
  7. Boil wort.
Note that it is not actually necessary to heat the sparge water, although doing so will shorten the time it takes to get your wort to boiling. So, if you don't have a second kettle to heat sparge water, don't worry about it.

You can also do multiple batch sparges by repeating steps 4 and 5 above. For two batch sparges, the water volume calculations above use 1/3 instead of 1/2, and for three batch sparges use 1/4. Each additional sparge step will increase you lauter (and thus mash efficiency) somewhat, but you get less benefit from each additional step as you do more steps (diminishing returns.)

Brew on :mug:
 
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@doug293cz

Your very handy graph is here to help as well.

This shows you what should be the differences between full volume (no sparge) processes and sparge processes. Fly sparge is not included because it is difficult to model for specific cases, and impossible to model for the general case. However, some data shows that a good fly sparge will have about a 2 - 3 percentage point increase in lauter efficiency over a triple batch sparge @ 0.12 gal/lb absorption rate.

Mash efficiency is equal to conversion efficiency times lauter efficiency (what's in the chart.) If going to full volume drops your mash efficiency by more than 17 - 18 percentage points when going from fly sparge to no sparge, then you are likely getting lower conversion efficiency - which shouldn't be a function of sparge process.

If you are comparing brewhouse efficiencies, then you need to account for the probability that the post-boil loss percentages are different (larger) for small systems vs. large systems.

View attachment 740973

Brew on :mug:

Great explanation.
 
Sparging is simply rinsing the spent grain. When you drain the wort from the grain in the mash tun, some of the sugary wort sticks to the grain grits, and you don't get all of the sugar available with a simple wort run-off. You can recover some of the sugar adsorbed by the grain by using less water for mashing, and using the withheld water to rinse the grain. You rinse the grain with fresh water, not drained wort, for the same reason you don't rinse dishes after washing by putting them back in the soapy water.

The easiest way to brew is just use all of the water you need to reach your pre-boil volume for mashing. This is known as full volume, or no-sparge mashing. The volume of water you need to mash with (your strike volume) is equal to your desired pre-boil volume plus the volume you expect the grain to absorb. The typical apparent grain absorption rate for a traditional MLT is about 0.12 gal/lb of grain. That means if you mash 10 lbs of grain you can expect to collect 1.2 gal less wort than your strike water volume. So, if you want 6.5 gal of wort pre-boil, you would mash your 10 lb of grain with 7.7 gal of strike water.

Now it turns out that with 10 lb of grain and 7.7 gal of strike water, you will actually create 8.28 gal of wort in the mash. The extra 0.58 gal of wort volume is due to the volume of sugar (and other components) dissolved in the wort. When you drain the mash, you will collect 6.5 gal of wort, which means the grain is still holding 1.78 gal of wort. The mash created 7.68 lb of extract (sugar and other dissolved material), the run-off in your BK contains 6.03 lb of that extract, and 1.65 lb of your extract is still in the spent grains. Your mash efficiency (assuming you got 100% conversion) is then 6.03 / 7.68 = 78.5%

Now, let's see what happens if we batch sparge instead of doing a full volume mash. In this case we want to collect 3.25 gal of wort from the initial mash run-off, and 3.25 gal of wort from the sparge run-off. In this case our strike volume is 3.25 + 1.2 = 4.45 gal. We will still create 7.68 lb of extract in the mash, and our initial run-off of 3.25 gal will contain 4.96 lb and the grain will retain 2.72 lb.

We now add 3.25 gal of fresh water to the spent grains, and mix thoroughly, and drain 3.25 gal of sparged wort. The sparged wort will contain 1.76 lb of the 2.72 lb of extract left in the grain after our initial run-off. There will only be 0.96 lb of extract left in the grain after draining the sparged wort. This compares to 1.65 lb of extract left in the grain from the no-sparge process. The total extract collected in the two run-offs is 4.96 + 1.76 = 6.72 lb vs. the 6.03 lb in the no-sparge case. Our mash efficiency with sparging is 6.72 / 7.68 = 87.5% vs. 78.5% for the no-sparge case.

So, using the same amount of brewing water, and getting the same pre-boil volume, we have increased our mash efficiency by 9 percentage points by doing a single batch sparge step.

Here is the basic mash and sparge process for batch sparging.
  1. Heat strike water to mash-in temperature (slightly hotter than desired mash temp) and mix in the crushed grain. Strike water volume is 1/2 pre-boil volume + expected grain absorption volume
  2. Hold mash at target temperature for desired mash time (usually about an hour.)
  3. Stir mash well, and drain all the wort into your boil kettle (drain speed doesn't matter.)
  4. Add sparge water to spent grain in mash tun, and stir aggressively for about 5 minutes. Sparge water volume is 1/2 pre-boil volume.
  5. Drain all sparged wort into the BK with the initial wort.
  6. Mix well (again about 5 minutes) and take your pre-boil volume and SG measurements.
  7. Boil wort.
Note that it is not actually necessary to heat the sparge water, although doing so will shorten the time it takes to get your wort to boiling. So, if you don't have a second kettle to heat sparge water, don't worry about it.

You can also do multiple batch sparges by repeating steps 4 and 5 above. For two batch sparges, the water volume calculations above use 1/3 instead of 1/2, and for three batch sparges use 1/4. Each additional sparge step will increase you lauter (and thus mash efficiency) somewhat, but you get less benefit from each additional step as you do more steps (diminishing returns.)

Brew on :mug:

This is awesome thank you.
 
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