Tell me about your fly sparge

[duncan.brown]

I fly sparge the way that @TheMadKing does. I maintain 1" of sparge water above the grain bed until I've reached my boil volume and drain the remaining wort down my floor drain. A lot of the time, I need to stop sparging and top off my boil kettle from my HLT as my efficiency is higher than in my Beersmith equipment profile. I give myself the headroom on days that I want to push my sparge rate a bit faster. I also fly sparge because I enjoy the process.

Two home-brew truisms: (i) I am unable to taste my brew-house efficiency in my beer; and (ii) the difference in grain cost between my highest and lowest efficiency is substantially less than the investment I've made in my brewing gear. So I don't usually worry about efficiency. That said, my mash efficiency is usually > 85% and my brew house efficiency is usually > 75%.

What I can taste is astringency, so I worry much more about that. I monitor my runoff gravity and pH carefully and taste the runoff for any signs of astringency coming from the grain towards the end of sparge. I'm happy to leave some sugars in my mash tun if I can avoid any trace of astringency in my lagers, even before fermentation.

 

[day_trippr]

[...]
What I can taste is astringency, so I worry much more about that. I monitor my runoff gravity and pH carefully and taste the runoff for any signs of astringency coming from the grain towards the end of sparge. I'm happy to leave some sugars in my mash tun if I can avoid any trace of astringency in my lagers, even before fermentation.

Clearly, a wise prioritization - and not just for lagers. I would hope everyone feels the same...

Cheers!

 

[TheMadKing]

Clearly, a wise prioritization - and not just for lagers. I would hope everyone feels the same...

Cheers!

Agreed, and I acidify my sparge water religiously because of this

 

[DarrellQ]

I

have helped a friend brew both on his old Grainfather and his new Foundry. He definitely struggled with efficiency with both system and it was mostly because of channelling, but he also increased his sparge water slightly and thickened his mash as Doug suggested above and it boosted his efficiency a bit

I don't think I have a problem with efficiency, always hit 72-75%. So, I guess the Foundry manual's suggested method of just pouring 1 gallon of 175 degree water over diffusor plate at the top malt pipe is best method for this type of system? The reason I ask is that a time or two, my beer has had somewhat of an astringent taste at first, which mellows out over time. I thought this could be the result of my sparging process highlighted above?

 

[TheMadKing]

I don't think I have a problem with efficiency, always hit 72-75%. So, I guess the Foundry manual's suggested method of just pouring 1 gallon of 175 degree water over diffusor plate at the top malt pipe is best method for this type of system? The reason I ask is that a time or two, my beer has had somewhat of an astringent taste at first, which mellows out over time. I thought this could be the result of my sparging process highlighted above?

Astringency is the result of tannins (polyphenolic compounds) in your beer. There are two main sources of tannins: grain husks and hop leaf matter

Tannin extraction from grain husks is a chemical process requiring both high temperature and high ph. So if you acidify your sparge water you can make sure to prevent that issue. 175F is certainly hot enough if your ph is too high

As far as hops go, try to limit the amount of leafy hop matter in your wort as much as possible by using smaller amounts of higher alpha acid hops

 

[RobP]

Many years ago when I first got into brewing I went straight to all grain. And I only have ever fly sparged. But I'll explain. My favourite beer is a pre prohibition pilsner. I always do 10 gal batches. My grain bill is: 14lb. of 6 row lager malt.. 6lb. of flaked corn and 3 lb Vienna malt. Because of the 6 row I do Decoction Mashing. I dough in at 133 for a 30 min. protein rest. then pull a decoction and raise it to 154 saccrafication 60 min. I then pull another decoction and raise it to 168 mash out. I then start my wort into my BK and fly sparge 170 at the same time. Slowly 45- 60 min and constantly keeping 2" of liquid above the grain bed. I know some of you may think OMG this guy is taking forever...lol But I enjoy my brew day and this pilsner is phenomenal! For hops I use horizon for bitter hallertau for flavour and Saaz for aroma. But with decoction or step mashing you can get some awesome results from 6 row. and getting around 75-80 % efficiency. I forgot to mention I do a pretty thick mash 1.25/qt. Sorry for the old school rant.

 

[ChihuahuaTN]

I fly sparge the way that @TheMadKing does. I maintain 1" of sparge water above the grain bed until I've reached my boil volume and drain the remaining wort down my floor drain. A lot of the time, I need to stop sparging and top off my boil kettle from my HLT as my efficiency is higher than in my Beersmith equipment profile. I give myself the headroom on days that I want to push my sparge rate a bit faster. I also fly sparge because I enjoy the process.

Two home-brew truisms: (i) I am unable to taste my brew-house efficiency in my beer; and (ii) the difference in grain cost between my highest and lowest efficiency is substantially less than the investment I've made in my brewing gear. So I don't usually worry about efficiency. That said, my mash efficiency is usually > 85% and my brew house efficiency is usually > 75%.

What I can taste is astringency, so I worry much more about that. I monitor my runoff gravity and pH carefully and taste the runoff for any signs of astringency coming from the grain towards the end of sparge. I'm happy to leave some sugars in my mash tun if I can avoid any trace of astringency in my lagers, even before fermentation.

I agree ......

 

[4_Sons_Brewing]

So glad I found this thread. I’ve got the spike 3V 15 gallon set up and continue to second guess my sparge process. I’ve gone back and forth with cutting the doarge off and undershooting my volume to letting it go all the way to volume with inconsistent results. I’m going to go with the true fly sparge method next time and add the aquarium defuser to my silicone hose. One tip I saw somewhere else here was to attach a binder clip to the sight glass and keep your mash tun volume at the same level the whole time (using said clip as a point of reference). I’m going to try that as well.