Tips on batch sparging?

[catfishunter]

Hey how's it going? Been doing some all grain brewing and my gravity is always much lower than intended. Even when I've added a little extra I'm still usually a little lower than I want. Any tips for better efficiency? Btw I use a Coleman extreme with a bazooka tube as my mash tun.

 

[CervezaMaLa]

Are you double sparging? Good stirring each time?


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[kh54s10]

Most often these issues come down to the crush of the grain. Other than that look that you are collecting the right amount of wort and are not leaving volumes of water/wort in the system anywhere.

As to sparging. Add the water, I use about 168-170 degrees and use about half of what I need to get to my preboil amount. Stir like crazy, vorlauf and drain. measure to determine how much more you need, stir like crazy, vorlauf and drain.

 

[GuldTuborg]

Could be anything. Crush, mash pH, improper volume measurements, too much dead space in tun. When are you taking measurements? Preboil, yes? If not, other issues could be to blame.

 

[grathan]

A bazooka will leave quite a bit of wort behind. You should tip the cooler towards the spigot, especially on the first drain.

 

[zwiller]

I can hit 90% with a double batch sparge with my bazooka and Ice Cube. Just got 80% with a single and 30 minute mash...

It has already been said, CRUSH. You MUST own a mill. I set my gap to .020". Many great affordable options and no reason to let someone who sells you grain do it for you... Also dial in pH. Download and learn bru'n water. Acidify sparge.

 

[broadbill]

A bazooka will leave quite a bit of wort behind. You should tip the cooler towards the spigot, especially on the first drain.

this is a good recommendation for using a bazooka screen, but to me collecting more volume of runnings isn't related to efficiency and also isn't a cure for it.

By collecting more sugar in the runnings, you are also collecting more liquid, which would then need to be boiled down more. The efficiency at which you converted starch to sugar in your mash (converstion efficiency) and the efficiency at which you rinsed those sugars from the grain bed (lauter efficiency) doesn't change if you try to scavenge what is below the screen. Both of these impact a final Brewhouse efficiency which indicates that from x lbs of grain you get y amount of sugar into the kettle.

If there is a dead-space (say b/c of a bazooka screen), the efficiency of those reactions didn't change, it is more about not accounting for volume losses in your setup.

 

[peterj]

Are you using any software to calculate your recipes? As GuldTuborg said without knowing any more information it really could be anything. Maybe you're not calculating your recipes correctly, measuring your volumes incorrectly, adding too much water, not stirring enough, your temperatures could be off, maybe you're not boiling off as much as you think, your crush is bad, etc. Give us a little more info so we can help you figure it out.

You MUST own a mill. I set my gap to .020". Many great affordable options and no reason to let someone who sells you grain do it for you... Also dial in pH. Download and learn bru'n water. Acidify sparge.

Meh. That's a bit of an overstatement. If the crush you get from your LHBS is fine (like me) then there's no reason you "MUST" own a mill (I don't).

Also, mash pH and water chemistry is probably the last thing I would tell someone starting out to try and fix. As long as your water isn't incredibly out of whack (which I would say most tap water is probably going to be ok to start with) you're probably around the right pH and definitely not far enough off to cause big problems with efficiency. I'm not saying you shouldn't care about water chemistry. Eventually you can and should get into all of that, but at least as far as fixing your current efficiency problem, that is not the first place I would look.

 

[broadbill]

If I were to bet $5, I would go with crush and its an easy thing to test. Buy your grain from a second source and see if there is a change. Another option is to have your supplier double crush the grain and see if that helps.

I'll echo the statement that your home brew supply does have a vested interested in you having a bad efficiency, although I can't imagine why a company would see the gain from intentional under-crushing so their customers will have to buy more.

 

[catfishunter]

Thanks for the responses. I haven't been double sparging, just once but I stir multiple times and allow it to sit for around 15 minutes. I've been using the sparge pal app on my phone for measurements and have pretty much been spot on with the volume, just not gravity. I've been checking my temps occasionally and have also been very close, within a few degrees. I've been checking my gravity before I pitch my yeast.

 

[catfishunter]

Also my homebrew store crushes my grains and I have a fairly large cooler for my mashtun thinking around forty quarts. Could this be to big since a few of the recipes I've had issues with were for three gallons? Thanks for the help

 

[catfishunter]

Is it possible the store I go to would intentionally not mill the grain properly?

 

[peterj]

Thanks for the responses. I haven't been double sparging, just once but I stir multiple times and allow it to sit for around 15 minutes. I've been using the sparge pal app on my phone for measurements and have pretty much been spot on with the volume, just not gravity. I've been checking my temps occasionally and have also been very close, within a few degrees. I've been checking my gravity before I pitch my yeast.

I noticed a couple points improvement when I double sparged, but not enough to justify the extra time and effort for me.

Is it possible the store I go to would intentionally not mill the grain properly?

Probably not. I think most homebrew shops are not in it to run scams and maximize profits. And I wouldn't think they would make very much more money doing that anyway.

So what efficiency are you shooting for and what efficiency are you actually getting? How much are you calculating you will boil off and how much are you actually boiling off? Can you give an example recipe with all of the water additions and volumes and your measurements for everything? Also, you should take a gravity reading before the boil. Then you can adjust by either boiling longer or maybe adding DME if your gravity is too low. Or if it's too high (which doesn't sound like your problem) you could add water.

 

[kingmatt]

Is it possible the store I go to would intentionally not mill the grain properly?

I see you are in Allentown...do you use Keystone Homebrew in Bethlehem? If so, I can guarantee they are not intentionally crushing milling for poor efficiency.

Usually homebrew stores set their gaps a little wider than homebrewers to help ensure their customers don't get stuck sparges.

When I was having my grain milled at the store I would generally get efficiency in the 60s but now that I have my own mill and have my gap dialed in to where I like it I almost never get an efficiency less than 72.

 

[StalkingWilbur]

Hahaha. Come on, how many brew shops are going to do things that lead to having a poor efficiency. That's the dumbest **** I've seen on this site yet.

What's the benefit? They sell you an extra dollar or two worth of grain?

What's the risk? You figure out what they're doing, never buy from them and tell everyone you know.

Some people love a good conspiracy.


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[GuldTuborg]

Hahaha. Come on, how many brew shops are going to do things that lead to having a poor efficiency. That's the dumbest **** I've seen on this site yet.

What's the benefit? They sell you an extra dollar or two worth of grain?

Stuck sparges, for one. Some places don't adjust their mills very often, and might not realize their milling has slowly become too coarse over time.

 

[StalkingWilbur]

Okay. That's accidental or negligence. How many brew shops are going to mill your grain incorrectly on purpose just so you have to buy an extra couple of dollars worth?


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[GuldTuborg]

Okay. That's accidental or negligence. How many brew shops are going to mill your grain incorrectly on purpose just so you have to buy an extra couple of dollars worth?

Read my post again. I gave two examples. Some stores will adjust their grain mills coarser than some would like to prevent customers getting sparges stuck. There's no correct or incorrect here. Finer milling will always get you better extraction in shorter periods of time, but lead to problems with sparging in some systems.

I'm not saying that some greedy store owner is wringing his hands in glee as he forces everyone to buy an extra pound of malt per recipe due to coarse crush, but I am suggesting that the balance one store has chosen to implement might not give the extraction some people get around here who do home milling, and hence others expect. Again, it's a trade off. Different people will have different preferences.

 

[madscientist451]

I agree with those saying it might be the crush, however, if you don't want to get your own grain mill, just try increasing your grain bill.
If your target gravity is off by 5% try to increase your grain bill by 5% and see what happens. An extra 5%-10% in grain is hardly worth worrying about and instead you can work on other things like your water profile, temperature control or hop utilization.
If you can get an average for what your efficiency is right now, you can just plug that into a a recipe calculator like at the brewer's friend
website and it will figure your grain bill for you.

http://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/calculator

 

[zwiller]

Technically, the LHBS is crushing correctly and we are overcrushing, but that, like most things, is subject to opinion. Ain't no way a LHBS is using a .020" crush like me though... (I don’t crush for efficiency, I crush for faster rate of conversion)

To me the bar is 70%. If you're near that, cool, as most recipes are based on that. More than that is gravy and bragging rights. 60% or less and you need to fix something. Back in the day when LHBS milled my grain (twice) and if I did everything perfect on a perfect day I could hit 70%, but it was rare. There were plenty of times I missed it bad. Was it bad crush, bad malt? I don’t know, I did everything right... I no longer have these issues milling it myself. Regardless of the number, the key is consistency…

I do think a 3G batch in a 10G cooler is pushing it but if you are holding temps good then you should be OK.

 

[peterj]

Technically, the LHBS is crushing correctly and we are overcrushing, but that, like most things, is subject to opinion. Ain't no way a LHBS is using a .020" crush like me though... (I don’t crush for efficiency, I crush for faster rate of conversion)

To me the bar is 70%. If you're near that, cool, as most recipes are based on that. More than that is gravy and bragging rights. 60% or less and you need to fix something. Back in the day when LHBS milled my grain (twice) and if I did everything perfect on a perfect day I could hit 70%, but it was rare. There were plenty of times I missed it bad. Was it bad crush, bad malt? I don’t know, I did everything right... I no longer have these issues milling it myself. Regardless of the number, the key is consistency…

I do think a 3G batch in a 10G cooler is pushing it but if you are holding temps good then you should be OK.

+1 to this. And I'll add, when I used to do 3 gallon batches in my 10 gallon cooler I had trouble with temperature. I cut out a circle of Styrofoam insulation that fits down in the mash tun and just rests on top of the mash. That seemed to help a lot. But lately if I do a 3 gallon batch I'll usually just mash in a 5 gallon pot in my oven then strain it through a paint strainer bag. Then I'll dunk sparge my grain in the rest of the water I need to get to the boil volume.

 

[catfishunter]

I'm not accusing any store of any conspiracy or intentionally selling bad product. I have nothing but good to say about the homebrew store I go to. I was just hoping for some tips on more efficient batch sparging

 

[catfishunter]

I'm just going to try adding 10% more grain to my recipes and start taking a gravity reading before I start the boil. Thanks for the help

 

[brewbama]

I'm just going to try adding 10% more grain to my recipes and start taking a gravity reading before I start the boil. Thanks for the help

You might want to check out A Formulation Procedure for No-Sparge and Batch-Sparge Recipes. There Ken Schwartz has some interesting reading and a spreadsheet which accompanies the article that allows for increasing a grain bill for batch sparge and no sparge. It may be less or more than 10% increase depending on several factors that I'll leave to the article.

 

[GuldTuborg]

I'm not accusing any store of any conspiracy or intentionally selling bad product. I have nothing but good to say about the homebrew store I go to. I was just hoping for some tips on more efficient batch sparging

I understand, but sparging changes may not be the solution. Like I said earlier, I would suggest gravity readings at multiple stages along the way of your current process:

-1st runnings
-sparge
-preboil
-postboil

Keeping good records of your recipe, process, and gravities at those stages, along with accurate volume measurements, will go a long way towards shedding some light on which stage of the process your efficiency is suffering (according to what you want to get).

 

[catfishunter]

Awesome thank you. What do you think of sparge pal? Ever try it?

 

[hunter_le five]

I've never used Sparge Pal, but this batch sparging calculator always gets me dead-on where I need to be.

 

[GuldTuborg]

I haven't used spargepal, but to be honest, batch sparging is pretty simple stuff. If you mind volume, temperature, and pH, there's little room for any kind of real error. Keep good records, post back with details, and give gravity readings at the stages I posted about above. We'll get to the bottom of this.

 

[SpeedYellow]

Hahaha. Come on, how many brew shops are going to do things that lead to having a poor efficiency. That's the dumbest **** I've seen on this site yet.
...

You must not have spent much time on this site then, because complaints about homebrew shops grinding too coarse abound. Heck, even one of the (or the single) largest homebrew suppliers (NB) is notorious for milling too coarse. Each of us can speculate WHY, but the fact remains it's all too common.

 

[dr_GONZO_phd]

As Peterj said make sure you have all of your calculations in order, original grain temp, proper stike temp, etc. And you said your only doing a 15 minute steep? That seems a bit short, especially if you don't have a proper crack to your grain. Good luck though man. Hope it works out for ya!

 

[GuldTuborg]

I read that as 15 min from adding sparge water to running off, which is more than enough time. Of course, I could have read it wrong.

 

[catfishunter]

Yeah the 15 minutes is for the batch sparge. I general allow the mash to soak a minimum of 60 minutes. I'll def post all my reading next batch hopefully this week sometime. Thanks again for all the responses I really appreciate them

 

[dr_GONZO_phd]

Yeh I read the post wrong, sorry about that haha. I thought you said your total steep time was 15 minutes. That's plenty of time for the batch sparge.

 

[broadbill]

Yeah the 15 minutes is for the batch sparge. I general allow the mash to soak a minimum of 60 minutes. I'll def post all my reading next batch hopefully this week sometime. Thanks again for all the responses I really appreciate them

The 15 minute between adding the water and draining is probably not necessary either, for the record. No need to wait...

 

[briggssteel]

Try the brew365.com water calculator. It works well for me. You'll need to measure your equipment loss if you haven't already. I usually mash at 133- 1.4 quarts per gallon.

The other big thing is that you'll need a calibrated stick to measure your kettle volume. Simply do this by putting in a gallon of water into your kettle, mark it. Continue to do this until you mark it at full kettle volume. This is simple but if you're not doing this then your volumes will be off almost certainly. Run your first and second runnings together, stir well and take a gravity reading. Plug that preboil gravity reading into the brewhouse efficiency calculator on brewersfriend.com. This will tell you your efficiency. If you end up with the volume you intended with your calibrated stick then you're doing well volume wise and we can rule that out.

After this make sure you're stirring well when you put in your sparge water(that's what was causing my low efficiency), or it could of course be your grain crush. If that doesn't work try switching to a false bottom assuming your cooler is round.

Whatever efficiency you're getting isn't necessarily bad unless it's really low ( like 55% or below). The key is to find out what your efficiency is like I stated above and hit it consistently. It won't cost you that much more in grain if you're a little low.

 

[ABrother]

Just a quick question. Earlier I saw some comments on having the LHBS double mill the grain. Is this something we should be doing if we mill it ourselves or is that just to get a finer crush from the LHBS mill that's not adjusted to give a really fine crush?

 

[GuldTuborg]

Just a quick question. Earlier I saw some comments on having the LHBS double mill the grain. Is this something we should be doing if we mill it ourselves or is that just to get a finer crush from the LHBS mill that's not adjusted to give a really fine crush?

It's something that's done when you can't control the gap setting, yet want/need a finer crush. It's also done with wheat, rye, and other grains that are smaller and harder than barley and have no husk material to keep intact.

 

[zwiller]

No need to wait...

Yep; Add sparge liquor and give it a good stir and start vorlauf.

 

[bzwyatt]

I mash in a rectangular cooler with a SS mesh hose, batch sparge. I've gotten around 85%, and down to 65% mash efficiency. I haven't really been able to find out why I'm not that consistent - I always buy my grain from the same store, they've adjusted their mill (supposedly) and it didn't have a consistent impact on my efficiency; I've tried stirring a ton, mashing/sparging with more/less water, sparging as slow as possible. My final gravity is always withint the range of what I want for my recipe, but I want to get more precise and consistent.

I need a few things to get there though - I only use a hydrometer for measuring gravity, but I really want a refractometer for quicker readings. I also need a pH meter, since strips aren't all that helpful for what I'm trying to evaluate. I want a mill so I can at least be more sure of how the grain is being crushed. I don't think my HBS undercrushes, but I don't know for sure.

Anyway, I'm working on this too, so I'm going to keep an eye on this thread.

 

[TobyG]

A bazooka will leave quite a bit of wort behind. You should tip the cooler towards the spigot, especially on the first drain.

This should not be as much an issue with a Coleman Xtreme. The channel for the drain does not leave much behind, even with a Bazooka. I would probably suspect grain crush first and sparge procedure second.