too much to sparge

[CheaperPlease]

I use a zip-zap larder tun (explained in Carlie Papazian's book "The joy of homebrewing") of 2 5 gal buckets togeather, one with holes drilled in the bottom, i sure you get the picture. Last time i used 12 lb of grain i ended up spilling out of the back and making a hell of a mess. Today I am making another beer of 12 lb of grain and was wondering about how i should tackle this. Ive got 2 options here i believe. one is taking half the grain and sparging with half the water, dispose of grain and sparge out the other half with the rest of the water. Or i was going to take half the grain, sparge with ALL the water and then return the light wort to my sparge bucket and sparging the other half of the grain with that.

Whatcha think?

 

[Waldo]

There's always batch sparging, buy a 48 quart cooler and a stainless steel braided water supply line a valve and some hose.

Its cheap and would definately solve your overflow problems

 

[G. Cretin]

I would do 1/2 batches. For temp. control reasons.

 

[CheaperPlease]

Thanks, I would do the batch sparging thing but it dosnt entertain me, Fly sparging is what I want to do and I just have to get my equipment right. For now though, my name is all to fitting. My brewery started on no capital... im brewing all grain with like 100 bucks put into this stuff, and i can tell most spend quite a bit starting off.

 

[Waldo]

Indeed, it was your name that prompted me to suggest batch sparging

$15 cooler

$5 stainless braided water supply line

$15 for a stainless valve

some cheap hi temp hose and you are good to go.

I was up and running for far less than $100, my efficiency is 80% to 85% and I don't have to mess with a sparge arms, long sparge times no worries about mash PH and the beer taste the same no matter how you sparge.

 

[CheaperPlease]

I may look into that later in life but for now i gotta fly sparge, its what i got. All done though and it worked fine, i'm impressed. and when i say 100 dollars i mean brewing all togeather, Carboys, buckets, racking cane, 10 gal pot, everything. I only did one extract before beginning with AG, wasnt logical to me to keep doing my brew in 'beginner mode' when i didnt want to be in beginner mode.

 

[G. Cretin]

I hear ya. I did 3 DME and decided to go for the gusto.

 

[PT Ray]

I have found that 12# of grain with a single infusion mash using 1qt water:1lb grain will pretty much max my 5 gallon tun. When using two 5 gallon buckets per your application, it will not actually hold 5 gallons. The outside bucket does not fully encompass the bucket inside, as a result the actual volume is limited to the amount of bucket that sits inside the outer bucket. I guess you figured that out the hard way. However, all might not be lost. If you noticed when sparging, the grain bed will set up and displace a good bit of wort on top. I have to believe it is possible to drain some of the wort from the lauter tun as your filling to make room for more grain. Finding the limitations looks like a trial and error process, good luck. You could also try and locate some discarded 7.5 gallon buckets.

I would opt to just find a cooler. I am downright cheap myself and bet I can find a friend or co worker that has a used cooler collecting dust that I could pimp from them in exchange for some beer. All that is left is a few dollars in parts from a big box hardware store. I recently frabricated some false bottoms out of stainless at zero cost. A friend at work gave me a half dozen sheets of stainless and let me borrow an angle grinder.