Am I Over Sparging

[jww9618]

I've had a weird off-flavor in a couple of my beers that I can't explain. I've been narrowing it down and think I may be over sparging. Example:

11 gal batch
16.5 lb grain
Mashed in with 21.45 qts of 162* water for a 151* rest temp.
Sparged with 12 gal 170* water for 15.25 preboil volume

My question is am I sparging too much causing tannins or off flavors?

 

[corncob]

That's a lot of water. The most I have ever run through malt is about 3 qt/lb. How much are you boiling away? Have you checked the pH of the last of the sparge?

 

[jww9618]

I boil off about 2 gal/hr in my keggle. This was a 90 min boil so ~3 gal. After cooling loss and trub loss I'm at about 11 gal.

I don't have a way to check my ph other than the Brewnwater spreadsheet which I used and was in the acceptable range for ph.

 

[Yooper]

It could be oversparging, as that's too much water through the grain bed. But it could also be water chemistry related too. What's your water like?

 

[jww9618]

This was for a blonde.

Ca...35
Mg...5
Na...48
HCO3...252
CO3...24
SO4...106
Cl...22

Added to 5.5 gal mash water:
3g Calcium Chloride
1.5g Epsom
1.5 tsp lactic acid 88%
1/2 campden tablet

Added to 12 gal sparge water:
1/2 campden tablet
3.5 tsp lactic acid 88%

Added to boil:
6g Calcium Chloride
3g Epsom

Everything was formulate in Brewnwater and seemed like it was ok. I have been worried about the amount of lactic acid i'm adding though.

Here's the recipe

14lb Pilsner
1lb C10
1lb Munich
8oz honey malt

 

[Yooper]

That's a really high bicarb level. I suspect that is the problem, even with the lactic acid but I"m no water expert. I dilute my high bicarb water with RO, 30% for most beers but 100% RO for blondes/pilsners/cream ales. I think the issue here is not oversparging, but instead the high alkalinity of the water.

 

[jww9618]

Thanks yooper. When you use RO water are you using an RO filter or buying it from the store? How much are you paying for it?

 

[Yooper]

Thanks yooper. When you use RO water are you using an RO filter or buying it from the store? How much are you paying for it?

It's those RO dispensers. I see them all over Texas, but here in Michigan I pay a bit more. I think it's $.78 cents per 2 gallons, and I buy two of them for 5 gallon batches (since they actually only have 1.75 gallons in each of them) for many beers. Of course, I buy more for the 100% RO beers.

When I use RO water alone, I need to add some salts, but not nearly as much as you added in your list. Never epsom salts (there shouldn't be any magnesium needs because malt has plenty, and much much less in gypsum and CaCl2. We have a water primer sticky thread in the "Brewing Science" forum that could help far more than I can with my limited knowledge of water chemistry! But in most beers and most especially blondes, simpler is usually better.

And I use ml for measuring lactic acid in my sparge water - usually 5 ml for 5 gallons (about one teaspoon).

 

[Lost]

We have moderately hard tap water and when I do a light beer (just did a cream ale) I usually pick up couple (say 4) jugs of distilled water and use half that in the mash and the other half in the sparge to soften the water. I don't get overly involved in water chemistry and my beer turns out pretty darn drinkable, perhaps too drinkable!

I've also tried lactic acid in the sparge and couldn't tell that it made a difference. I fly sparge BTW. What I do do though is check the gravity of the runnings and if they hit 10 or lower then I stop. I don't temp adjust the readings either so I'm being conservative (because a 10 at 160 deg is actually much higher).

I have a fancy digital ph meter but, honestly, I rarely bother to use it.