Concept of fly sparge

[copytko]

In systems based on Braumeister water is pumped from the bottom of "vessel inside a vessel" and overfills on top. This is kind of checked and efficient way of sparging, nevertheless, I would like to share with you of my small concept - but I'm not experienced and just asking if it is worth to give a shot.

There are coffee percolators everywhere, and this post is going to focus mainly on phenomena of precolation. To clarify, you can review this site on Wikipedia and refer to the picture below.

An element heats water in main vessel, which is transported together with bubbles of air through vertical pipe to Spreader plate, form where it is spread on Ground coffee. With force of gravity water goes downwards extracting some substances from coffee grains and becomes coffee. At next, coffee drips form the filter located at the bottom of small "basket" in which milled grains of coffer are kept in. Since mixture of coffee/water on the bottom of main vessel is constantly heated, the liquid cycles.

This concept, after some modifications, could be used to do a fly sparge, which could mean an increase of efficiency towards usage of Stainless Steel Braid, mainly since liquid used to sparge after couple of cycles contains some sugar. The sketch of my concept can be seen below.

Here pump comes in handy, since liquid used to sparge has 78 °C, so it could be difficult to transport it using bubbles, or am I wrong?

I know it may be similar to RIMS/HERMS at the first view, but there you have a constant stream of liquid coming through grain bed, so concentration of sugars in sparging liquid sets on average levels (because it is lower on the top and higer on the bottom and mixes easily). During percolation, liquid which has contact with grain bed is separated from lower concentration liquid, which helps to extract sugars from grain bed.

Technical question is, if liquid will keep up with extracting and going downwards before the one on the bottom of main vessel runs out?

Please, feel free to comment and criticise, since some of my thoughts may be wrong, but still - it has some scientific background.

 

[stpug]

The idea is intriguing. Although I'm no engineer, nor a pro brewer, I have my doubts about this design as being any more effective/efficient than a "normal" lauter tun. Nonetheless, it's a cool idea and it's these kinds of ideas that help change the face of brewing.

 

[Ravenshead]

That's basically the same concept many of us use in our HERMS/RIMS setups. It's not really a sparge technique since you still need clear water to rinse the grains during sparging. It's really a way to maintain constant temp throughout the mash phase and thus a more controllable amount of fermentable sugars.

 

[copytko]

Thanks for opinions, stpug and Ravenshead.

There is no need to use clear water, since circulation allows to use liquid created during mashing. Certainly it may seem similar to RIMS/HERMS, but here, surface of the liquid in main vessel does not have contact with grains, just liquid going from Spreader plate.

 

[outside92129]

You'll have more/significant issues with the grain bed compacting as the grains aren't in liquid suspension.

 

[Ravenshead]

I hear what you're saying but you're still going to need some clear water to rinse the grains unless you're thinking of no-sparge type efficiencies.

Think of your coffee analogy:
When you discard the grounds from a coffee perc there is still plenty of brown water bound up in the cake. It's not enough to make a good cup of joe but it's there. If you rinse the grounds with additional hot water you can theoretically get every bit of coffee flavor out of the grounds. It's the same way with grain, you could build a system that only recirculates the mash liquid, but you're going to leave a lot of sugar behind.

 

[day_trippr]

I agree, at the end of it all, this seems like a no-sparge recirculating mash system. The wort bound up in the bed will have the same sugar density as the last runnings, which makes this about as far from fly sparging as it gets...

Cheers!

 

[BarleyAndVine]

copytko, did you ever get to try this idea out? Curious of the outcome? What was the size of the system (in cups for coffee sakes) and how did you deal with temperature control. I am thinking of doing the same idea.