NOOB all-grainer has some tech questions for the vet AG-ers. about fly sparging...

[JasonOdd]

2nd all-grain I've made and I have some questions...

I tried a two-step fly sparge today.... I didn't like it (the one-step was nicer on my first all-grain, but my original gravity was WAY off {sparged far to fast and w/ 168° water that didn't heat up the grain bed enough}).

The two-step mash got the grains up to 168°, but the sparging water, ran out of volume to fast (IMO), due to the smaller amount of water in the HLT. So, assuming a 152° mash, in a double-walled 10 gallon Rubbermaid (round) cooler (MLT has a false bottom, not a braided filter), what temp should I heat the sparge water up to, to make a 1 step sparge, if I want to sparge at 168°? The HLT is the same cooler as the MLT (minus the false bottom) and I don't/won't pre-heat. [Both coolers have brass ball-vales, to regulate flow manually]

Also, if I want my sparge arm to spin, I have to turn up the flow and I sparge way to fast. How are people on the YouTube vids, fly sparging so fast and still getting an hours worth of sparge? If I turned mine up that fast I'd be done sparging in 15min, tops. Sitting there making sure the tiny drips spin manually is.. boring and taxing.

Another problem I have, is getting the wort to exit the MLT at 168°, the best I have achieved is 158°.
I am sparging with 168° water, the grains were heated to 168° and yet, it pours out of the MLT 10° cooler?
I have to suspect the rotating sparge arm and the 3' of (thick walled) hose. What else can I do? [~side note I am using a cheap LHBS thermometer that takes a while to heat up and I am not sure where to place the tiny trickle of wort to make it heat up the mercury in the thermometer... it will be replaced]

All of my problems aside, I hit 82.6% efficiency with a (corrected) pre-boil gravity of 1.052 (expecting 1.049 gravity with a 76.4% efficiency).:rockin:

Still, how do I fix my annoying problems?

 

[BigEd]

"Two-step fly sparge", I'm not sure what that means? However, introducing 168F sparge water into a mash @ 152F is not going to raise the temperature of the bed to 168F. Doing a mash-out step via either infusion, decoction or direct heat will. On the other hand it is not critically important to do that for a batch of homebrew. The beer will still be OK if you don't. A quick and dirty compromise solution is to bring up the temperature of you sparge water to 180-185F. That way it will act like an infusion step raising the mash temp and giving you a half-assed version of a mashout.

 

[Bobby_M]

He's talking about a two-step mash (sacc rest and mash out) followed by a fly sparge.

What mash ratio did you use to start with?
How much water did you add, and at what temp, for the mashout temp rise?
How much sparge water did you have left?

If you want to use a mashout step, it's OK to make the original mash ratio a touch thicker and only use as much boiling water as necessary to get the mash up to 170F. One way to manage getting the HLT from the boiling temp down to the sparge temp is to add cold water back in until you reach around 175F then start sparging.

Give up on the whirlygig sparge arms. It doesn't need to look like a carnival ride to brew good beer. That sort of design makes a lot of sense when your tun is 6 feet in diameter but on a homebrew scale, simply letting it trickle in through a hose laid on the grain is fine.

 

[Northcalais40]

I agree with Biged about sparge temp. I heat up 7 gal. to 175F and don't worry about mash out. I doubt it matters that much.

Some people simply run a hose into the MLT and have it flow slow, don't woory about chanelling with a thick grain bed. Run it extremely slow.

I have a drip ring hade of pex and 3 brass t's with a million teeny holes. The trick is to run at full flow to get rid of air bubbles, they cause vapor lock. Then you can dial it down. I check the in flow and out flow every 15-20 min while I hang out and read or chase the baby.

I bet you'll have good results if you ignore the spin altogether.

Not for nothing, you won't likely improve on 82% eff. Why would you want to?

 

[JasonOdd]

He's talking about a two-step mash (sacc rest and mash out) followed by a fly sparge.

What mash ratio did you use to start with?
How much water did you add, and at what temp, for the mashout temp rise?
How much sparge water did you have left?

If you want to use a mashout step, it's OK to make the original mash ratio a touch thicker and only use as much boiling water as necessary to get the mash up to 170F. One way to manage getting the HLT from the boiling temp down to the sparge temp is to add cold water back in until you reach around 175F then start sparging.

Give up on the whirlygig sparge arms. It doesn't need to look like a carnival ride to brew good beer. That sort of design makes a lot of sense when your tun is 6 feet in diameter but on a homebrew scale, simply letting it trickle in through a hose laid on the grain is fine.

Grain weight: 12 lbs. Grain temperature: 68°, tun temperature: 68°

Mashed in with 15.40 qt of water at 168° and ended up with a perfect 152.° for 60 min.
Mashed out with 8.40 qt of water at 190° and my temp into the kettle was 158° (10 min rest).
Fly sparged with 2.59 gal water at 168°. ( I pre-calculate my sparge and mash waters to end up with my 7 gal pre-boil, so far it's been spot-on.)

I'd like to eliminate the Mash out step. The lame "whirlygig" sparge arm is going back. I'm just going to make a hose into a circle w/ holes drilled in it to sparge with. I am happy with the 82% efficiency.

 

[JasonOdd]

BigEd says 180-185° and Northcal mentioned 175°. As long as I am rinsing the grains well, not releasing tannins and hitting 168° into kettle, I'd be happy. But rather then experimenting with several batches of beer (time & money) I'd like to find out what temp I should be shooting for on a single step mash, given my equipment.

If that's not possible I can use a 2-step mash and bring the mash out temp up to maybe 200°?.

 

[Bobby_M]

A couple things..

I don't recommend over doing the sparge temps in a fly sparge operation. It's fine when you batch sparge because you're stirring it in immediately and achieving "safe" equilibrium temps quickly. When you fly sparge, that hotter water is staying pretty darn hot at the upper half of the mash for too long for my tastes.

If you go with 212F water for the mashout infusion, the volume only needs to be about a gallon and a half.

Also, I know a lot of fly spargers that like to calculate the sparge volume so that the tun runs dry at the same time that you've collected the desired preboil gravity. However, I much prefer to add an extra 2-3 gallons so that the grainbed doesn't collapse and so that the grainbed remains fluid until you're done. I'm not saying it's the only way to get it done, but give it a try next time.

 

[BigEd]

If that's not possible I can use a 2-step mash and bring the mash out temp up to maybe 200°?.

No. For a mashout step the mash temp should be 168/170F. Infusion water can be hotter than that, even boiling, but the resulting mix of the mash and added water should top out at 170F. If you achieve the 168/170F temp in the mash then, of course, you can simply sparge with water at the same temp.

 

[JasonOdd]

Sounds like the 2-step mash is the way to go.

I'll use 200° water to bring the grains up to 168° next time for the second step and stir it in to make sure I don't overshoot my temp.

I'll also add more water for the sparge like Bobby suggested. I can always stop the wort when I hit my pre-boil volume.

~Thanks

 

[Northcalais40]

To get to mash out temps, which I have given up doing, I would do a quick decoction. The decoction can be all liquid, is about a gallon so it boils fast, and doesn't use up sparge water.