Batch sparge water

[crookedeyeboy]

On GW's Beer Engine it tells you the total amount of batch water needed and the mash liquor.

Am I right in assuming that you dont really need to use the exact amounts that these batch sparge calculators (Daab's etc) state.

Its just that my MT isnt very big and I could probably get ALL the liquor through but only if I jiggled the figures about a bit....

[trucker5774]

Having used many different variations of sparging, I now follow what Chris suggests in the 2nd part of his post. My current mash tun is very small (holds about 21 litres) but works very well................still promising myself a new build!

[crookedeyeboy]

Thanks Chris I think that answers what I was thinking. It doesnt matter how you put the batches through quantity wise as long as the full amount goes through eventually.
I am used to doing the following:
Mash, top up with first quantity whilst draining at the same time.
Second lot of sprage water, stir, leave 15mins, drain.
I seem to be getting a consistent 16lts first drain and 12lts second drain from a total of about 35lts liquor.
Ive got a dead space of 700ml and loss on absorbtion of 7.5 lts....

[crookedeyeboy]

My boiler will only fit in exactly 29 litres to the brim, however due to its design I CAN fill it to the brim.
Surely that then means that technically I should only need 28 litres to get down to the required 23 litres in FV, taking into account I lose 2.5 lts to evap and 2.5 lts to hops and trub?

[vacant]

A typical boil (if there is such a thing)

Yes, if you brew outside like I do (carport), the losses during the boil can vary by more than a litre due to wind, season/temp.

[Scooby]

In my experience (I've tried all three) the difference in efficiency between:

top up drain, top up and drain & drain, top up and drain, top up and drain is up to -5%

And you'll lose another few % with your drain and top up at the same time method

26l when switched off will be 25l or just less when cooled so you'll end up with 21-22l in the fermenter.

[jonny8ball]

You could collect more wort and boil it for longer to concentrate it down in order to improve your efficiency

do you boil the wort down before add the first quote`a of hops/or at the end just keep it boiling

[OldSpeckledBadger]

Simply upping the sparge water volume won't have much effect on efficiency. Doing three sparges instead of two will have more effect (in effect continuous sparging is like a huge number of tiny sparges). But if you're already hitting about 82% compared to around 85% for fly sparging what's the point?