First Attempt at Fly Sparging - thoughts

[Rick_UK]

Ay up chaps

After reading a few threads about different sparging techniques I decided to try fly sparging having previously always batch sparged. There was no rotating spinney gubbins or owt technical. I just placed a sheet of foil with holes in on top of the grain bed and slowly trickled the sparge water with a length of tube from the tap on my hlt at the rate the wort was running of at - which I set at about 500ml per minute, making sure the water level was about 2-3 inches above the grain bed.

It took about half an hour and tbh was less hassle as I could just leave it and do other things rather than having to recharge the tun twice stir it up etc. Efficiency was what I was really interested in and it was more or less 75% which is about 10% less than my last brew which was batch sparged. I did however use a new bag of malt with a slighty larger crush so I will need to see if this is also the case with a batch sparge for a true comparison.

If it proves there is little or no difference in effifiency I thini i'll switch to fly sparging as it did seem a little less hassle.

Rick

[crafty john]

I fly sparge with a spinning sparge arm, I love it, like you say it gives you time to do other things, My advice is get your self a spinner.

[Rick_UK]

Thanks John. What difference would a spinner make?

[crafty john]

Gives a nice fine, even drizzle which keeps the bed floating, you don't have to mess about with foil.