Sparging

[Froggit]

I recently set up my sparging system, in a trip to buy a cheap pan to attach a tap to i came across a budget cool box from tesco for £12, i cut a hole in the base just like the mash tuns and trotted of to buy a tap. When i saw the price of taps and the lack of fittings to attach to my coolbox i started looking at other possibilities, i came up with a brass low pressure ballcock for about £5 with a piece of hose attached which is long enough that it sits on the grain bed and points slightly upwards to minimize disturbance.
Now i dont claim to have reinvented the egg especially with my limited knowledge but for £17 i think its a natty little system, you control the flow from the mash tun and the ballcock obviousley feeds at the same rate. The only design drawback i can see is that the ballcock has to be bent for every different batch as the levels will obviousley be different in the mash tun. I would be happy to provide pics if anyone is interested. I need to point out here im heating my water in a pan on the hob!

So my question is this, What is the best way to sparge?

Ive read a couple of sources that your sparge water wants to be an inch above the top of your grain bed, if this is so why are sparge arms needed, surely the distribution of water doesnt affect the flow of the water through the grain bed when it has a level of water above the bed.

[darkonnis]

http://www.howtobrew.com/section1/index.html
Is pretty much what you need ot read, go to section 3, about all grain brewing and forward on to the chapter on sparging. That man has explained it far better than most, and certainly better than i could even hope to try.

If you have a pic of your invention by all means get it up! You never know, you may have invented a rounder wheel, or maybe someone else has a better way for you to do it with the kit you have. Always worth sharing stuff like that

[Scooby]

Yeah I think keeping the liquid above the grain bed is bull for the reason you state and the fact that it will take the line of least resistance,
between the grain and tun wall

This is how I sparged. Slowly collect wort until the level of wort drops below the level of the grain. The grain then starts to settle
and pack to form a filter. The collected wort can now be trickled into the middle of the bed. When you start to sparge a fine spray
is directed over the grain and the outflow adjusted to maintain the liquid level just below the grain bed. Care must be taken to keep
the bed just 'floating' and the spray should not be directed onto the sides of the tun.

[darkonnis]

Hmm, i disagree scooby, the filter legs in the bottom (assuming you are using a copper manifold) should be equidistant from each other and the mash tun walls. This prevents a line of least resistance effect.

Think water in a bath, if you fill a bath with luke warm water, then put the hot tap on, the end nearest the tap can be boiling hot while the other end can still just be warm. This is the reason for spreading the water. Its likely you could just spread the water acros the surface with a jug or what have you but i think people use sparge arms for the convinience of not needing to adjust it, you start it, let it run, turn it off, with the proper configuration ofc.

[Froggit]

It did seem to work ok, the liquid sitting on top eventually became crystal clear and i collected until it was at 1.008 (hope thats correct) and although i didnt measure the total liquid i would say i was close to my expected amount of wort, i know i know i didnt get all the information to see what my effiency was (this was my first ag) but im fingers crossed brewing a stout this weekend and will use the same system, will get all the figures and see what my effiency is!

[Kev888]

The key to (fly) sparging is even-ness of flow through the grain bed, so you get an even extraction without over-rinsing some areas or channels and under-rinsing others, but there are various ways to do this (with both the incoming liquor and the design of your manifold or false bottom for the outlet).

If you don't like to sparge with liquor over the top of the grain then its more important to introduce the liquor finely/evenly as you don't want it taking preferred routes and drilling or forming channels of higher flow - so if you have static jets drilling into the grain for instance, or down the side of the MT, then thats not good. A fine spray or if you're feeling enthusiastic a rotating sparge arm can work well, and some people just lay a bit of tinfoil or something on top of the grain to stop incoming liquid drilling into the bed.

If you instead have say an inch of water over the grain this will help disperse incoming liquid, so the method of delivering it isn't so important - perhaps ideally your liquor will either be circulated around on top or be introduced reasonably evenly but it will more or less sort itself out.

I prefer the latter method as it seems fairly foolproof and I find it easier to make sure the grain stays suspended, plus fine spray nozzles/roses can get blocked more easily if you recirculate - but its only personal choice and neither is right/wrong in my view - partly because neither is perfect. I haven't 'noticed' any great tendency for it to go down the sides, but I do agree with Scooby that this would not be ideal if it happened to any large extent, so I think I'll have to do some investigation on that one!

The device you have made sounds very similar to the blichmann one - like all things from that brand its not cheap, but the principle sounds most similar. It does have an adjustable fixing for the float arm though, so you can adjust to different grain bills without bending.

Cheers
kev

[Rick_UK]

Personally i'd just batch sparge, it's less hassle and works fine especially with a cool box MT set up. My MT is a 24l cheap coolbox with upgraded insulation (camping mats) a ball valve and a steel braid filter butchered from a tap connector. Made over 20 AG brews in it so far, never had a stuck mash (even with wheat beer) and usually get around 90% efficiency batch sparging.

Rick

[Dave S]

Personally i'd just batch sparge, it's less hassle and works fine especially with a cool box MT set up. My MT is a 24l cheap coolbox with upgraded insulation (camping mats) a ball valve and a steel braid filter butchered from a tap connector. Made over 20 AG brews in it so far, never had a stuck mash (even with wheat beer) and usually get around 90% efficiency batch sparging.

Rick

I agree. I always found fly sparging to be a pain in the bum to get right. I haven't done as many as 20 in recent times, but have been batch sparging the last few brews without a hitch. It's apparently slightly less efficient than fly sparging, and while that is a consideration for commercial brewers, it isn't for home brewers. You just might need to use an extra half pound of pale malt for a given OG. When I started brewing in the early seventies there was never any mention of batch sparging. Thank goodness things have moved on.

[Capped]

I wasted 20-odd years farting around with fly-sparging. Seemed alright for the duration but switching to batch was a proper Eureka moment,followed by the depression of realising that I'd been doing it "wrong" for all those years. Each to their own an' all that but for me it's like having a machine which works perfectly and never goes wrong,then going back to the first prototype of said machine with all it's attendant fiddling and tinkering and hoping it works.

[Froggit]

ok just brewing my stout using my sparge system. Im quite alarmed as my efficeincy is very high, i guess im working it out wrong would appreciate if anyone can help.
My grain bill is 5.389kg, I collected 26ltrs wort at 1.044 at 170 deg F. Now on brewmate i get 97% efficiency, what am i entering wrong!

[kane]

To calculate mash efficiency:

Find the potential extract (in L/kg) of the grains used. If we assume you used 5.389kg of pale malt (extract ~ 301L/kg).

Multiply each quantity of grain by its corresponding extract value. e.g. in this case 5.389*301 = 1622
(If you used other grains you would do the same for each and sum the results)

Divide this result by the quantity of wort collected: 1622/26 = 62.4
This is the potential points of gravity available (i.e. if you extracted at 100% efficiency, you would get 26L of wort at 1.062)

To find your mash efficiency, divide the actual gravity of the wort collected by this result: 44/62.4 = 71% mash efficiency.

(I think this is correct, but if anyone spots any mistakes ... )

Cheers,
Kane

[Froggit]

Where do i find extract value of different grains, all i have to go by is Brewmate and that just gives me what looks like a gravity value for each?

[kane]

It will depend on the maltster, for example Thomas Fawcett's have malt specifications here:

http://www.fawcett-maltsters.co.uk/specif.htm

But i think these values might also vary for each batch.

[Froggit]

And i thought working effiency out using brewmate would be easy!

[Froggit]

If anyones interested i found what seems a reasonable little calculator, it has most grains listed i think.

http://www.brewersfriend.com/brewhouse-efficiency/

My efficiency was 90% according to this.