Batch Sparge

[dx4100]

Hi All

Using beersmith I have set it up to do a 66c mash and its telling me to add 13.45 litres at 73.7 c to hit that temp. That is all fine and well...

My batch sparge is going to be 24 litres but this temp doesn't seem to be generated for me. Any ideas what temp I should be aiming for / starting with. Totally confused.

 

[pittsy]

you should stick to beersmiths calcs , mashing your grain should be kept to the water to grain ratio which is often 3:1 so 5 kg of grain wants around 15 liters of water then drain and add 2nd amount when ready .repeat until you have your amounts

 

[PD]

Did a batch sparge yesterday on my Hobgoblin clone and found it one of the easiest most relaxed brew days I've had.
I wanted to collect 30 litres of wort and had 4.75 kg of grain. So I did first run with 18 litres of water, through the dry grains, mashed an hour at 67 degrees, added 4 litres of water at 80C stirred well and drained after a further 15 mins That gave me around 18-19 litres of wort at 1.055, I then added 12 litres of water 80C stirred and mashed for further 15 mins and drained the rest off I stopped at 30 litres. The 2nd batch gave me a reading of 1.025
Don't know if the percentage and amounts were what I should have used but it all seemed to work fine.... ended up with a good brew fermenting away.
I can only really aim for 19 litre brews with my boiler taking into account loss to boil off and dead space. and with this method I could manage 26 litres in boiler at start ( maximum ) with further litres available to top up during the boil, thereby minimising my losses.
I made sure I'd added all the extras before 30 mins had passed.

 

[dx4100]

How did you come to the 80c figure for the sparge?

That's my issue here. Beersmith tells me what temp to heat the water to for the mash... But I have no idea what temp I need to have it for the sparge, both the target temp inside the tun and the temp of the water to add to achieve it.

Do I basically need to aim for the same temp as the mash ? If so do I heat the water to the mash temp or have it higher. Confused :)

 

[oz11]

I tend to heat my sparge liquor to anywhere between 80 and 85 celsius as I read that somewhere ages ago.

 

[PD]

My softwear tells me to....
Mashing temp 67C sparge temp 80C. dont forget heating your sparge water to only 80C will mean by the time you get it on your grains the temp has fallen somewhat, so I heated the sparge water to around 85C so its around 80C when hitting the grains.
Experts will no doubt tell us the reason shortly for a higher temp on the sparge, its to do with helping more sugars to be converted or something....
Temp control has a lot to do with knowing your equipment and I'm still learning with mine so things may alter.

 

[Morgan]

I use Hopville, it always tells me to add X amount of boiling water to raise the mash tun to 85 / 86 for a mash out. Usually I'll ignore this and just fly sparge at 82

 

[farmer brown]

Im a little confused here sorry

If you wanted to collect 30 liters of wort and had 4.75 kg of grain, Ive always read that to work out water to grain volume you basically add 2.5 liter of water for every Kg of grain ? so 4.75 gives 11.8 liter of water? When you added 18 was the mash quiet watery? Is this ok or is it better to add the water later on?

 

[PD]

re above.
As I said its a case of getting to know your equipment.
In previous brews despite lagging my mash tun well it was always dropping too much in temp after 60 mins. Now I have a 40+ mash tun and I reckoned on with the amount of grain and say 11 litres of water there was still a large empty space above allowing temps to drop. I've read of folks filling this space with all kinds of stuff during the mash, for example bubble wrap. I went for more water.....
The wort certainly ran free.....
However I still managed my anticipated volume and more importantly the correct gravity.
I might be totally wrong in what I did. I don't really know.
I just found it easier, less complicated and it worked.
I might alter it on the next brew.
As far as I'm aware...the correct way would have been to add say 11 litres of water as you mentioned. Advice received is that the 2nd sparge should have been the same amount. That would only have given me 22 litres of wort, and I would perhaps have had to do a third sparge to get the remainder.....
My equipment means I need around 30 litres of wort pre boil to get a 19/20 litre brew.

Perhaps others will point out where I'm going wrong or how to do it differently and perhaps correctly...I hope so.... I'm still learning.

 

[farmer brown]

I keep forgetting about that empty space at the bottom, I guess thats going to take up a good 3-5 liters anyway!

Cheers for the info.. I was just worried I had been doing the wrong radio

 

[Baldbrewer]

Perhaps others will point out where I'm going wrong or how to do it differently and perhaps correctly...I hope so.... I'm still learning.

Ain't we all Brian, not sure there is a right or a wrong way just different ways.
The different methods may have varying degrees of efficency but we all seem to manage to make beer that we enjoy.
personally apart from my AG#2 weissbier (which was a decotion of sorts!)
I fly sparge after mashing at 66C for 90 mins, I measure the gravity as I sparge to make sure I don't get close to the dreaded tannin level 1.010@20C.
I use a layer of punctured tin foil over my grain bed and a gravity feed from my boiler through a 1/2" silicone hose.
My main area of concern is not yet hitting the magic 23L mark.
Frustrating as my Liquor starts at 36L pre boil.
But hey I'll keep trying lol!

I also have this printed out in my brewery as an memory jogger :
http://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=30&t=493 thanks to BrewStew who wrote this guide. :thumb:

 

[Baldbrewer]

Cheers for the info.. I was just worried I had been doing the wrong radio

Ahh thats your problem good tunes are a must !

 

[jonnymorris]

Experts will no doubt tell us the reason shortly for a higher temp on the sparge...

I'm not an expert but I do have a book and that says that the reason for increasing the temperature during sparging is to stop all of the enzyme action thereby preserving the fermentable sugar profile and to make the grain bed and wort more fluid.

 

[johnluc]

Hi all,use the batch sparge calculator top left of home page, as i have been told this is the correct way to do it.
eg: 23l brew length loss to evaporation say 15%
loss to hops/trub say 3L
total grain weight say 5kg
dead space say 1L
water/grain ratio 2.5L/kg

total volume of water required 36.6L
calculated wort volume 30.6l
batch volume 15.3L

water required for batch 1 21.3L
mash volume 12.5L
top up volume 8.8L
water for batch 2 15.3L

which means you need a total of 36.6L of water,of which you would use12.5L for mash say 90 mins @ 66c then use 8.8L @ around 80-85c to bring mash temp to around 75c stir well then wait say 10 mins. run off first runnings.
then add 15.3L @ 80-85C give it another good stir and mash @ 75c for say 15mins then run off remaining wort, you should then get your30.6L of wort reqd,
been doing it this way for last 12 brews or so and am getting better effeciency than i ever did before
johnluc