Sparging

[MikeG]

I used to sparge with a spiral of plastic tube with pin holes melted in it. This would spray the grain fairly evenly and slowly. This went mouldy so I bought a shiny new s/s sparge arm. However in order to make it rotate the flow has to be such that all the sparge water is used up in about 2 minutes! In Jim's tutorial he says it takes 30 minutes; indeed my tube with pinholes used to take about 40 or more minutes.

Have I just bought a really crap sparge arm?

[Fuggled Mind]

What you describe does sound quite extreme but won't your mash efficiency and clarity of your spargings confirm whether your sparge arm is any good or not?

I'm sure more knowlegable people can help

Cheers

Jason

[hophit]

I have one...same problem. Not as extreme. I was told by a friend that you can achieve a spin with a lower flow rate by raising the pressure of the water flowing through it, basically by raising the height of your sparge liqour kettle. Though never worked for me. I hate the thing - waste of money and a faff.

[Martin G]

Spinning looks cool but never got my head around what the benefit is over a non moving sprinkler approach.

[charliemartin]

I bought one too and have tried everything to get it to spin. I read that taping up some of the holes works, but it didn't make any difference to mine. Moved to batch sparging which works fine for me. Involves a bit more hands on than fly sparging, but since my spinner didn't spin anyway I had to be hands on during the process, so not much difference in my experience. Still get quite good efficiency too.

Cheers,
Charliemartin

[Derby Dabbler]

Yes I've got one and its rubbish. I've given up on the spinning. My technique now is to run off all of the first runnings and then refill with the sparge arm, leave the out tap on very slowly to keep the grain bed from floating and then refill with the sparge arm at top spinning speed, once there is an inch of water over the grain bed I slow the input down. This halts the spinning but the directional nature of the water spray makes the water in the tun rotate nicely.

Probably not better than a tube with holes in it but better than batch sparging

[orlando]

I fly sparge, have done from the start. I have batch sparged also but continuous sparge has become my method of choice. Not because the efficiency is slightly better than batch, not particularly bothered about that, nor am I bothered about it emulating the "professionals" as my only concern there is does it do a better job. In that I think the only advantage is that it helps me get really clear wort into the boiler, so for that reason only, I'm in. However, I do it because I can, I can't see any reason why a fixed sprinkler type system would give any worse results, if anything with better control over the flow you could sparge for longer and improve your efficiency. My next build will probably go for this method.

[hophit]

I fly sparge too if it is correct to say that a fixed sprinkler, rather than spining arm is still fly sparging. After giving up on the rotating sparge arm I made a fixed one from a spiral of flexible copper with small holes in it. By keeping the water above the grain bed about an inch deep I reckon the water will spread evenly temperature wise through convection. This way I am abe to get the flow rate even at about a pint per minute both in the top and out the bottom as it were.

Orlando - so you manage to get the spinning arm working? How do you do that?

[orlando]

Orlando - so you manage to get the spinning arm working? How do you do that?

Yes. I use gravity to "drive" it and for 3/4 of the sparge it happily spins away then as we get into that last phase, when the weight of water is no longer there, I have to occasionally flick it with a finger to keep it going. It's this point that begs the question as to how much benefit is derived from it spinning. I suspect very little.

[scuppeteer]

As I have a rectangular cool box mash tun, I can't be arsed to make a sensible size rotating sparge arm. So a piece of pipe from the HLT and a small watering can rose stuck on the end seems to work very well. Good efficiency and cheap at the same time. I do move it about over the mash occasionally whilst sparging but it works for me.

[TheSheeprug]

As I have a rectangular cool box mash tun, I can't be arsed to make a sensible size rotating sparge arm. So a piece of pipe from the HLT and a small watering can rose stuck on the end seems to work very well. Good efficiency and cheap at the same time. I do move it about over the mash occasionally whilst sparging but it works for me.

Quite. I use a cheap plastic shower head from Screwfix to sparge with my converted rectangular picnic box. Works very nicely, but I think at the price - a few ££ in their sale - I should have bought about 3 of them and build an array to cover the whole grain surface.

SR.