Batch vs fly sparge

[Dave S]

I only started batch-sparging about two years back, after twenty-odd years of fly. Been kicking myself ever since for not switching earlier. Fly= fiddly,messy,tedious and prone to going very wrong if you're not on the ball, and not very efficient. Batch= simple,clean,almost foolproof and excellent efficiency. That's how I see things,anyroad.

+1

[Kev888]

The only real advantages of fly sparging for me are that it optimises capacity of the Mash Tun, and you don't need to mix up the grain each time - which saves a lot of effort with bigger grin bills. But theres less to go wrong with batch sparging - its much harder to over-sparge, chanelling won't significantly lower your yeild and so on - so I suspect more repeatable in many cases.

People's quoted efficiencies even within a given method of sparging vary so much anyway that comparing between batch and fly sparging generally isn't that easy - except to say that as theres no clear winner or looser it almost certainly doesn't matter much in general. How they compare on an individuals setup will be somewhat specific to them, in any case.

IMHO people can get over-concerned about efficiency anyway; as long as it isn't unusually low what really matters in a non-commercial setup is predictability (so that you can plan your gravities) and quality of what is extracted - I'd be happy to drop a few percent (and so add a tiny bit more malt) assuming it was predictable and let me use my favourite sparging method.

To be a bit more controversial I suspect many of the efficiency claims you see are potentially misleading anyway. Mash efficiency depends on so many variable things (what the brewer decided to assume 100% would be, how far they chose to sparge before stopping, the mash and sparge temperatures they used etc) most of which can naturally change between brewers and recipies even before you get to measurement inaccuracy, calculation errors and bragging rights.

Cheers
kev

[Underthethumb]

I batch sparge and for the last 5 or 6 brews have always reached a higher OG than the calculated value, and that's allowing for 81% extract potential. It seemed to coincide with me stopping using Baird's malt and moving to Warminster. Baird's always gave me a lower OG. So I too question whether batch sparging is less efficient than fly.

I'm using Bairds malt at the moment and am getting rotten efficiency. The other week I used Weyermann bohemian pilsner malt and my efficiency was over 10 points higher.

[Martin G]

Fly sparging may or may not be a better process, but don't agree that it is fiddly. Recirculate for a few mins untill happy it is clean and then send the wort to the boiler, drop the sparge water by gravity from the HLT through a fixed shower head and sparge for about 20mins, just checking and tweaking the flow from the HLT once or twice to keep a few cm's over the grain. Result is nice clean wort in the boiler, am I missing something?

[Wezzel]

Fly sparging is a piece of pi$$. Before I had my spinny sparge arm I just trickled jugs of hot water slowly over the grain bed. It's quite therapeutic and if you do it carefully you don't even need tinfoil with holes in. Always had decent efficiency.

[guypettigrew]

A spinny spage arm is definitely the answer.

Set the inflow rate from the HLT through the sparge arm to the right speed, set the run out rate from the mash tun to the right speed, then everything is lovely!

The hot liquor flows onto the grain bed, the clear wort runs out from the mash tun.

Guy

[Dave S]

I batch sparge and for the last 5 or 6 brews have always reached a higher OG than the calculated value, and that's allowing for 81% extract potential. It seemed to coincide with me stopping using Baird's malt and moving to Warminster. Baird's always gave me a lower OG. So I too question whether batch sparging is less efficient than fly.

I'm using Bairds malt at the moment and am getting rotten efficiency. The other week I used Weyermann bohemian pilsner malt and my efficiency was over 10 points higher.

Yes, there're quite a few people on here that have had issues with Baird's, particularly their MO as I recall. It's a pity really because some shops I liked to use I've stopped buying from because they only do Bairds. So unless I need a quantity of their other products to make the shipping costs worthwhile, I tend to shop elsewhere.

[banjokat]

Fly sparging is easy, this is how I do it. Useful skill to have if your mashtun is too small for a batch sparge.

[orlando]

Fly sparging may or may not be a better process, but don't agree that it is fiddly. Recirculate for a few mins untill happy it is clean and then send the wort to the boiler, drop the sparge water by gravity from the HLT through a fixed shower head and sparge for about 20mins, just checking and tweaking the flow from the HLT once or twice to keep a few cm's over the grain. Result is nice clean wort in the boiler, am I missing something?

No, with you all the way. Tried both and had success with both, what decides it for me is wort clarity into the boiler. When I batch sparged it was a little longer to get the clarity when recirculating so the advantage of speed that batch sparging is alleged to have didn't materialise. Just leaves the question, how important is wort clarity into the boiler? In the end it's about what happens in the glass and in that regard the rest is really academic.

[The Dribbler]

Since I've only been brewing AG for 9 months, I have only tried Batch sparging.
Never had any problem with efficiency, usually a little too high if anything.
I love the simplicity and ease of batch.
However, My wort to the boiler is clear as MUD, I usually recirculate 4 -5 litres but its still just cloudy.

All that extra clould carries over past boiling and I get a lot of stuff in my FV. + I get problems with chill haze

[Underthethumb]

Since I've only been brewing AG for 9 months, I have only tried Batch sparging.
Never had any problem with efficiency, usually a little too high if anything.
I love the simplicity and ease of batch.
However, My wort to the boiler is clear as MUD, I usually recirculate 4 -5 litres but its still just cloudy.

All that extra clould carries over past boiling and I get a lot of stuff in my FV. + I get problems with chill haze

Cloudy wort in the boiler is normal and should largely precipitate out with cooling. Chill haze results from leftover proteins if the boil isn't rigorous enough. I think this is more likely to be the issue.

[Capped]

Cloudy wort in the boiler is normal and should largely precipitate out with cooling. Chill haze results from leftover proteins if the boil isn't rigorous enough. I think this is more likely to be the issue.

When I switched to batch-sparging after aeons of fly, my biggest concern was my total inability to get a clear run-off from the MT. I stopped worrying about it when it became evident that a cloudy pre-boil wort made no difference whatsoever to the final product. But get this (albeit drifting onto another matter) - with my last brew I didn't bother to crash-cool after the boil; just let the boiler sit and cool overnight. Again, I was concerned with clarity but now,just six days after bottling that brew, it is star-bright. Sorry don't have the means to post pics but honestly I'm amazed at the speed it has cleared and the brilliance of it. Ya live and learn,even after all these years of following consensus.....

[newtonsshed]

My concern when having to move from fly to batch sparging after breaking my brass sparge arm, is with depending how you do batch sparging, you can end up over sparging and not using all of the additional runnings, which is still mixed with the over sparged additional liqour. With fly sparging, as you balance the flow you can immediatly respond and stop once either gravity has reached the lowest point you want to go, or until you have collected the final volume. With batch sparging you drain off and re fill to pretty much the same level as before, which as I say could be beyound the lowest pre boil gravity ie over sparge, causing issues with PH and tennins and you may only have needed 5l out the 20l that have been added. Having done batch sparging and leaving wort to cool overnight and not using finnings again I never really noticed a difference in clarity/taste going from one to other. Having siad that I do recall one attampt at Fullers ESB that looked hazy rather than straw coloured and at the time I was more brewing darker beers anyway so didn't follow it up and I've not brewed in some time now (4 years since moving house) I need to get back in to brewing and check how clear my pale ales are!

[Dave S]

My concern when having to move from fly to batch sparging after breaking my brass sparge arm, is with depending how you do batch sparging, you can end up over sparging and not using all of the additional runnings, which is still mixed with the over sparged additional liqour. With fly sparging, as you balance the flow you can immediatly respond and stop once either gravity has reached the lowest point you want to go, or until you have collected the final volume. With batch sparging you drain off and re fill to pretty much the same level as before, which as I say could be beyound the lowest pre boil gravity ie over sparge, causing issues with PH and tennins and you may only have needed 5l out the 20l that have been added. Having done batch sparging and leaving wort to cool overnight and not using finnings again I never really noticed a difference in clarity/taste going from one to other. Having siad that I do recall one attampt at Fullers ESB that looked hazy rather than straw coloured and at the time I was more brewing darker beers anyway so didn't follow it up and I've not brewed in some time now (4 years since moving house) I need to get back in to brewing and check how clear my pale ales are!

Wow! 4 years since your last brew, staying with the forum and resisting what for me would be an uncontrollable urge - that's will power.

On Batch sparging, apart from low extract from Baird's, I've never had a problem with it. Always get the calculated or higher gravity and the target length. Having said that, everything will probably go pear-shaped now

Do me a favour Newton - get brewing.

[Ben711200]

At the risk of sounding a complete muppet, are there any guides online that give a 'how to' on both methods? Probably being a bit anal about it all, but trying to get my head around as much as possible before I actually take the plunge and start my first AG brew.