Hi All, just done my first brew after a 12 year break, complete with a 3 tier set-up and a converted wash house (now a brew house) I've been putting together over the past months.
Done an Abbot's clone which is fermenting away nicely.Everything went smooth except the run-off after the boil,used a S/S braid which is now in the bin, now making a copper manifold.
One quick question, what temp should I be sparging at ? Did it @ 80c.
Back To The Grain
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SteveD
Agree. I wondered about what the differential between HLT temp and mash bed temp was a little while back so I started monitoring the temperature near the top of the grain bed during sparge (you can see the thermometer in the sparging pic on the Porter post). First time I did it I was a bit taken a back by the fact that an HLT temp of 80c was barely making 60c in the grain bed. A virtual boil was needed to get the mash bed over 70c.DaaB wrote:I've found in practice, even starting with boiling water in my HLT and spraying the grains with a sparge arm the grain bed doesnt reach 77 deg.
In short, imo 80 deg c is fine
I think this is something that homebrew writers have missed, one after the other, as they mostly copy each other - a good old school one was 'chuck calcium carbonate (precipitate of chalk) into liquor to make stouts'...They all say sparge with liquor at...77c, 80c, or whatever. I think they assume the bed will be at the same temperature. None I've read say specifically'sparge with liquor at a temperature which gives you a mash bead at 77c etc, which is the pertinent point.
They certainly have mate (at least for me).Frothy wrote:Welcome back tango man, have things improved much in 12years?
Frothy
How about sparging through an old net curtain with a watering can,or bailing out of the boiler with a jug and rinsing the hops through a sieve, 'many a burnt hand I've had',still the beer always came out OK!
Thanks for the advice lads.