To Sparge or not to Sparge.

[iowalad]

I have only batch sparged. It works great for me and my system. I don't see how it is more work but frankly I don't see it as significantly easier. What problems I have had have been of the user error variety.

I don't see myself going to fly sparging any time soon but am sure I will give it a go sometime just to do something different.

[monk]

I've also only batch-sparged. There was a fairly huge debate over the merits of these two methods on another forum, but I found it to be way too theoretical for my taste. I have a feeling that both methods, once they are fine-tuned to your particular system, become very comfortable and fairly efficient. Not too much difference, really, once you get started. I started out batch sparging because it's the first method I could conceptualize well (<Forrest Gump voice> "I am not a sma-art man."). Now that I've done it a number of times, I realize that fly-sparging is pretty similar and how it works.
As to vorlaufing and milky colored wort...when I used a wide, rectangular mash tun cooler, it took forever to clear the wort. But my regular system is a tall, fairly sknny cylinder type cooler. If it's got more that 4 kg of grain in it, the vorlauf only takes one draw--about 1.5 liters--to go clear.

monk

[prolix]

batch sparging seems simple enough and almost temping, but it does not leave you time for a long cool TC as you listen to the eak.... eak..... eak..... of the spiny sparger. I just open up 25l of hot liquour and let her go the adjusting takes a few seconds at most and the vorlaufing (new word to me) is the only difficult bit.

[SteveD]

I think the debate, and many others on different topics, illustrates the truism in brewing that there are 'many ways to skin a cat', and I don't think there is categorically a 'best way' because of the variable organic nature of the craft. We merely guide the process, and nature gets on with it one way or the other.

[monk]

We merely guide the process, and nature gets on with it one way or the other.

Too true! We provide the right ingredients, and our little yeasty friends make the beer.

[itmustbemagic]

Thanks everyone for all your views and advice. It certainly is a bit of a split camp on this one! The more I looked into it the more interesting it became.

Some views on the web came over very strongly on the Batch Sparge side..

"Many Homebrewers are more concerned with making the best possible beer, than with making the cheapest possible beer. Fly sparging does not provide the best possible beer"

"The practise of rinsing the grain with clean water from the top, while drawing off the wort from the bottom certainly provides the highest efficiency,but it does so at the expense of flavour."

EEEEK I bet that winds some of you up!

This could run and run.........................................

[bitter_dave]

"Many Homebrewers are more concerned with making the best possible beer, than with making the cheapest possible beer. Fly sparging does not provide the best possible beer"

Absolute nonsense. Why do people adopt such entrenched positions? I moved from batch sparging to fly sparging, and the quality of my beer didn't go down, it went up.... although I'm not saying this is because of the change in sparging. I like fly sparging with a spinny sparger because you can leave it to get on with it, but I can totally understand that batch sparging suits other people better.

[itmustbemagic]

"
Absolute nonsense. Why do people adopt such entrenched positions? .

Well that was quick!!

[bitter_dave]

[BarryNL]

Personally, I think once my sanitation is 100% perfect and I have a system where I can perfectly control my temperatures THEN I might start worrying about the difference between batch and fly sparging. Until then...

[PieOPah]

All of my AG brews have been of the 'Batch Sparge' variety. That is until my last one.

All the brews had their own problems. I was unable to get a decent vourloff so ended up with a lot of grain particles in my beer. I found that having to do the vourloff a number of times (for each 'sparge') was annoying and I lost patience.

While ALL of the beers have been a success, the process I used to reach the end goal never seemed all that easy (despite Batch apparently being easier!)

My last brew I Fly Sparged. The only 2 problems I had were extremely minor.
1). My home made sparger sucked so probably effected my efficiency.
2). I stopped collecting wort way too early (although I did have enough) so this effected my efficiency.

Point number 2 is likely a direct result of number 1.

Of every AG brew I have done, I found that the Fly Sparge brew was the easiest and most hassle free. The beer in the boiler was much cleaner looking. I could very probably say that this is the only hassle free brew day I have had.

I very much imagine that I will only ever Fly Sparge again.

[huh]

Confused about batch sparging calculations.

Isn't the water-to-grain ratio of the mash (in the calculation on page 1) very low? If you have 5kg of malt, and mash it in 10L you end up with a water-to-grain ration of 2:1. If you include the calculation of water absorption you end up with something close to 1:1. John Palmer's book recommends mashing around 4.2L/Kg for an average gravity ale (seems high) while the norm seems to be around 2.3-3.3 L/kg. According to David Edge in Midlands Craft Brewers (2006 newsletter), it's very difficult to get conversion below 2.0 L/kg.

My guestimate when I tried batch sparging was:
Mash Water = Grist * 2.5l/kg + Grist (takes account of absorption)
Sparge Water = Remaining liquor needed.

Added extra water to mash water to compensate for headspace & boiloff. Thus I based my calcs on what I wanted post-boil.

Don't remember what efficiency I got however (did it about a year ago). Do my calculations seem way off?

[Andy]

A lot of people don't worry about absorbtion when calculating the grain/grist ratio. Instead they top up the mash (after mash complete) with an amount of sparge liquor such that the runoff will be half of the required boil volume. After that first runoff is complete then the remaining sparge liqour is added, mash stirred, left to settle and then runoff again.

[ColinKeb]

i fly sparge for two reasons;

1) i love the three tier set up and the squeak....squeak.....of the sparge arm , its looks really heath robinson and impressive .

2) i like my beer so i dont want to change the way i make it

simple