How I learned to stop worrying and love the Batch Sparge

[AaronWesternNY]

Interesting post- I have been batch sparging for years and never had anyone tell me they were getting tannins from my beers. I stovetop brew. I have a rectangular cooler with a thick plastic hose with a ton of small holes drilled in it and a stopper at the one end. What I do is: 1 pot to boil, one pot to heat sparge water. I run all my sparge water through my grain bed, 3 or 4 sparges, sometimes 5 sparges until I hit my preboil volume. I know I hit my preboil volume by measuring on my boil kettle. Every sparge I vaurlof, use a pitcher to get from mash tun to boil kettle, taste it- or take a gravity reading, and I am almost always tasting sugars. Each sparge I refill the mash tun with hot water, below 185, to just above the grains- stir and let sit for 5 min or so. The bottleneck for me is the boil kettle, it all has to boil sometime- so there really isn't any rush for me to get through the sparges. The boil kettle can only heat so fast. Towards the end of each batch sparge I place something under the rectangle cooler to make an angle so there is less sparge water left in the bottom of the cooler. After I hit my preboil volume I split the batch, use my sparge water pot and have two 3.5-4 gallon pots boiling, the hops get split between the 2 pots, and get recombined to the same carboy to ferment. This is just what I do. I never understood why only 1 sparge after the first one...

[slanted & enchanted]

shiiiiiiit.

63% efficiency.

I did everything right this time. calibrated all my vessels for liquid volume... Mashed for 60 minutes...vorlauf...ran off wort for 10 minutes.

sparged with 180 degree water...stirred for 10 minutes...waited 10 minutes...ran off for 10 minutes.

repeated...

Had almost 1/2 gallon left in the mash tun after i hit my volume, that couldn't be the problem, that wort was nearly colorless.

this was a 1.071, 13.5 gallon batch rye ipa. ended up with 13.5 gallons but 1.065 og if memory serves, don't have the numbers in front of me. I checked with my refractometer AND hydrometer (haven't used that thing in years).

what sucked is my preboil gravity and volume was dead on 70%. must have had some stratification in the wort though. fools gold, i tell you!

I'm going to get one of our customers in to show us how it's done, but i'm going to measure all their water before they start. I'm beginning to think getting decent efficiency with batch sparging is impossible. are all you guys in on this mass conspiracy!?!?!?!

[mookie1010]

I get 75%-80% with batch sparging in a converted SS keg with a false bottom.

[slanted & enchanted]

NANANANANANANANA!!! (fingers in ears)

I did not read that!

I get 75%-80% with batch sparging in a converted SS keg with a false bottom.

[AaronWesternNY]

Are you sure you are calculating efficiency correctly?

[slanted & enchanted]

Absolutely. I am dialed in like a mofo. I weigh out my water and tick off gallons on a dipstick. I use 3 different thermometers to check my temps. I use my refract constantly through the process and at the end double check with a hydrometer.

I just brewed a 13.5 gallon batch in my converted keg system, fly sparging, and hit 84 percent efficiency, which is unusually high for me. I'm at 78-80 percent nearly always. I'm talking 350 batches deep of 78-70 percent efficiency, with maybe 10 outside that range... that's why this batch sparging is so vexing!

I'm setting up a few sessions with some customers that see good efficiency batch sparging. I'm going to annoy the shit out of them with all my double checking and questions!

[mookie1010]

Absolutely. I am dialed in like a mofo. I weigh out my water and tick off gallons on a dipstick. I use 3 different thermometers to check my temps. I use my refract constantly through the process and at the end double check with a hydrometer.

I just brewed a 13.5 gallon batch in my converted keg system, fly sparging, and hit 84 percent efficiency, which is unusually high for me. I'm at 78-80 percent nearly always. I'm talking 350 batches deep of 78-70 percent efficiency, with maybe 10 outside that range... that's why this batch sparging is so vexing!

I'm setting up a few sessions with some customers that see good efficiency batch sparging. I'm going to annoy the shit out of them with all my double checking and questions!

Make sure you are stirring the shit out of that mofo.

[hopshead]

I can't wait to hear the results. Post back when you brew with your customers.