Batch of Fly?

All other things being equal...

Fly is more efficient.
Batch is easier to build and do.
Batch is faster.

 

I batch sparge, have never fly sparged, and probably never will. Batch is much faster, easier, and cheaper. I get between 82-85% extract eff on batch sparge. While fly spargers are just starting to boil I am cleaning up. When fly spargers are cooling, I am already moving on with life. I can partigyle or do single mash split boils and have 2 beers done in about the same time as a fly counterpart takes for one. That seems more efficient to me than a couple gravity points. TEHO, but I don't see the point.

 

Batch. It's cheap and on a homebrew-level it doesn't cost much more.

 

This, plus time savings, are to me the best arguments for batch sparging. Commercial brewers fly sparge because they have to. Most of us don't. Though I imagine some find it fun, and an interesting process, and traditional. And necessary for partigyle brewing I guess.

Edit: "Necessary" is too strong a word.

 

Batch. I am done with most my brew days after 3-3:30 hrs

 

I built my current system to be horizontal, temp controlled (RIMS, but might include direct fire), recirculate and not having to lift liquid. I'm not sure if I could batch sparge.

I run my sparge faster than most people so I'm not loosing much time at all.

With batch sparging can you do anything other than simple infusion mashes? Or can you do them easily? It seems to me while batch sparging is very convenient and is a great method, I'm not sure if the correct approach is simply batch vs fly sparge. Frankly I'm not sure if I ever decided which I was doing. I just kept making the process how I wanted it to be and it just sorta evolved.

My recommendation is if there is a local club near by, see if you can hook-up with some brewers and see what they do.

 

Just curious, but why couldn't you lauter and then reload a batch of water from your HLT? I may be picturing your setup wrong.

 

Yes you can step mash and decoct very easily. Just takes a little math.

 

I guess that my bottle neck or weakest link, if you will is that I pump from the MLT and it doesn't run that fast. So it seems just intuitive to run from the HLT at the same speed. I'm not sure why since I have an easy hands free way (as I use the same kettle pump) to transfer from the HLT to the MT why I wouldn't use it.

The biggest bugger is that I have to keep an eye on everything. I do use this time to do other things though.

Can you do it with pumps?

When I batch sparged I was always lifting/caring liquid. My point is that I want to use pumps, so it just seems logical to not batch sparge.

 

I have a local brewing buddy who does. He pumps water from his HLT kettle into the mash kettle. But I still may not be picturing your setup right. How are you getting your fly sparge water into the mash kettle?

Edit: Nevermind. Somehow I missed the first half of your post and thought the pumps question was about filling the kettle (not decoction)!

 

No problem. I sure that I'm missing ways to do things. But part of my point is to bring out the process for the OP so he can choose. Hey I know that pretty much all of the ways to mash were used long before pumps and what we have now. But as I said I think that there is a bit more to think about than just batch vs. sparge.

I'm still building my system and I'm taking a slow approach. It's just that everyone looks at the definition of easy/hard a bit differently. For instance in another post I showed how I use a grant post MT. It can be a pain and I know that some people would take a sledge hammer to it before they were even dome mashing. But I saw it as an easy solution to a problem that was created when I started to re-circulate. As I work on things the grant might get improved on and stay, or it might go.

 

I've been fly sparging for 20 years and have never had a reason to change. Works well for me. Time is not an issue for me. Some of the above posts make it sound like brewing is a chore to get through ASAP like mowing the lawn. I relish every hour of my brew days!

 

I batch sparge because it's faster, it requires no extra equipment, and it works. I get 80% efficiency doing it this way and see no good reason to switch.

 

I batch sparge and get between 75% and 85% depending on the size of the beer. No need for any extra equipment imo.

 

the time savings are a myth. I fly sparge in little under 30min, get 90%+ efficiency, trick is using a pump to get things recirculated and maintain the water in the grain bed

my go to method for mashing is as follows

mash in - 35ish minutes
mash out + recirculation - 10-15min
lauter/sparge - 30min

 

Both methods produce great beer, or at least they can. I batch but have for the most part but have tuns that can do both. My efficiency batching is typically 83-86% so pretty good. In reply to ryane if you are doing 10+ gallon batches you are correct about time, for 5 gallon batches batch sparging is definitely faster.

 

I don't think the time savings are a myth. In general, batch sparging is faster, and I can do it a whole lot faster than 30 minutes. I think maybe you're saying that the question is how much value (if any) any individual assigns to the time savings. For you, it would be little or none, and (reading between the lines), you're efficiency (or some other benefit) is worth more than time savings.

 

How does batch size change this relationship?

 

I fly sparge. The best effeciency I have got is 82%. I may try to batch sparge next time.