Batch of Fly?

I'm curious, do you batch sparge in one or two steps? And just to save time in-case you do 2 steps; Do you do equal sparges?

 

The time saved batch sparging is lost as batch size goes up, as you will be heating the wort as you collect it in fly sparging.

 

You are doing this with batch sparging too. The first runnings are heated as they are drained in and I may be at or close to a boil when the sparge is conducted.

 

True but in fly, how long it takes to sparge is where you lose time as your batches get bigger this becomes a non-factor. FWIW I am a batch sparger for the most part that is setup to be able to do either technique.

 

Started as a fly sparger, switched to batch and now back to fly. With my setup, fly sparge is set it and forget it, I can play with my kids while lautering is taking place because I have a float device that will, via gravity, maintain a constant depth of 1-2" of sparge water over the grain bed. Batch sparging was a bitch in that with each drain of the tun you need to stir the grains back up and start the process of lautering all over again. Not that much of a problem with 10lbs of grain but becomes more a process with 25lbs of grain in the tun. Fly sparging you only lauter once. I get slightly better extraction numbers with fly but it really that point is pretty much mute with me...~80% vs. ~82%.

In summary...build for fly, you can always batch sparge with that setup but if you ever want a set it and forget setup, you need to fly sparge.

 

wow...90%+! what are you using for a manifold?
I concur about the time saving aspect...I haven't lost any time going back to fly and have simplified my brew day greatly.

 

You can batch sparge in less than 30min? with more than one fill of water you need to lauter again, lautering till clear even twice will get you to the 30min mark easily

 

i recently hit 92% on a Kentucky common, things with lots of raw grains (oats, spelt, triticale, wheat) tend to be about 85%

 

About 1-2 minutes vorlauf and 5 minutes lauter. Repeat if necessary (depending on whether I'm doing a true batch sparge or a 'add water and do one running 'no-sparge'')

 

Batch.

 

shenanigans...kentucky common you can't count because of the slightly extraneous mash schedule
I have had 100% extract efficiency thanks (i guess) to a stuck sparge. I had to do a modified batch sparge of drain until it stuck, refill, stir, drain until stuck, repeat like 6 times...stupid rye.

To the OP, quick pros vs. cons from my prospective
pros: for batch sparging is it is pretty much idiot proof and less equipment required. IF you have a system that allows for rapid draining of the MLT, then it should be a time saver.
cons: Requires multiple stirring & lauterings. Also(this is a contentious thing just like hsa) is that you're exposing grains to oxygen which can be detrimental to the wort.
for fly sparging Pros: can be done to be a set-it and forget only having to stir & lauter once. Grains are never exposed to oxygen and you should be
cons: possibly more time consuming. Also you can screw up a fly sparge fairly easily and be way off from your projected numbers if you don't know how to do it properly. This dissuades a lot of hbers.

I would recommend trying it some time if you can do an easy gravity feed set-up. You'll never know until you try.

 

I may be missing something, but I think this is the same thing as HSA, or more specifically, one of the ways to cause HSA. (To the extent HSA is or isn't important in practice).

 

I don't know about that, I vorlauf for about a min, maybe two, then drain the tun as fast as it'll go, which takes five min.

 

Depends on the gravity of the beer, for smaller beers, one sparge, for bigger beers two, for huge beers three with the first two going to the main batch and the third going to either a small beer, or boiled down and into mason jars for starter wort. The sparges are not equal, when I do two it will be something like 2/3-1/3.

 

What's your timeframe look like if you do a 3 hour brew day? 20 min mash 40 min boil?

 

Why not an even split?

 

Because an uneven split yields higher efficiency.

 

I have heard this before. But I have also modeled the diluted gravity of the final wort left behind in the tun, and found that for a double batch sparge, 50/50 should yield the lowest gravity wort left behind (and thus the highest gravity for the extracted wort.) Nobody has sanity checked my spreadsheet though, so if anyone would like it, BM me. Or I guess I should say Conversation me.

 

I generally fly sparge, although there isn't necessarily a need to always do one or the other depending on your equipment. Equipment suitable for fly sparge can be used for batch whenever you want. On the other hand I believe that some tun geometries suitable for batch may not work well for fly (I have no direct experience, but I think a set up that results in a lot of surface and little grain depth may be just fine for batch, but that setup would not be great for fly).

I tried batch sparging after discussions on these forums, but I agree with ryan and telejunkie above that I didn't see as big a difference in time as some would suggest, especially if you do multiple batches. I've fly sparged for so long that it's pretty much on autopilot at this point. Before I tried batch I would sometimes use no-sparge, and for those cases when I'd be inclined to use batch again (i.e, when I am under time pressure and am brewing not too big of a beer), I'd just go to no-sparge and really save time. However, the results I got batch sparging were just fine - I just didn't see a huge advantage to make me want to use it all the time. Admittedly, I'm more familiar with fly and it could just be "the way I do it".

 

I didnt sour mash, I did a normal 60min mash and added a souring culture. My table beers are generally 88-93%efficiency 1040-1045 OG, bigger beers 1060+ tend to be 83-85%, and in fact the only time Ive dipped below that in the past 2-3yrs was when my dog tipped over my mashtun and I lost about 4qts of grain and water