Fly Sparging Temperature

[bennyc]

Howdy all,

Quick question on fly sparging. Most of what I've read (from memory) says that sparge water should be heated to 78 for sparging. Just wondering though, do I need to worry about heat loss through the tube, sparge arm and then air before the sparge water hits the grain bed? i.e. Should I actually be heating the sparge water to hotter than 78 so that, taking into account heat loss, the water hitting the grain bed is actually 78?

If so, does anyone have a rough idea of what temp it should be?

Thanks

Ben

 

[hughman666]

you should be raising the grain bed temp from mashing temps (63-68c) to 78c when sparging, so this would mean that you run the water hotter than 78c. i run it initially at 100c which brings it up to the high 70s and then bring it down to 80ish to level out.

Howdy all,

Quick question on fly sparging. Most of what I've read (from memory) says that sparge water should be heated to 78 for sparging. Just wondering though, do I need to worry about heat loss through the tube, sparge arm and then air before the sparge water hits the grain bed? i.e. Should I actually be heating the sparge water to hotter than 78 so that, taking into account heat loss, the water hitting the grain bed is actually 78?

If so, does anyone have a rough idea of what temp it should be?

Thanks

Ben

 

[Sammus]

I thought the 78 was trying to take that into account already? Everything I've read says you shouldn't raise the mash above about 70 until you sparge, which should be at 75-76C max.

 

[mika]

Past 78degs you can start drawing bad stuff out of the mash, leading to clarity problems. Take 78degs as your top temp, start running your sparge water thru and measure your grain bed temperature, adjust for future brews if necessary. It's not going to matter if it's lightly lower for the first trial, it's only to try and get the sugars hot enough to rinse thru.

 

[bennyc]

Thanks for the replies everyone. In past brews I had run it through at 78 but had noticed that the grain bed wasn't at 78 - just wanted to make sure that it was safe to raise the temp of the sparge water a bit more.

Ben

 

[hughman666]

typically the mash out (if you do one) should be around 74-76 and sparging shouldn't go past 78c but should be as close as possible. you will notice that if you sparge at a temp lower than 78 (eg low 70s) your efficiency will suffer.

I thought the 78 was trying to take that into account already? Everything I've read says you shouldn't raise the mash above about 70 until you sparge, which should be at 75-76C max.