Mashing Out With Fly Sparging.

[dalpets]

Hi everybody,

Are there pros & cons doing a mashout prior to fly sparging.? Could I have some opinions please, based on your experience with it?.

Thanks
dalpets

 

[bulp]

Hey dalpets

Mashing out isn't compulsory , what it does is lock in the fermentability of your mash it's more for repeatability of a given recipe. What it does is stop conversion of the enzymes in your mash , required no, desired probably , its up to you.

 

[Banshee]

What bulp said.

 

[dalpets]

Accepting that it locks in fermability & is more repeatable what can one expect hypothetically, if one is not concerned about repeatability, and it is not used? Would the result likely be more fermentable or less so, or are there other possibilities?.

 

[bulp]

Accepting that it locks in fermability & is more repeatable what can one expect hypothetically, if one is not concerned about repeatability, and it is not used? Would the result likely be more fermentable or less so, or are there other possibilities?.

I don't know if this is going to make sense because i'm on to my third glass of eisbock, but it depends, it depends on your mash temp and length of time mashing at that temp. Not performing a mash out won't necessarily mean you'll have a more fermentable wort or a less fermentable wort. if you mash at 67 degrees for 90 mins it's not going to make much difference as all the enzymes in said mash will have done their job , where as if you mash at 65 degrees for 15 mins and don't do a mash out the enzymes will continue to work untill they get to their denaturing temperatures during the sparge, The Beta and Alpha amalayse enzymes denature at different temperatures so the fermentabilty and profile of the beer your trying to make will be harder to reproduce or predict. i hope this makes sense it's late and i need to go to bed.

 

[dalpets]

I don't know if this is going to make sense because i'm on to my third glass of eisbock, but it depends, it depends on your mash temp and length of time mashing at that temp. Not performing a mash out won't necessarily mean you'll have a more fermentable wort or a less fermentable wort. if you mash at 67 degrees for 90 mins it's not going to make much difference as all the enzymes in said mash will have done their job , where as if you mash at 65 degrees for 15 mins and don't do a mash out the enzymes will continue to work untill they get to their denaturing temperatures during the sparge, The Beta and Alpha amalayse enzymes denature at different temperatures so the fermentabilty and profile of the beer your trying to make will be harder to reproduce or predict. i hope this makes sense it's late and i need to go to bed.

Thanks bulp. Yes it does make sense and thank you for your input at such a late hour. As it turns out I think the eisbock probably served to enhance your reply.

Cheers
dalpets

 

[Sammus]

Why has noone mentioned ease of lautering? Sure it might stop conversion, but after an hour long mash, pretty much everything that's converted is gunna be, and I think that noone really does a mash out for that reason (since penis length is directly proportional to efficiency, right?). Mashing out is essential for fly sparging, in fact, I'd say it's useless for batch "sparging", and it should only really be used if you're proper sparging. Heating up the mash to 75-80ish makes it so much thinner and it runs off a lot more easily than if you just do it straight from mash.

 

[MeLoveBeer]

Why has noone mentioned ease of lautering?

To be honest its my main reason for including a mash out in my process. I've never skipped the mash out step and never had a stuck sparge... don't know if its a coincidence, but I'm not prepared to risk sparging problems and find out.

 

[dalpets]

There seems to be consensus that a mash out serves to facilitate optimal lautering with fly sparging,
On that basis I have a few question about fly sparge cycles since this will be my first attempt at it.
The recommendation around the traps seems to be to leave approx 1" of liquid above the grain bed after each lauter cycle.

How much sparge water should be introduced for each sparge cycle?. Is it, for example, an extra 3 or 4 inches on top of the existing 1 inch?.

How long should the sparge water sit on the grain bed before lautering each cycle?. Should it be immediate?

Can sparging, with experience, be continuously maintained & regulated to match the output of each lautering cycle?

Thanks
dalpets

 

[MeLoveBeer]

There seems to be consensus that a mash out serves to facilitate optimal lautering with fly sparging,
On that basis I have a few question about fly sparge cycles since this will be my first attempt at it.
The recommendation around the traps seems to be to leave approx 1" of liquid above the grain bed after each lauter cycle.

How much sparge water should be introduced for each sparge cycle?. Is it, for example, an extra 3 or 4 inches on top of the existing 1 inch?.

How long should the sparge water sit on the grain bed before lautering each cycle?. Should it be immediate?

Can sparging, with experience, be continuously maintained & regulated to match the output of each lautering cycle?

Thanks
dalpets

Fly sparging is a continual rinsing of your grain, so the idea is to maintain a consistent flow rate coming in and flowing out of your MLT (filling it up to a point, letting it sit, then running it out is called batch sparging). I usually aim for 1" of water sitting over the grain bed, but it doesn't really matter as long as your grain remains dry (the 1" is to allow for the ebb and flow as you try and balance your flow rates).

Edit: speeling

 

[dalpets]

Fly sparging is a continual rinsing of your grain, so the idea is to maintain a consistent flow rate coming in and flowing out of your MLT (filling it up to a point, letting it sit, then running it out is called batch sparging). I usually aim for 1" of water sitting over the grain bed, but it doesn't really matter as long as your grain remains dry (the 1" is to allow for the ebb and flow as you try and balance your flow rates).

Edit: speeling

Should the sparge and lauter rate be matched at a very slow rate?. Presumably too fast and the grain bed is compromised.

Could you please elaborate on what you mean by "as long as your grain remains dry"?

Thanks
dalpets

 

[Thirsty Boy]

With continuous sparging, you have only one lautering cycle - and it is, well - continuous; and goes on till you have fininshed.

About one inch above the grain bed isn't what you end up with after a "cycle" it is what you try to maintain during the whole period of lautering.

*So, you finish your mash, do your mash out.
*Begin to run oFf wort nice and slowly, re-circulate it gently back on top of your grainbed taking care not to let it woosh in there and disturb the grains very much
*Once the wort is running reasonably clear, this is a sign that your grain bed is properly set and you can begin to run off to your kettle.
*Run off to your kettle at 1L per minute or less, the slower you go, the higher the efficiency you will get
*When the wort drops to about an inch above the grain bed, start to add your spare water. You can either add it continuously, drawing from the bottom and adding from the top at roughly the same rate, trying to maintain about an inch of liquid above the grains (fly sparging) or you can add a flood of water and then stop adding, till you drain back down to an inch above the grain again before adding another flood (flood sparging).
*Stop sparging when you have either reached your kettle volume, or whenever the gravity of the wort you are running off drops to about 1.010. Which is the point at which you might be starting to over sparge and extract undesirable compounds from the grain.

There are lots of little tweaks and variations - but thats the guts of of it

Fly sparging means you can pay less attention - you set it going and wander off for the 45+ mins of your sparge. But, you have to do the work of balancing the inflow of sparge water with the outflow of wort - its not too hard.

Flood sparging is easier to manage, just dump in some water & let it drain out again - but you have to be watching your pot so you know when to put in the next flood.

Hope that helps

TB

 

[MeLoveBeer]

Should the sparge and lauter rate be matched at a very slow rate?. Presumably too fast and the grain bed is compromised.

Yup, thats correct. Fly sparging is generally a much slower method of sparging.

Can you elaborate on what you mean by "as long as your grain remains dry"

Thanks
dalpets

That's the result of a long Monday at work Should have read "as long as your grain remains wet"

 

[Siborg]

Should the sparge and lauter rate be matched at a very slow rate?. Presumably too fast and the grain bed is compromised.

Could you please elaborate on what you mean by "as long as your grain remains dry"?

Thanks
dalpets

I think he meant wet
Edit: just saw your post, MLB.

Don't worry, I nearly did the same thing

 

[Siborg]

With continuous sparging, you have only one lautering cycle - and it is, well - continuous; and goes on till you have fininshed.

About one inch above the grain bed isn't what you end up with after a "cycle" it is what you try to maintain during the whole period of lautering.

*So, you finish your mash, do your mash out.
*Begin to run oFf wort nice and slowly, re-circulate it gently back on top of your grainbed taking care not to let it woosh in there and disturb the grains very much
*Once the wort is running reasonably clear, this is a sign that your grain bed is properly set and you can begin to run off to your kettle.
*Run off to your kettle at 1L per minute or less, the slower you go, the higher the efficiency you will get
*When the wort drops to about an inch above the grain bed, start to add your spare water. You can either add it continuously, drawing from the bottom and adding from the top at roughly the same rate, trying to maintain about an inch of liquid above the grains (fly sparging) or you can add a flood of water and then stop adding, till you drain back down to an inch above the grain again before adding another flood (flood sparging).
*Stop sparging when you have either reached your kettle volume, or whenever the gravity of the wort you are running off drops to about 1.010. Which is the point at which you might be starting to over sparge and extract undesirable compounds from the grain.

There are lots of little tweaks and variations - but thats the guts of of it

Fly sparging means you can pay less attention - you set it going and wander off for the 45+ mins of your sparge. But, you have to do the work of balancing the inflow of sparge water with the outflow of wort - its not too hard.

Flood sparging is easier to manage, just dump in some water & let it drain out again - but you have to be watching your pot so you know when to put in the next flood.

Hope that helps

TB

Good post, TB

I usually start going with the sparge water straight away. Will have to try it that way for the future. Would probably help keep my takeaway lid above the wort level.

I'll definitely be draining it till its about an inch above the grain bed next time.

 

[dalpets]

With continuous sparging, you have only one lautering cycle - and it is, well - continuous; and goes on till you have fininshed.

About one inch above the grain bed isn't what you end up with after a "cycle" it is what you try to maintain during the whole period of lautering.

*So, you finish your mash, do your mash out.
*Begin to run oFf wort nice and slowly, re-circulate it gently back on top of your grainbed taking care not to let it woosh in there and disturb the grains very much
*Once the wort is running reasonably clear, this is a sign that your grain bed is properly set and you can begin to run off to your kettle.
*Run off to your kettle at 1L per minute or less, the slower you go, the higher the efficiency you will get
*When the wort drops to about an inch above the grain bed, start to add your spare water. You can either add it continuously, drawing from the bottom and adding from the top at roughly the same rate, trying to maintain about an inch of liquid above the grains (fly sparging) or you can add a flood of water and then stop adding, till you drain back down to an inch above the grain again before adding another flood (flood sparging).
*Stop sparging when you have either reached your kettle volume, or whenever the gravity of the wort you are running off drops to about 1.010. Which is the point at which you might be starting to over sparge and extract undesirable compounds from the grain.

There are lots of little tweaks and variations - but thats the guts of of it

Fly sparging means you can pay less attention - you set it going and wander off for the 45+ mins of your sparge. But, you have to do the work of balancing the inflow of sparge water with the outflow of wort - its not too hard.

Flood sparging is easier to manage, just dump in some water & let it drain out again - but you have to be watching your pot so you know when to put in the next flood.

Hope that helps

TB

Thanks TB for your detailed & very informative reply.
Due to lack of knowledge I wasn't able to differentiate, initially, between the batch sparging & continuous fly sparging technique. I think I've got it now.

Let me see if I have this right.
After mash-out I can theoretically fill the mash tun with gentle, continuous slow rate sparge water say over 60 mins, or whatever the brewing software dictates, then go through the lautering process as you have described.


The problem I think I'm going to have is this. Having preheated my sparge water with the burner I intended to connect it to my March pump which is PID temp controlled via a heat exchanger. But the concern I have at this stage is if I partially close the input tap to the pump I may risk losing priming of the pump or worse burn it out. I don't know if the March pump is able to tolerate input regulation, albeit a sensible flow reduction. The other way I see to do it is to incorporate a tap on the sparge arm & although this might cause back pressure on the pump it may be the better way to go. I don't want to use a gravity feed of sparge water as my setup is such that I would have to man handle a considerable volume of water at the risk of doing myself considerable injury. So the pump is my only option.
What do you think?


Thanks again
dalpets

 

[wobblythongs]

My first brews where fly sparge as thats all I knew. Then I went in to Craftbrewer and was told how to batch sparge What a difference it made in time saving.

There is an easy read here about pros and cons of each.
http://www.brew365.com/technique_batch_sparge.php

 

[Thirsty Boy]

Thanks TB for your detailed & very informative reply.
Due to lack of knowledge I wasn't able to differentiate, initially, between the batch sparging & continuous fly sparging technique. I think I've got it now.

Let me see if I have this right.
After mash-out I can theoretically fill the mash tun with gentle, continuous slow rate sparge water say over 60 mins, or whatever the brewing software dictates, then go through the lautering process as you have described.


The problem I think I'm going to have is this. Having preheated my sparge water with the burner I intended to connect it to my March pump which is PID temp controlled via a heat exchanger. But the concern I have at this stage is if I partially close the input tap to the pump I may risk losing priming of the pump or worse burn it out. I don't know if the March pump is able to tolerate input regulation, albeit a sensible flow reduction. The other way I see to do it is to incorporate a tap on the sparge arm & although this might cause back pressure on the pump it may be the better way to go. I don't want to use a gravity feed of sparge water as my setup is such that I would have to man handle a considerable volume of water at the risk of doing myself considerable injury. So the pump is my only option.
What do you think?


Thanks again
dalpets

It may just be phrasing making confusion, but no, i still dont think you have it.

In batch sparging - you put in a portion of water, mix it all up ith the grain, then drain all the liquid out of your mash tun. Repeating the process as required.

In continuous sparging, you are adding water to the top of the grain and taking wort away from the bottom at the same time.

Think of it asmrinsing out your soapy socks instead of breweing. You have a bucket full of soapy socks you want to rinse befoer youdry them.

You can

a} empty the free soapy water from the bucket, fill the bucket with new clean water, swidh the socks around and tip out the water that is now soapy. Repeating this process till you hace gotten rid of all the soap.

or

b} empty out some of the soapy water and put the bucket under a running tap, let the water fill up the bucket and overflow, carrying away some soap as it goes down the drain. Keep on running the water into the bucket and letting it run off down the drain, till it has carried away all the soap.

The difference with brewing, is that instead of socks you have grain and instead of soap you have sugar - and you aren't looking for clean socks, you are looking to keep as much of the "soap" that used to be in the socks as you can.

a} is batch sparging
b} is continuous sparging

With your system, if you want to use a pump, then to continuous sparge, you will either have to have some aspect of your system, either the wort from the mash tun to the kettle, or the water from the HLT to the mashntun, running by gravity - or you will need two pumps. You need two simultaneous liquid flows to continuous sparge.

You can avoid gravity and uses one pump only if you batch sparge - you have only one liquid flow going at a time with batch sparging, so you can do it by swapping fittings/turning valves

March pump - you put your flow controlling ball valve on the output side of a magnetically coupled pump. March pumps hate input side flow restrctions, it will cavitate and you will damage it.

Why is your pump PID controled? or did i misrread that?

You dont need to manhandle the water up to a height... You have a pump. Pump it up there.
TB

 

[dalpets]

It may just be phrasing making confusion, but no, i still dont think you have it.

In batch sparging - you put in a portion of water, mix it all up ith the grain, then drain all the liquid out of your mash tun. Repeating the process as required.

In continuous sparging, you are adding water to the top of the grain and taking wort away from the bottom at the same time.

Think of it asmrinsing out your soapy socks instead of breweing. You have a bucket full of soapy socks you want to rinse befoer youdry them.

You can

a} empty the free soapy water from the bucket, fill the bucket with new clean water, swidh the socks around and tip out the water that is now soapy. Repeating this process till you hace gotten rid of all the soap.

or

b} emoty out some of the soapy water and put the bucket under a running tap, let the water fill up the bucket and overflow, carrying away some soap as itmgoesmdown the drain. Keep on running the water into the bucket and letting it run off doen the drain, till itmhas carried away all the soap.

The difference with brewing, is that instead of socks you have grain and instead of soap you have sugar - and you aren't looking for clean socks, you are looking to keep as much of the "soap" that used to be in the socks as you can.

a} is batch sparging
b} is continuous sparging

With your system, if you want to use a pump, then to continuous sparge, you will either have to have some aspect of your system, either the wort from the mash tun to the kettle, or the water from the HLT to the mashntun, running by gravity - or you will need two pumps. You need two simultaneous liquid flows to continuous sparge.

You can avoid gravity and uses one pump only if you batch sparge - you have only one liquid flow going at a time with batch sparging, so you can do it by swapping fittings/turning valves

TB

Thanks for the simple analogy. I've got it now, AT LAST!

Gravity feed from the mash tun to the kettle I can easily achieve & regulate. It's the other side of the equation I have an issue with viz., regulating the pumped fly sparge to the mash tun & the implications of such regulation on the pump. I think you would agree that these simultaneous flows (one gravity the other pumped) do not require two pumps..

Cheers
dalpets

 

[wobblythongs]

This bloke shows a good show on fly 7 minutes into it.