Sloooow Sparge

[monkeybusiness]

Fumbling my way through my second AG on Sunday, I just could not get the sparge to go any slower than a trickle. Didn't matter how much I stirred the mash up, raised the temp to 78deg, even tipped out the mash into another esky to make sure the pick up was free flowing before putting it all back again and getting hot wort and grain all over the place.

In the end it took me 8 hours (yes you heard right) to drain the tun and sparge a total of 42L pre boil.

So what's the longest you've spent sparging? and how do I make it faster.

I'm using stainless braid in the tun and was doing an oatmeal stout (10% oats). Would a protein rest have improved things substantially? (not that I had enough room in my tun). Also, I was batch sparging.

 

[Inge]

I use a braid, and have found that by cranking the tap open it causes flow to be so high that the braid sucks in and compresses, which soon enough halts the flow of wort altogether. It's much easier to keep the flow right low throughout the sparge, i.e. 500mL to 1L per minute works well for me while fly sparging. To net my preboil volume of 28 litres it usually takes 35-45 minutes.

Oatmeal might gunk up the sparge too, I don't know for sure.

 

[Cortez The Killer]

Oats do make things sticky in the tun

Sparging I've spent probably 30 mins at most - but usually alot less

I run the system as fast as it will go

The beerbelly false bottom keeps the flow going well

How fine are you crushing your grain?

Try sparging slowly at first and then slowly open up the tap over time

Cheers

 

[warrenlw63]

Adding a 45 degree Beta Glucan rest for 20 minutes will help too.

Warren -

 

[newguy]

I think my longest sparge was ~4 hours. That was many years ago and also when I used a zapap lauter tun (hated it). If this is your worst sparge ever, it's probably the oats. Try the 45C beta glucan rest next time. If you don't have room in your esky for the step infusions, try mashing the oats separately in small pot on the stove with maybe 2-3x as much malt as oats to mini mash it separately. When you're done with the beta glucan rest and bring it up to your sacch temp, just dump it back into the main mash. This way the oats stay on top too - should help with the runoff.

 

[ohitsbrad]

Use rice hulls! A couple of big handfuls (or about 200g) per 6 kg of grain or so should do.

I also use a braid and batch sparge. Second all grain beer I brewed (with no wheat or oats and with grain crushed probably on the coarse end of the scale at the homebrew store) took a couple of hours and lot of blowing back up the tube to drain. Since then I use rice hulls in every beer and usually open the valve fully. Haven't timed it but I estimate it takes less than 15 minutes and flows out full. Have done a beer with over 50% wheat since then and it was fine. Rice hulls to me seem too cheap not to use.

Other things to do like everyone else has mentioned include sparging at a temperature around 75 degrees and checking the crush isn't too fine.

 

[PostModern]

Float the mash!

 

[monkeybusiness]

I was thinking it was most likely the oats because a friend crushed the grains for me and reckons he never gets stuck sparges (although the has a false bottom setup. (by the way thanks for the help Peter if you happen to read this)

try mashing the oats separately in small pot on the stove

Newguy, that's a top idea. just wish I'd thought of it on the day.

Will also look at rice hulls for future. getting them locally is the challenge.

After the way the wort rocketed out of my tun at the IBU brew day earlier this month Sunday's effort left me feeling more than a little snappy :angry:

Thanks for the replies guys. :icon_cheers:

 

[monkeybusiness]

PoMo, I've been looking at the floating mash with some interest. Might have to give it a try next go round.