Splitting Your Sparge Volume And Double Sparging

[Truman42]

Still learning about using my new 3v herms and was reading an article today that said instead of adding all your sparge water in one hit its best to split the volume and do a double sparge.

So if Brewmate tells me to use 15 litres for sparging I would usually add all of that, stir, vorlauf for 10 mins and then transfer to the kettle. But instead the article said I should be adding half of this volume to the MLT, sparge, transfer, then add the other half and repeat so you wash more sugars out of the grain.

Is that the best way to do it?

 

[WarmBeer]

That's what I do. Generally get a couple more points of efficiency, but at the cost of around 15minutes more faffing around.

 

[Wolfy]

Is that the best way to do it?

The 'best' way to do it is to add the sparge water at 1L per min while you drain the mash at the same rate (ie: fly sparge).
In terms of batch sparge it comes down to a slight increase in efficiency for more effort, the more 'batches' you do (within reason) the (slightly) better your efficiency will be - I think there is a graph on Brewmeister or somewhere that explains it.

I think someone here posted less than a week ago that they noticed an increase in efficiency from doing 2 sparge batches compared to one.

 

[Fat Bastard]

I do exactly this with high gravity brews. Mind you, I don't know if it's the best way to do it. With my system it's because I generally can't fit an 8kg grain bill and enough water into my 36litre pot to get a 29-30 litre preboil volume without using 2 loads of water (14l total) in my aldi urn sparge HLT.

With a single 7l sparge in a 4-5kg grain bill I'll get 92 or 93% mash efficiency, but this drops to around 75-77% with an 8kg bill and double (2x7l) sparge.

 

[MaltyHops]

Interesting read: Braukaiser.com - Batch Sparging Analysis

 

[kelbygreen]

I batch sparged on sunday thinking it would be quicker but it took me 20mins longer. It took 20mins for the wort to run clear then I sparged again stired and took another 20mins to run clear. If I fly sparged it would of been clear the whole way threw and no stuffing around. Oh and the efficiency was the same. I may fly sparge a bit to quick but there was no change in efficiency in batch and fly and fly was faster. I find fly sparging easier to and I use a jug to top the MT up its not automated lol

 

[Wolfy]

Interesting read: Braukaiser.com - Batch Sparging Analysis

That's the one I was thinking of, thank you.

 

[JDW81]

Still learning about using my new 3v herms and was reading an article today that said instead of adding all your sparge water in one hit its best to split the volume and do a double sparge.

So if Brewmate tells me to use 15 litres for sparging I would usually add all of that, stir, vorlauf for 10 mins and then transfer to the kettle. But instead the article said I should be adding half of this volume to the MLT, sparge, transfer, then add the other half and repeat so you wash more sugars out of the grain.

Is that the best way to do it?

FWIW I double batch sparge and get between 75-80% mash efficiency, which is good enough for me. I couldn't give a toss about going any higher as I'm happy with my results. It is a bit more dicking around, but I haven't set up for fly sparging yet. It only takes me about 5 minutes to get clear wort when I vorlauf and it is always crystal clear into the cube.

My 2c.

 

[fraser_john]

I used to double batch, but have gone back to a single with mash out at 76c and sparge water at 76c, got 95% last Sunday.

I worry about the oxidation of the wort & other compounds.

 

[kevin_smevin]

I used to double batch, but have gone back to a single with mash out at 76c and sparge water at 76c, got 95% last Sunday.

I worry about the oxidation of the wort & other compounds.

I fly sparge and get about 90% efficiency every brew. Nice and easy

 

[MaltyHops]

The recent Biab Barleywine, recipe thread got me thinking
... about whether there are any differences in the composition
of the runnings like whether there's something that gets
extracted more in the first runnings then less in subsequent
runnings and could have implications for partigyle type brews.

Anyways, found Study of spent grains sparging... which seems
quite interesting.

And a bunch of interesting (well, maybe) looking papers also:
The Institute of Brewing & Distilling - POSTERS

 

[Yob]

pertty happy with fly sparging, the last batch I did the initial runnings were 1080 and by the time I got to volume the run off was at 1010

:beerbang:

 

[WeaselEstateBrewery]

I saw an increase in efficiency with smaller sparge batch sizes but there may have been other processes I changed at the same time which contributed. Wonder if the temp of your sparge water plays much of a role re: efficiency, regardless of whether complete conversion occurred during the mash?

 

[Truman42]

I did a double sparge on my last brew and still got 75% efficiency which is what I usually get.
But I double sparge because I wouldn't have fitted my full volume of sparge water into my HLT. So I drained half of it for the first sparge then topped up hlt with 2 litres, let that rise to temp while recirculating my sparge. Then transferred to kettle and sparged again with what was left in the HLT.