Please explain a sparge arm
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A sparge arm is a simple device that transfers sparge water from the HLT (Hot Liquor Tank) to the MLT (Mash Lauter Tun). It performs the transfer in such a way that it does not noticeably disturb the grain bed. i.e. it sprinkles the water slowly, gently, and evenly over the entire surface of the grain.
It can be a useful device for fly sparging, but there are other ways of adding the sparge water. It is totally unnecessary for batch sparging.
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It can be a useful device for fly sparging, but there are other ways of adding the sparge water. It is totally unnecessary for batch sparging.
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I currently batch sparge but my efficiency is never great so I am interested in trying a new method. If my setup is like the brutus 10 (all kettles at equal height), will I need a march 809 pump in order to use the sparge arm?
Yes, you will need some method for transferring the water from the HLT through the sparge arm to the grain bed. I use gravity in my 3 tier system (HLT on a footstool on the kitchen counter, MLT on a chair, kettle on the floor), but a pump would work as well providing you can throttle it back to deliver the water slowly enough. If you are fly sparging, you need to introduce the sparge water at the same rate as you deliver to the kettle. It takes me about 40 - 60 minutes to fly sparge for a 5g batch using a 10g cooler as an MLT. When I had a 5g MLT, it took 60 - 90 minutes.
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Yup, one from HLT to MLT, and one from MLT to kettle.
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The whole point about fly sparging is that you don't disturb the grain bed in the MLT. You add water very gently to the top, let it percolate through the grain bed, and collect the wort at the bottom. Recirculating wouldn't do this.
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This is so the grains are rinsed evenly and thoroughly by the sparge device and to prevent the sparge water from drilling into the grain bed. You want to control the flow of the hot water onto or out of the mash so that there is an equilibrium in how fast the water is flowing into the mash versus how fast it is flowing out of it while maintaining about a half inch to an inch of liquid on top of the mash. If the water starts drilling into the mash, it will be pushing the water through grains that have already been rinsed and cause your efficiency to drop like a rock While leaving a lot of unrinsed grains in the mash.
You don't have to stir the grains "like crazy" when batch sparging. Drain the mash, close the valve, add sparge water, stir the grains to get it all loose then drain the second runnings.
GreenMonti
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A sparge arm does as the others have mentioned. It rains the water from the HLT onto your mash. It can be a pipe drilled full of holes to give fine droplets of water. It can be a device that fans out the water so it hits the grain bed gently. "IF" your grain bed it thick enough you can just set the hose on top of the grain bed. Lots of ways and theories about this.
When your recirculate your mash you are setting the grain bed and creating a filter with it. When you recirculate you put all the little pieces of flour and grain husk back on top of the grain bed so it doesn't end up in your kettle. Taking from the bottom and putting it back on top. Once you have done this, you will not stir the grain anymore in a fly sparge setup. You have all the crap on top, so when you gently rain in your new fresh water on top, you don't disturb the grain bed which you just turned into a filter. Your false bottom,manifold,or braid assembly will carry away the sweet sugar laden wort from the bottom and..............as it does that the fresh water on top makes its way through the grain bed picking up left over sugars along the way to the false bottom,manifold,or braid assembly. Eventually making its way into your kettle.
In a batch sparge setup. You should do the recirculation to set the grain bed and make a filter. Then you will drain it into your kettle. Then you will refill your MLT. Then you will stir it up a bit. Then you will recirculate it to set the bed and make a filter. Then you will drain it into your kettle.
When your recirculate your mash you are setting the grain bed and creating a filter with it. When you recirculate you put all the little pieces of flour and grain husk back on top of the grain bed so it doesn't end up in your kettle. Taking from the bottom and putting it back on top. Once you have done this, you will not stir the grain anymore in a fly sparge setup. You have all the crap on top, so when you gently rain in your new fresh water on top, you don't disturb the grain bed which you just turned into a filter. Your false bottom,manifold,or braid assembly will carry away the sweet sugar laden wort from the bottom and..............as it does that the fresh water on top makes its way through the grain bed picking up left over sugars along the way to the false bottom,manifold,or braid assembly. Eventually making its way into your kettle.
In a batch sparge setup. You should do the recirculation to set the grain bed and make a filter. Then you will drain it into your kettle. Then you will refill your MLT. Then you will stir it up a bit. Then you will recirculate it to set the bed and make a filter. Then you will drain it into your kettle.
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So does fly sparging increase the efficiency? Is that the purpose of using a sparge arm? Or is just so you don't have to stir the grain? I'm in the process of setting up for the switch to AG and planning to build a single tier system, so I'm curious about this as well.
In theory, fly sparging can be slightly more efficient than batch sparging. However, the increase in efficiency is only going to be very slight (a few %) and there are some drawbacks to fly sparging. It is very easy to get channeling, which is going to give you poor efficiency if you have a poorly designed system or if you sparge too fast. It is also easy to oversparge which can result in excessive tannin extraction. Fly sparging also takes longer than batch. I fly sparge because that's how I learned, and I am used to the problems. If I were starting out from scratch, I would probably do a batch sparge.
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Yeah, so far I like the idea and batch sparging itself. It is easier to just dump the sparge water in, let it sit for a while and then vorlauf in order to get clear wort. But it seems like my efficiency is never the best which is why the sparge arm caught my eye and I was wondering how it worked. Maybe my loss in efficiency is due to the crush that I get from my local brew shop (which is where I crush my grains normally the day before we brew). Or it could be our methods but I dont know what we could change to improve it. Basically we:
1. Mash with grains for about an hour and whatever temperature the recipe calls for. Stir grains each 20 minutes. Drain to boil kettle.
2. Sparge for about 15 minutes after dumping in the approximately 175 degree (or whatever recipe calls for) sparge water.
3. Drain the wort into the boil kettle after the sparge, slowly (about 1/2 way open which takes about a half hour) via our march 809 pump.
4. Add hops according to schedule.
5. Run throught CFC to chill and then add yeast.
1. Mash with grains for about an hour and whatever temperature the recipe calls for. Stir grains each 20 minutes. Drain to boil kettle.
2. Sparge for about 15 minutes after dumping in the approximately 175 degree (or whatever recipe calls for) sparge water.
3. Drain the wort into the boil kettle after the sparge, slowly (about 1/2 way open which takes about a half hour) via our march 809 pump.
4. Add hops according to schedule.
5. Run throught CFC to chill and then add yeast.
GreenMonti
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My efficiency was stuck in the low 70% range until I stopped milling my grain at the LHBS. Once I started milling my own I have never gone below 83%.
What do you use for a MLT? Do you use a FB or a manifold?
1. I doubt that this will make any difference, but if you ever mash at less than 150F, you may want to increase the mash time to say 90 minutes. This was recommended by Dave Miller, and I found it made a considerable difference.
At 150F or greater, I have never needed to do this.
2. Adding 175F sparge water for a batch sparge is probably not hot enough. You want to raise the grain bed temperature to 168 - 170F, and 175F water won't do this. Check out Bobby_M's signature for some recommendations for sparge procedures and temperatures. Also be aware that if you are not using an insulated cooler as an MLT, the temperature will cool considerably during the sparge unless you are applying heat.
I also don't understand what you mean by sparging for 15 minutes when it takes 30 minutes to drain. Do you mean recirculating with the pump for 15 minutes before draining? What is the temperature of your grain bed when you start draining? If it is substantially below 168F, you need hotter sparge water. I don't see any mention of stirring after adding the sparge water. For Luddites like me, it's the stirring that dissolves the sugars. If you use the pump to recirculate I would imagine that would have a similar effect, but I don't know because I've never used a pump.
3. Once you have the sugars dissolved, you should be able to drain quickly. Why throttle it back?
4 and 5 I have no problem with.
As for the grain crush affecting efficiency, I've never noticed any efficiency difference between the LHBS crush, a crush with a Corona mill, and a crush with a roller mill set much coarser than most people recommend (0.045"). With that setting, I consistently get 85% efficiency.
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The MLT we use is a converted 15 gallon keg with the top cut out. When we mash and sparge we wrap a quilt around it to help insulate. We have used a braided manifold but have just switched to a false bottom with a dip tube.
I would say the average mash temp that recipes normally call for is 154F which is normally what we hold at within a degree or two.
We follow beersmith as far as sparge temperatures. By the 15 minutes, I mean after we drain the MLT from the initial mash, we add our sparge water and let that sit for 15 minutes. Stirring both when we add the sparge water and right before we start to drain it. Then, we use our pump to transfer those runnings to the boil kettle which we throttle back so that drain takes about a half hour. So all together I guess the sparge is 45 minutes total approximately.
I would say the average mash temp that recipes normally call for is 154F which is normally what we hold at within a degree or two.
We follow beersmith as far as sparge temperatures. By the 15 minutes, I mean after we drain the MLT from the initial mash, we add our sparge water and let that sit for 15 minutes. Stirring both when we add the sparge water and right before we start to drain it. Then, we use our pump to transfer those runnings to the boil kettle which we throttle back so that drain takes about a half hour. So all together I guess the sparge is 45 minutes total approximately.
Do you know how much dead space you have in the MLT? i.e. how much wort you have in the MLT at the end of the sparge that you can't drain out?
with a batch sparge, the gravity of the runnings should be consistent for each batch. As you are only doing a single batch, the gravity of the runnings would be fairly high, and if you have a large amount of dead space, you would be leaving a large amount of high gravity wort behind in the MLT. Switching to a double batch sparge would considerably reduce the gravity of the wort left behind in the dead space and considerably increase your efficiency. Fly sparging would also have a similar effect, providing you can avoid channeling, but with fly sparging it is much easier to over sparge, and get excess tannin extraction.
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with a batch sparge, the gravity of the runnings should be consistent for each batch. As you are only doing a single batch, the gravity of the runnings would be fairly high, and if you have a large amount of dead space, you would be leaving a large amount of high gravity wort behind in the MLT. Switching to a double batch sparge would considerably reduce the gravity of the wort left behind in the dead space and considerably increase your efficiency. Fly sparging would also have a similar effect, providing you can avoid channeling, but with fly sparging it is much easier to over sparge, and get excess tannin extraction.
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Hang Glider
Beer Drinker
dmbnpj - after all of the posts, my question is to you - are you sure your efficiency isn't better than you think? How are you calculating it? If you achieve (accounting for temperature) a higher OG than the recipe calls for, you've gotten a better efficency than your "brewhouse efficiency" setting in BeerSmith, and can adjust that upwards as needed.
BeerSmith also allows you to take a hot gravity reading and plug in the temps and pre- and post boil amounts to determine where you are/should be...
BeerSmith also allows you to take a hot gravity reading and plug in the temps and pre- and post boil amounts to determine where you are/should be...
I use a refractometer and input my reading onto this spreadsheet from morebeer...
http://morebeer.com/learn_vids/vids_refract
http://morebeer.com/learn_vids/vids_refract
