I haven't seen anyone comment yet about your planned 1.5 - 2 quarts of
strike water per pound of grain, or ask how you intend to sparge. I've
never fly sparged, so I don't know whether the thickness of your mash
will be a factor in the sparge process itself (maybe it needs to be
extra watery to start), or if it affects fly sparge efficiency or how
much wort you end up with (excessive wort just means more time and
energy to boil it down). I batch sparge, and I always mash with 1.25
quarts of water per pound of grain and never have problems doughing-in
or attaining full conversion. And by using a smaller amount of strike
water, this gives me more capacity to do two good batch sparges without ending with more wort than I want. Just some food for thought.
Bill, here's a suggestion for you to try....what I do is use more mash
water than you do, almost never less than 1.3 qt./lb. and sometimes as
high as 1.5-2 qt./lb. That allows me to get 1/2 my total boil volume
from the mash and only do 1 sparge addition. I get average efficiency
in the mid 80s doing that, so it obviously works. Saves time and
effort, too, over doing multiple sparges.
To the OP: take a look at www.hbd.org/cascade/dennybrew and see if it
looks like that kind of systems will work for you. It's worked well for thousands of homebrewers.
2. I've never concerned myself with pH while batch sparging; should I be
if pushing the limit, i.e., is it possible to 'over' sparge using batch sparging?
3. The grain/strike ratio I use is pretty much in line with your
website, Denny (see below), and it has worked very well for me. Your
newer method, which you haven't posted there yet, is appealing because
of the reduced work, but it would seem to me -- especially from the
above -- that you would almost surely be leaving a good quantity of
sugar behind. Now, maybe it isn't significant enough to justify the additional work of a second sparge. Have you kept and compared any
records of two sparges versus one sparge?
Bill Velek wrote:
Wow, lots to think about there, Bill, so I'll just hit the easy stuff
for now...
2. I've never concerned myself with pH while batch sparging; should I be
if pushing the limit, i.e., is it possible to 'over' sparge using batch >>sparging?
It's harder to oversparge when batch sparging, but it's still possible.
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