Is it necessary to hold the sparge water in the mash tun for 30 minutes? Can I simply add the necessary amount of water and drain?
No. Add sparge water, stir thoroughly for a couple minutes, then vorlauf.
I have a pump to recirculate (vorlauf) and I do that with my sparge just long enough that its running clear. Usually thats 5 to ten minutes.
Beauty of batch sparging. Dump hot ~190-degree water in, stir well, vorlauf and drain immediately. No wait time necessary. Zero advantages and a waste of time to wait.
I let mine sit for 5 or 10 minutes out of convenience. I use this time dumping out any remaining water from the kettle and dumping in my first runnings.
Stir well and vorlauf and let it rip.
Steve,
Are you concerned with hot-side aeration when you are dumping in your first runnings?
The reason I ask is I’ve often thought that doing it that way would allow me to begin my boil while the sparge is running thereby saving time on my brew day. But, I like to err on the safe side. If it could have a adverse effect on the final product, I don’t want to take the chance.
Been doing it for 7 years. I haven’t noticed an issue. Sure I would like to sparge directly into the kettle, but my current equipment and space does not allow for it. I brewed at a club brew day a few months back and the old-timers freaked out when I did it. I could siphon from the bucket into the kettle I guess, but I don’t have a ledge high enough for that and I hate cleaning stuff.
Give it a try sometime.
HSA risks have been way overstated at the home level IMO.
Absolutely not necessary. Conversion is done at that point so you gain nothing. I stir in sparge water, vorlauf, and run off immediately. Where did you hear you had to rest it 30 min.?
That also gives you wort that is warmer and quicker to get up to a boil.
+1 five min total time.
Also not to worry on HSA IMO too
I find I get a bit of a better run off if after adding sparge water and stiring, I let it sit 10 minutes or so to settle. If I add it, mix, and vorlauf immediately I have gotten stuck / slow run off’s. I’m not really sure what specifically is happening while the bed settles. If I’m imagining things. I aslo assume this would improve my efficiency. I understand conversion is done, but I would think that you are giving more exposure of less dilute solution to the grain, allowing more sugars to be released. However I’ve never done side by side gravity checks to see if I’m getting different efficiency.
I think next time I’ll give the old dump, stir, vorlauf, dump a try, and see how it compares to my measured effiencies in the past.
AO
Try starting your run off with the valve just barely cracked. That helps set the grainbed with compacting it. After vorlauf I go ahead and open the valve full. Never had a stuck runoff for 471 batches! I have never seen any increase in extraction due to letting the sparge water sit, assuming full conversion before.
FWIW-when i first performed the batch sparge, i used to let it rest after mixing for 10-15 minutes (because i thought i had to). I don’t do this any longer, because it made no difference in my efficiency vs. adding strike water, stirring well and draining immediately.
Not to beat a dead horse but I also don’t wait very long to start draining my mash tun.
Add sparge water, stir, wait long enough the big ripples on the surfaces to settle down and start the run off. Start slow. Once your wort is running clean open the valve up as far as it works for you. On my system I can only open the valve half way or so without compacting the grain bed.
Paul
I’ll try that next time. From reading other threads, I believe you do a 90m mash? Where as I do a 60m mash most times, I’m wondering if my 60m mash with a 10-15m between sparges is the difference impacts the efficiency. As I understand, that is why you do 90 vs 60. Please correct me if I’m wrong.
Yeah, kinda…a 90 min. mash produces a more fermentable wort, so that’s my main reason for doing it. But it also gives the mash more time to ensure complete conversion. Sparging with 185-190F water like I di also helps make sure I have complete conversion. I don’t really think your 60 min,mashes and 10-15 min, sparge rests are hurting anything, but I’d encourage you to play around with parameters on your next few brews so you can find out for yourself.
Bumping this “old” thread to verify something. I know you should open the valve every so slightly while vorlaufing, but after it runs clear can’t you open the valve fully? Having a discussion on Reddit about this and someone mentioned it throws off gravity.
It will depend on your system. If you vorlauf at 1/4 open then open all the way and it doesn’t get stuck then go for it. If you find it does stick try 1/2-3/4. The nice thing about batch sparging is if it gets stuck, close the valve, stir it up, vorlauf and run again.
I will run mine at 1/4 and then open it to full in steps (1/2, 3/4, then full) with no problems.