It’s when you completely run off the wort from the mash, then add all the sparge water at once and run it off. The full definition and technique is on my website at www.dennybrew.com .
A canard…many things can affect extraction rates. My average efficiency is in the mid 80s, so it’s not too bad.
It’s kinda like you know me…
I just tink of you as David St. Hubbins - it’s the avatar.
You workin on a sex farm? lol
???
“Suit yourself. I’m easy!”
It’s pronounced: ‘eye-gore’!
It broke easily. It seldom spun like it was supposed to, although the spinning made no difference anyway. It lost heat as it spun (if it did) and from the distance the water had to fall from it. And mainly that there were far easier and more effective ways to accomplish fly sparging.
Why couldn’t you batch sparge with the equipment you already have?
Huh. Mine did not break (15 years) spins as well as the first time, too. Heat loss I hadn’t considered and with 10-14 lbs.of grain in a five gallon cooler the falling distance is two to five inches. Funny, it is what I first had and never had any issues that made me want to do it differently–I guess I’ll have to think that over.
As for your last question, I would never let my beer anywhere near my camping coolers! Let’s just say the sanitization standards are a bit different!
Thanks for the reply, Denny. Cheers.
You can just fly sparge without the lawn whirlygig thing. Leave an inch or so water on top of the grain bed. Then who cares how the water gets onto it? It’s not like the sprinkling action is hitting the grain. I just use the hose from my HLT pumped on top. Run it in tangentially so it doesn’t drill a hole into the bed. It helps if you prep the grain bed before sparging by cutting channels into it with a thin spatula. That was a Sierra Nevada tip.
Or you can do the Denny thing. Both work. It’s just a means to an end.
But I like the whirlygig thing ;D
I did too. But when you realize it’s just a shiny object to distract you from the fact that your sparge water is actually 20 degrees colder than you expected, then you adjust your thinking.
They actually worked fine for me, as long as you were careful not to lose the little silicone stoppers from the ends. I sold it off along with my 10 gal Gott cooler when I went to a half-barrel Pico system.
Thankfully, I haven’t had any big issues w/ Phil’s Sparger.
It can stop spinning when my hot liquor tank is nearly empty, but I don’t see that as an issue. I generally don’t have a problem hitting/holding my mash temp either.
I also adjust the height above the grains as much as I can - so the water doens’t have to fall too far before making contact. Also, my setup means the water doesn’t travel very far between leaving the hot liquor tank and exiting the sparger. I’m quite certain I’m not losing anything close to 20 degrees.
I guess I’ll keep using it until I find something better or it breaks…
20 degrees??!! :o It’s toast!
Thanks Gordon.
I have to chime in. I have a buddy who has a fancy tier sculpture with pumps and counterflow chiller that he made and constructed by himself and his brew day takes about 6-8 hours. His beer tastes great. I use the Denny / batch sparge method and my brew day takes about 5 hours. I think my beer tastes great. To each their own. I’m just glad that I found this cheaper (and in my opinion simpler) method of all-grain brewing which I believe produces equal results because i was reluctant to get into all-grain thinking I had to spend thousands of $ for new equipment. Denny states this better in the last Zymurgy issue, but anyway thanks Denny for helping this guy take baby steps in equipment upgrades and giant leaps in beer quality.
:) What I meant was that maybe you should think about trying batch sparging with your current setup rather than your camping coolers.
Yeah, I knew that, I was going for the easy joke about my camping coolers. And I will be batch sparging my next brew–an easy pale ale that I am very familiar with so I can gauge the difference. I can expect 115% efficiency, right?
Yeah, and if it’s a blue cooler, maybe even more than that! ;D
…gallon cylindrical cooler (blue) for a mash tun due to space constraints…
Oh yeah!