I love the exchange of Banter in the morning… :
Why do you want to take a step backwards in the evolution of your brewing?
Try malt conditioning, coupled with a double batch sparge…
You might not hit 80%, but some guys regularly do it.
Throw in some penicillin while you’re at it . . .
As a reply to the O/P, look at your crush for better efficiency. You should be able to get a smaller beer out of the mash if you batch or fly the first runnings.
[quote=“kerneldustjacket, post:18, topic:3964, username:kerneldustjacket”]
Should I be afraid? After 15+ years of fly sparging, I’m doing a no-sparge batch of brown ale this Friday…
I work in a hospital…maybe if I take home some latex gloves and a surgical mask…?
KDJ, what’s the matter? Wifey drink all your beer? ;D ;D ;D
Do I need to make a supply run to your house.
OK Mr.RBG…I’ll admit it here for all to see…My wife drinks three beers to my one.
I look on it as a good thing: she’s my “Homebrew Throughput Enhancement Machine.” In other words, she helps to ensure that all homebrew in the house is at its peak of freshness…and that I get a chance to brew often and better my craft. Well, that is so long as one in three brews is a German Weizen, as she’s from Stuttgart.
+1,this is exactly what I do.
Not knocking batch sparging, I use that for all my starters (5 gallons of “normal” strength beer. but my setup is similar to yours,
10 gal igloo (yellow is king) cooler with a domed false bottom. I fly sparge all my big beers and get between 75 and 95% efficiency mostly depending on my boil time and my associated gallons boiled. In fly sparging, especially with bigger beers, efficiency goes up with the volume of wort collected pre-boil. My biggest beers tend to be some of the most efficient, collecting 9 gallons to make 5 really helps the efficiency.
Efficiency is of course dependent upon the volume gravity, but I’m having trouble seeing 95% efficiency work out, 85-90 I can see with the extra sparging you are doing, but 95% would mean on a standard gravity beer you would ALWAYS get 95% since the boil gravity would be about the same.
Understood Mike, I questioned it myself
A long Decoction mash, 25 5/8 lb grain bill, 9.75 gallons of wort collected and boiled 4 hours down to yield 4.75 gallons in a keg. OG 1.189.
25.625 x 36 = ~922
4.75 x 189 = ~898
898 / 922 = 97.3% which is virtually impossible, even at 38ppg it’s still like 93%.
How are you measuring 1.189 and how do you know it is accurate?
At that level it has to be calculated unless you have a refractometer that reads that high, I don’t yet.
So I calculated the additions I made and added them together initially, Then checked by measuring the FG by both hydrometer and refractometer and used a calculator. So yes estimates were involved.
Get yourself a small graduated cylinder, then dilute the wort with an equal amount of water. Multiply the refractometer reading by 2, and bob’s your uncle. It will be cheaper than buying a high gravity refractometer, $7.50 from morebeer.
The best Sparge Arm I have seen is here
Bought my ATC refractometer for $20 online. Works great and saves time.
To the OP subject, when I fly sparse in my 10g round igloo cooler, I just leave about 1-2 inches of liquid on top of the mash and then put a chunk of silicone hose from the HLT around the perimeter about 3/4 of a turn sitting right on the grain. This is injecting tangentially (and horizontally) from the HLT. When it is running, the liquid has a slow rotation to it as the sparge water comes in. No manifolds or arms or whatever, just 4’ of 1/2 inch hose.
Sometimes I just run all the sparge water into the cooler at once after the liquid has drained to the level of the grain bed. That way I don’t worry about rates, but it could end up compressing the mash I suppose ( not that it has ever happened to me).
This thread is so old it has a crush on its first grade teacher.
Hey, some first grade teachers have it going on!
I know this is an old thread, but I thought I would post what I do. I use a loc-line that I can adjust to keep just below the water surface. It works very well.DSC_4978 by The Gustos, on Flickr