Forgot to recirculate

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Hi there,

I brewed the John Palmer porter at the weekend, more or less. One thing I forgot, not sure how/why, was to recirculate before starting to sparge properly. So I just opened the tap slowly, allowed the wort to run through and started adding the sparge water.

The only difference I noticed during the boil was a presence of kind of flaky film on top but not sure its related (Also noticed the light fitting above the boiler was covered in cobwebs (they obviously like the warmth it generates) so perhaps some of that fell in? And I had my usual issue with draining from the boiler into the FV where it gets clogged but thats nothing new.

Anyone got any advice on what impact I can expect from forgetting to re-circulate?

Also, the sparge technique in the Palmer book is vastly different from my method. Anyone ever used his method? Appears that after re-circulation he drains the wort. Then closes the tap, adds all the sparge water, stirs the grain bed (thought this was a big no-no?) and then drains again.


Cheers!
 
Ah so thats batch sparging, gotcha, I didn't realise. I guess normally do "fly" sparging? I re-circulate, then once its running clear open the tap and add water to the mash at roughly (very roughly sometimes) the same volume as is draining.
 
Ah so thats batch sparging, gotcha, I didn't realise. I guess normally do "fly" sparging? I re-circulate, then once its running clear open the tap and add water to the mash at roughly (very roughly sometimes) the same volume as is draining.

Hi!
Yes, that's fly, or continuous sparging.
When fly sparging you need to introduce the sparge water very slowly - you don't want to disturb the grain bed.
When batch sparging you can pour the sparge water into the mash tun in one go because you are going to stir the mash again anyway.
 
Hi!
The only thing that would happen is that the grain debris that would flow out into the wort rather than being introduced back into the mash tun during the vorlauf. This shouldn't have a deleterious effect on your wort.
By the way, here's JP himself demonstrating batch sparging. https://youtu.be/h5J8S5nBdUc
 

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