Sparge Water Temp.

[Little Rock Brewing]

Had a bit of a calamity on brewday yesterday when my new "tea urn" for heating sparge water to 75C conked out!
So rapidly out with my old set up of gas burner and big pan on 2 bricks.
Then the gas bottle ran out!
So I had no choice (apart from resorting to the kitchen halogen hob) but to use it as it was, 45C.

Apart from a bit of a wait for the BZ to come to the boil, there were no issues.
Efficiency was bang on, hit the 1.064 exactly.

So I may just take the Amazon refund for the crummy boiler and do sparges from the hot tap from now on.

Or am I missing something?

 

[foxy]

Had a bit of a calamity on brewday yesterday when my new "tea urn" for heating sparge water to 75C conked out!
So rapidly out with my old set up of gas burner and big pan on 2 bricks.
Then the gas bottle ran out!
So I had no choice (apart from resorting to the kitchen halogen hob) but to use it as it was, 45C.

Apart from a bit of a wait for the BZ to come to the boil, there were no issues.
Efficiency was bang on, hit the 1.064 exactly.

So I may just take the Amazon refund for the crummy boiler and do sparges from the hot tap from now on.

Or am I missing something?

You can sparge with cold water and not lose out on efficiency, plenty of people do, the only downside is the clarity suffers a bit.

 

[Pennine]

You can sparge with cold water and not lose out on efficiency, plenty of people do, the only downside is the clarity suffers a bit.

How does cold sparging affect clarity?

Edit: I have been having a clarity issue and typically I cold sparge.

 

[foxy]

How does cold sparging affect clarity?

Edit: I have been having a clarity issue and typically I cold sparge.

There are a lot of people cold sparge, I use a 'no sparge' method, it was an article in Braukaiser where Kai did an experiment with cold and hot sparge. If I remember right the efficiency was slightly better with the cold sparge but he said the clarity wasn't so good.
I don't know the science behind it and I am presuming that he had his pH right in the sparge water, poor clarity can be linked to pH, having the pH right is advantageous in precipitating the proteins and polyphenols in the cold break.

 

[gyurmaember]

I cold sparging as well, no clarity issues so far.

 

[Cheshire Cat]

I batch sparge between 70-75

 

[Pennine]

There are a lot of people cold sparge, I use a 'no sparge' method, it was an article in Braukaiser where Kai did an experiment with cold and hot sparge. If I remember right the efficiency was slightly better with the cold sparge but he said the clarity wasn't so good.
I don't know the science behind it and I am presuming that he had his pH right in the sparge water, poor clarity can be linked to pH, having the pH right is advantageous in precipitating the proteins and polyphenols in the cold break.

Ok thanks, I will work on pH first, then at some point adjust temps. I would get hazy batches occasionally before but it seems like most batches are now hazy and are not clearing with time.

 

[Pennine]

Another sparging process I have been considering is adding the maximum water volume of the brewer after mashing and before the mash out and then mash out and skip the sparge. The extra volume of water should hopefully get most of the sugars out.

 

[foxy]

Another sparging process I have been considering is adding the maximum water volume of the brewer after mashing and before the mash out and then mash out and skip the sparge. The extra volume of water should hopefully get most of the sugars out.

Doesn't work like that. Sparging in the history of brewing is fairly new, in bygone days the brewers would parti-gyle the reason being they knew there was enough sugar left in the wort to extract 2 even 3 batches from the one grist.
I mash at full volume, and though efficiency takes a hit I believe the beer to be better than with sparging. To avoid the sparge it only costs a few dollars more to put extra grain into the grist and avoid the possibility of astringency and saves me an hour on brew day.

It is important to consider what pH does for a beer, we spend say 5 hours brewing and cleaning up, plus the expense of the ingredients. I wouldn't like to be doing that and ending up with a mediocre beer, after the time and expense if I can't brew a beer which betters or at least comes up to a standard I could buy I wouldn't bother brewing.

 

[Pennine]

Doesn't work like that. Sparging in the history of brewing is fairly new, in bygone days the brewers would parti-gyle the reason being they knew there was enough sugar left in the wort to extract 2 even 3 batches from the one grist.
I mash at full volume, and though efficiency takes a hit I believe the beer to be better than with sparging. To avoid the sparge it only costs a few dollars more to put extra grain into the grist and avoid the possibility of astringency and saves me an hour on brew day.

It is important to consider what pH does for a beer, we spend say 5 hours brewing and cleaning up, plus the expense of the ingredients. I wouldn't like to be doing that and ending up with a mediocre beer, after the time and expense if I can't brew a beer which betters or at least comes up to a standard I could buy I wouldn't bother brewing.

Yeah I figure there will always be some residual sugars left over. I brew with a 10l braumeister so I have some limitations with the size of the grain bill, at max it holds about 2.8kgs. So bumping up the grain to skip the sparge only works for lower abv recipes. I do watch the mash pH and post boil pH but figured a 2-3l sparge with soft water wouldn't matter too much. Anyway it's just as easy to add acid to the full volume of water initially so I think I will do that.

And agreed about the true cost of brewing. It's not worth skipping small steps.

 

[AnimatedGIF]

I was faffing around heating sparge water on the kitchen hob then taking out to the garage jug-by-jug (I have no way to heat sparge water in the garage), then read that sparging cold is not a problem, so I do that now. Much easier!

 

[foxbat]

Cold is OK. Too hot is not and too alkaline is not. There's a page or two on this in the excellent Principles of Brewing Science book. Hot and alkaline together cause the pH to rise more quickly towards the point where undesirable compounds are extracted. Key upper limits (not targets!) are 77C and pH 5.5.

 

[Little Rock Brewing]

Well that settles it. I'll do as warm as the hot tap is sparge from now on.
A gas bottle replacement is about £40 here, hence the "tea urn" purchase.
But that packed up on the second use, great quality!
I'll have to address the pH issue though.

 

[Clint]

And..as regards to clear beer..it looks good but personally I'm not bothered..or brew "hazy" styles and save 10p on a protofloc tab.

 

[twopoint]

I use a Karlstein All in One.

I get my strike temp with the maximum the kettle can hold, treat the water as a whole, then draw off 8 to 10 litres and keep in a bucket.

When it comes to sparging I then boil a kettle (household 2L one) and dump that in the bucket that I put to 8 to 10 litres in, then sparge at whatever temp that is - usually within a couple of degrees of ideal spargng temp.

 

[Little Rock Brewing]

I use a Karlstein All in One.

I get my strike temp with the maximum the kettle can hold, treat the water as a whole, then draw off 8 to 10 litres and keep in a bucket.

When it comes to sparging I then boil a kettle (household 2L one) and dump that in the bucket that I put to 8 to 10 litres in, then sparge at whatever temp that is - usually within a couple of degrees of ideal spargng temp.

Great idea, I like it!

 

[foxy]

I use a Karlstein All in One.

I get my strike temp with the maximum the kettle can hold, treat the water as a whole, then draw off 8 to 10 litres and keep in a bucket.

When it comes to sparging I then boil a kettle (household 2L one) and dump that in the bucket that I put to 8 to 10 litres in, then sparge at whatever temp that is - usually within a couple of degrees of ideal spargng temp.

Problem there is your sparge water will be way off the 5.5 pH which is the optimum for sparge water. By all means do what you are doing, but add some acid to that water you are drawing off to bring the pH down further.

 

[foxy]

And..as regards to clear beer..it looks good but personally I'm not bothered..or brew "hazy" styles and save 10p on a protofloc tab.

If you go into comps the worth of having a clear bright beer is but 5 points, but also it has a psychological effect on the judges. They will be expecting the beer to tick most of the other boxes. Plus the fact if something is worth doing, it is worth doing well.

 

[Sadfield]

Other things to consider.

Viscosity rises as temperature lowers, so run off my be slower.

With a cold sparge, the collected wort will take longer, require more energy, to get to the boil.

Whilst cold sparging may appear to be a saving in time and energy for that particular part of the process, it could actually lengthen the whole process.

I wonder if the clarity issue is related to ongoing enzymatic activity between sparge and boil, with a hot sparge keeping the wort in the sweet spot.

 

[gyurmaember]

With a cold sparge, the collected wort will take longer, require more energy, to get to the boil.

Everytime, by the time I finish sparging the temp goes up near to boiling temperature.
You use the same energy to heat up your sparge water.