[Steve Ruch]

Yesterday I tried batch sparging for the first time. If I had done my normal fly sparging I would have gotten about 1.070. With a batch sparge I got 1.070. So, no difference in gravity, but I saved a bunch of time, which is always welcome. I'll be trying it again on the next couple of batches I do to see if I get the same results.

[denny]

Way to go, Steve!

[HoosierBrew]

I went the same route, Steve. Fly sparged for several years with mixed results, due in part to not managing pH very well. Some beers were great if the water suited it. Others ok but not great. So I switched to batch sparging and saved time, and got pH in line. I really like batch sparging.

[denny]

Marshall Schott is conducting a survey and last I heard the results for sparge methods (1200 responses) were 18% fly, 43% batch, 3% no sparge and 24% BIAB.

[HoosierBrew]

Marshall Schott is conducting a survey and last I heard the results for sparge methods (1200 responses) were 18% fly, 43% batch, 3% no sparge and 24% BIAB.

That's a lot of responses.  Should be a big enough sample size to be pretty accurate.

[koop3700]

I Will "TESTIFY" to batch sparging I spent a lot of time reading and researching on which method to jump to after 3 extract goes. Read Denny Brew and thats all she wrote!!!! Raising a pint to you as we speak Denny thanks I consistantly hit 80% great clear beers with a brew day that takes 4.5 hrs Nice-n-Easy all cleaned up and decanted cake warmed and pitched, bubbling in 12hrs. My hats off to all the great company, professionalism all around come on in and have a beer group of brewers of the heart! I could not have imagined this as a "hobby"   more as a way  of LIFE. Will say, I will for myself determine the step mash won't say the D word for myself for a lager experiment other than that no reason to try anything else Batch Sparge.

[S. cerevisiae]

If Marshall is conducting an on-line survey, then his sampling method is skewed towards newer/younger brewers.  Brewers who have been brewing for a long time tend to be continuous spargers.  Brewers who have been brewing for a long time also tend to be older, and Internet usage drops off sharply with respect to age.

[S. cerevisiae]

I do no see how batch sparging saves much more than fifteen minutes brewing 5-gallon batches.   At a rate of a quart a minute, it takes 28 minutes to lauter 7 gallons of runoff.  Anyone whose is lautering at a rate slower than a quart a minute is wasting his/her time.   The time to lauter a mash using batch sparging is not 0 minutes.

[HoosierBrew]

I do no see how batch sparging saves much more than fifteen minutes brewing 5-gallon batches.   At a rate of a quart a minute, it takes 28 minutes to lauter 7 gallons of runoff.  Anyone whose is lautering at a rate slower than a quart a minute is wasting his/her time.   The time to lauter a mash using batch sparging is not 0 minutes.

Mark, out of curiosity, how long (including cleanup) does it take you start to finish for a 60 mash/60 boil batch ?  I've done both and the time savings is noticeable. For the above, the beer is in the fermenter and everything rinsed/cleaned, put up, and I'm sitting on my arse in 4.5 hours. Obviously, longer mash and/or boil ups the time, but it would do the same for fly sparging, too.



EDIT -  I guess the answer to my question is really  "Doesn't matter", because the best system for all of us is the one we like best.  I was just curious.

[a10t2]

As usual, I will pimp this link: http://seanterrill.com/2013/10/05/batch-sparging-calculator/

The single best thing about batch sparging is that it's entirely predictable.

[ynotbrusum]

I prefer Batch sparging as I use less water and my water is RO from my house system and treated via Bru'n water.  I don't know that I could calculate nearly well enough the amount of water to use to be assured that there will be a continuous inch or so above the grain bed as suggested in batch sparging.  So I would have to overshoot and collect and treat that much more water....

[majorvices]

For me batch sparging isn't so much a time saver as it is a stress saver. Run off first batch walk away. When you have your first collection done measure out second batch, dump water in and walk away. Come back to your total volume. So damn easy.

[HoosierBrew]

For me batch sparging isn't so much a time saver as it is a stress saver. Run off first batch walk away. When you have your first collection done measure out second batch, dump water in and walk away. Come back to your total volume. So damn easy.

Not just about time savings for me either, Keith. I love the stress saving factor, too. But I fly sparged too and there's no way there's not some decent time loss, too, like S Cer maintains.

[S. cerevisiae]

Mark, out of curiosity, how long (including cleanup) does it take you start to finish for a 60 mash/60 boil batch ?  I've done both and the time savings is noticeable. For the above, the beer is in the fermenter and everything rinsed/cleaned, put up, and I'm sitting on my arse in 4.5 hours. Obviously, longer mash and/or boil ups the time, but it would do the same for fly sparging, too.

It took me a five hours from the time that I started to heat my strike water until everything was cleaned up and put away last Sunday.  However, I did a ninety-minute rest and a ninety-minute boil. 

The problem with continuous sparging is that people make it difficult.  I start the sparge and walk away.    The time difference is completely blown out of proportion. Most home brewers are led to believe that it should take an hour to ninety minutes to collect seven to eight gallons of runoff when continuous sparging.  That's complete nonsense.  A quart per minute is the sweet spot when running off a home brew-scale mash.

I think that I would save fifteen minutes at best by switching to batch sparging.  It does not take zero minutes to collect the first and second runnings, and there is second vorlauf that needs to occur between runnings.

With that said, I am not surprised to see that batch spargers outnumbered continuous spargers in the poll.  What I am surprised to see is the growth in BIAB. 

[hopfenundmalz]

I have done some batch sperges. The efficiency was about the same.

As for time savings, these were 10 gallon batches, so the BTUs I can apply is the same, and it doesn't save any time to get wort into the kettle quicker.