12 replies to this topic

[KSUwildcatFAN]

Cool. I had an '82 920. Thought it looked familiar.

What temp should my sparge water be? The same temp as the final temp of my strike water?

[ncbeerbrewer]

I like to sparge with my water around 170-180 degrees. I would keep it in that range as it will help rinse off the sugars from the grain. Hope your session is going well.

[KSUwildcatFAN]

So far ok, 'cept for me stressing about what to do next. Only problem so far is that mash temp came in a bit low, but it's hard to tell with the thermometer I use. The grades between each mark it pretty high. Need to get another before next time. Anyway, thanks, I'll shoot for 175*.

[Thirsty]

175 is a good target, just make sure that is measured right at the MT going in. If you are fly sparging, you may lose some temp (for me it is a full 10 deg) between your HLT and your MT. So you may have to overshoot a tad and check.

[KSUwildcatFAN]

Man, it's about time to sparge, and I'm not going to have my sparge water up to temp. Should I rinse at a lower temp or let the grain sit in the 150ish water longer until I reach the right temp?

[KSUwildcatFAN]

Thinking my efficiency may blow in this.

[djinkc]

Man, it's about time to sparge, and I'm not going to have my sparge water up to temp. Should I rinse at a lower temp or let the grain sit in the 150ish water longer until I reach the right temp?

Get it up to the right temp, won't hurt anything to mash a little longer.....

[KSUwildcatFAN]

Cool, that makes me feel better. It might not be the worst thing ever too since I think the mash temp was a little low.

[MolBasser]

Get your sparge water to temp. The mash can wait.MolBasser

[denny]

Generally, my sparge water temp is around 190F which results in a grain bed temp in the mid 160s. Kai Troester has recently done some experiments with cold sparging (yes, really!) and found no loss of efficiency or beer quality. You can read his writeups at www.braukaiser.com .

[MolBasser]

Generally, my sparge water temp is around 190F which results in a grain bed temp in the mid 160s. Kai Troester has recently done some experiments with cold sparging (yes, really!) and found no loss of efficiency or beer quality. You can read his writeups at www.braukaiser.com .

I will check it out, but I would take strong issue with cold sparging being as effective at getting sugar out of grain as hot sparging.Thanks for the link!MolBasser

[denny]

I will check it out, but I would take strong issue with cold sparging being as effective at getting sugar out of grain as hot sparging.Thanks for the link!MolBasser

Definitely a good read and Kai seems to be a meticulous researcher. German brewing background with a healthy dose of skepticism and pragmatism thrown in! The reason he did the experiment was because cold sparging is so counter intuitive.