Batch sparging

I am curious about the way Beersmith calculates water amounts for batch sparging.  I am brewing a 6gallon SNPA Clone recipie with 13.50 lbs of grain, I chose the medium body, batch sparge option for my mash profile, in the end I nkow I will need just over 7 gallons in my boil pot, Beersmith tells me to mash in with 16.20 qts of water, then sparge with 4.71 gallons of water. Does Beersmith take into account the grain absorption? I thought from all of the research I have done that you want to have equal amounts when you drain the MLT when using the batch sparge option.  Or does it not matter that much.  Thanks Tom

Did you check the box in the for equal size batches?

I do that and always get two sparges with equal amounts of water.  Sometimes you have to adjust the % of mash tun volume.

Don

Yes I have the box checked for equal size batches and have put 100% in the mashtun use box.  Any other ideas other than just figure it out myself?  Thanks  Tom

Tom,
could you put your .bsm recipe file some place we can download from?  
Then we can see exactly what you are doing.

Fred

I guess I could email it directly to you.  Or could you suggest someplace to upload it.  Tom

homebrew    @    wideopenwest   .           com

Thanks, I just mailed it to that address.  Tom

This had me stumped Tom,  I forwarded the .bsm to Brad, here is his reply.

I finally got around to this, and it appears that one of the issues is that his mash tun volume is 12 gallons.   Thus when it goes to calculate the size of a batch, it finds that he has more than enough room to include the full 4.7 gallon sparge in one batch through the mash tun.



 The remainder (16.2 quarts or just over 4 gallons) is already in the mash tun from the mash – less a gallon plus a bit that is absorbed by the grains.  This leaves right around 7 gallons into the boiler which looks good to me.  



 A good way to duplicate this is to enter all of his equipment parameters and batch parameters into the water needed tool.  Then you can easily track where the water goes since it is all shown on the sheet (simple addition/subtraction as you go).  I did this with his numbers and it all added up.

Thanks Bonjour, It makes sense, and after playing around some more with the settings and using the water needed tool as suggested I think I have a handle on things now.  Thanks again, Tom

I am having a problem with this too, sort of.  I have read about batch sparging techniques and that is what I am going to do.  What I have read (Denny Coon) says that you want equal amounts of water out on both steps.  So the Mash would have the same amount come out as the sparge.  I can't get Beersmith to do this.  It doesn't seem to seperate Mashing from sparging?  Any help?

I have found the problem, it requires you to drain the mash tun when doing equal batch sparges.  That is not the technique I have seen used out there.  The mash is not drained, the right amout of sparging water is added on top and then drained then your next sparge will have the same amount of water.  Brad, is there a fix for this out there?

Brewbum, I have to disagree with you, here is a cut and paste from Denny Conn site. "As the first runoff progresses, I heat batch sparge water in the 7.5 gal. kettle.  After the first runoff, I add the sparge water like I do the mash water, using the pitcher until the kettle is light enough to lift.  I use 185-190F sparge water, which gives me a grain bed temp. of 165-168F.  I stoir the water in well to make sure all the sugar is in solution, then let it rest for 10-15 minutes.  Then I vorlauf as I did for the first runoff and start the boil."

As you see stated after first run off. You have to look at the princple of what batch sparging is trying to accomplish. That is not to have a run off of less than 1.010 By batch sparging the average volume is so great it is hard to hit this mark. I have also played around with the setting of batch mashing in Beersmith and you can see that when doing more gradual steps that the efficency tends to be slighly higher but not much.

Hi, this is my first post here.  

Actually I'm with brewbum on this one. I've been using Ken Schwartz calculations as reference since the day I began batch sparging and I've even written a computer program based on them that calculates how much grain to add to compensate for the lower efficiency and how much water to add to the mash before first runoff, to achieve the first 50% of the preboil wort.
This is taken from Bob Regent  http://bayareamashers.org/content/maindocs/BatchSparging.htm:

The mashing process starts out the same as it does for a continuous sparge batch. That is, enough hot water is infused with grain to achieve the desired mash thickness for the particular recipe. The difference comes when initiating the sparge. At that point, an additional volume of hot water is infused into the mash tun in order to bring the total volume to ½ of the total expected runoff, plus additional water to compensate for what is retained by the grain. The mash is then thoroughly mixed to dissolve as much extract as possible and uniformly distribute it. The runoff is recirculated until clear and then allowed to drain into the kettle. Once the first runnings are completely drained, the second volume of water is infused into the tun and the mash stirred again. The runoff is then recirculated until clear and then run into the kettle.

Click to expand...

If you read Denny Conn's site under "Formulae and definition of variables" you'll find the same procedure described there.

I use the same technique and can't get it to work in Beersmith. What to do?

I do it the way brewmaster is talking about and have since I started batching and it works great.

The loss of eff. when batching is a myth also.  I get 75-80%.  I only got 70-75 when I did fly sparging.

I guess it just goes to show there is more than one way that works.

I love this hobby ;D

Don

This is the quote from Denny's site on Batch sparging.

The main concept we’re going to be working with is that for the best
efficiency, the runoff volumes from your mash and batch sparge should be equal.  In order to do that, it’s sometimes necessary to infuse your mash with extra water before thefirst runoff.  Here’s how it works...

That says it all right there, if what you are doing works for you that is fine, according to Denny's findings and Ken's you will get better efficiency with equal volumes.  My problem is that Beersmith does not allow that, so I have had to figure the amount on my own.  This isn't hard but I thought if the more understood way of doing batch sparging is this way then why doesn't Beersmith handle it.  

Not a big deal, I have figured out the workaround and am dealing.

What you guys are talking about is Mash Out.  I also like to keep my two batches equal size.  Beersmith does not calculate this for you so you have to figure out your mash water based on water/grain ratio.  Then subtract your grain absorbtion, call this x.  Now, divide your total preboil amount by 2.  Call this y.  Subtract x from y, this is your mash out amount.  Now, y is also your sparge amount.  Clear?  hehe!!

I just started using beersmith and I agree you have to find your own workaround to get equal run offs.  

Maybe I'm missing something but also of concern to me is the brew sheet shows to always sparge with 168 degree water.  if you want the grainbed to go from 150-156ish up to 168, you obviously need to add sparge water with a temp above 168.  Is there away to correct this to be accurate in the brew sheet or am I just stuck manually correcting it using the infusion/temp tool?

It shows 168 because that's your sparge water temp. If you want a mash out to raise the grain bed that has nothing to do with sparging, per se.

When I set it to do a dough in/mash out and then a sparge to get my volume, it shows the temp adjustments required to raise the grain bed's temp.

The "sparge" (comes after the initial drain off) needs to be about 170ish (or a hair less) so your grainbed keps in the 160's. (It'll already be hot after your vourlaf/drain session).

Great... now I'm thoroughly confused. I'm doing my second AG batch on Wednesday and I was going to try batch sparging for it's "simplicity". My first batch had horrendous efficiency of around 50% using continuous sparging. My problems were not keeping the mash at a high enough temp, adding too much water to try and get the mash to a high enough temp and draining and sparging way too fast. So, I ended up with a very low preboil OG in the kettle (not that I really took a hydrometer reading ...  :
I'm relying heavily on BeerSmith to tell me exactly how much mash water / sparge water and strike temps I need to make this all work. I'm using 11.5# of total grain in a 48qt mash/lauter tun (coleman rectangular cooler with SS braid and spigot).
I think I can fit all of the grain + original mash in water no problem. Then I was under the impression that you drain the entire mash as fast as you want after 60 minutes. Then, add ALL of the sparge water into the cooler @170 degree's, recirculate and open the spigot wide and collect all the rest of the wort... so when everyone is saying "equal sparge amounts" I'm confused.
In my case, are you saying I need about 3.25 gallons from first run off and should expect to get another 3.25 gallons post sparging. Or is this all trying to figure out sparging phase 1 and sparging phase 2 (if you tuns not big enough)...

I agree that it would be nice if Beersmith could figure out equal runoffs as suggested by Denny Conn. 

I can sort it myself but I got beersmith as I am lazy!

Beersmith is a great product and this is my only (very minor) gripe!