Do any of you heat during your sparge in a direct fired mash tun? I have never tried and have heard people say that it's a bad idea, but my temperatures are dropping during my sparge.
I mash out at 168 then sparge with 190 degree water and my temperature still drops to about 158 by the end of a 40 minute fly sparge. Temperature is taken by a probe in the outlet of my pump.
Not really a BCS question, but I figured you guys would be the right folks to ask.
Thanks,
Andy
Heat During Sparge?
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JonW
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Re: Heat During Sparge?
Here's my work flow:
- Heat strike water in MLT. By heating in the same vessel that you mash in, you minimize the heat losses at mash-in since the equipment is the same temp as the water.
- As soon as I mash in, I start heating the sparge water to 168 in the HLT.
- I do a continuous recirculation in the MLT during the whole mash time. The burner fires on/off periodically if the wort exiting the MLT drops a bit.
- I do a mash-out by direct firing the mash to bring it up to 168 just prior to sparging.
- While sparging the burner may fire on/off under the HLT to maintain the 168 temp on the sparge water.
- Once I've sparged a few gallons of wort, I fire the BK. This starts heating the wort simultaneously while I'm still sparging.
- Once sparging is completed, it usually only takes about 10 minutes to get to a boil since I was already raising the temp of the wort in the BK while sparging.
That's kind of a long answer to your question, but hopefully the details help. One think I do is to turn down the burner after heating the strike water in the MLT so that when it needs to fire on to heat the mash, it is a low flame that won't scorch the mash. If you're not doing a recirculation, then don't direct fire the mash. Recirculation is the key.
- Heat strike water in MLT. By heating in the same vessel that you mash in, you minimize the heat losses at mash-in since the equipment is the same temp as the water.
- As soon as I mash in, I start heating the sparge water to 168 in the HLT.
- I do a continuous recirculation in the MLT during the whole mash time. The burner fires on/off periodically if the wort exiting the MLT drops a bit.
- I do a mash-out by direct firing the mash to bring it up to 168 just prior to sparging.
- While sparging the burner may fire on/off under the HLT to maintain the 168 temp on the sparge water.
- Once I've sparged a few gallons of wort, I fire the BK. This starts heating the wort simultaneously while I'm still sparging.
- Once sparging is completed, it usually only takes about 10 minutes to get to a boil since I was already raising the temp of the wort in the BK while sparging.
That's kind of a long answer to your question, but hopefully the details help. One think I do is to turn down the burner after heating the strike water in the MLT so that when it needs to fire on to heat the mash, it is a low flame that won't scorch the mash. If you're not doing a recirculation, then don't direct fire the mash. Recirculation is the key.