Why build a Sparge Manifold?

So we’ve just finished build a great mash tun. While not measuring efficiency at this point, we consistently hit target OG’s which tells me we are successfully draining the converted sugar from the wort.

So we decided that we want to try our hands at continuous sparging – or fly sparging – as opposed to the batch sparging we’ve been doing in the past. We’ve read that brewers can get better efficiency (the amount of sugar extracted given the amount of grains used) by using the fly sparge method. We don’t care to weigh in on this hot debate and will let you Home Brew Talkers debate in our place.

We began our fly sparging journey by opening the mash tun and slowly trickling water through via a hose. However, we decided this was not the best method and we built a sparge manifold on the cooler lid for the following reasons. See our post here on Building a Fly Sparge System.

1. We did not like keeping the cooler lid open. While all the sugar has probably already been converted to sugars 1 hour into mash, we felt we were losing too much temperature too fast in the mash tun. Why chance it if you don’t have to.
2. We had a stuck sparge when doing a Rye Pale Ale. By being able to slowly trickle water onto the grain bed, we could keep it set, while uniformly rinsing the liquid out of the mash tun. Without the manifold we were guessing (we still are, but with more education) at how much sparge water to put into the mash tun and take out.
3. We saw somebody else do it, and their process seemed much easier. Dumping buckets, holding a hose over a 155 degree mash just wasn’t fun. We want to explore better ways of doing things, so we built a sparge system in our mash tun for less than $15 – we had the cooler already. We wanted to let simple engineering and gravity do the work.

So far we have only used with one batch – we tried the Rye Pale Ale again – with good success. We beat the OG by about .0015 and had no issues with a stuck sparge. We did use a bit more Rye and Pale Malt which accounts for part of the OG, but even with using more of the sticky Rye, we did not collapse the grain bed. Cheers and sparge on!