Ingredients:
7 1/2 lbs. Coopers Plain Amber Malt Extract Syrup
1/2 lb. Roasted Barley
1/4 lb. Black Patent Malt
1 1/2 oz. Northern Brewer Hops (boiling): 13 HBU (360 MBU)
1/4 oz. Williamette Hops (finishing)
English Type Ale Yeast
3/4 cup corn sugar

O.G.: 1.052-1.056
F.G.: 1.014-1.018
Bitterness: 40 IBU; Color 43 SRM (86 EBC)


Add the crushed roasted barley and black patent malts to 2 gallons of water and let steep at 150-160°F for 30 minutes, then remove the grains with a strainer. Add the malt extract and Northern Brewers Hops and boil for 60 minutes. Add the finishing hops during the final 5-10 minutes of the boil. Strain, sparge, and transfer immediately into 2 gallons of cold water in the fermenter. Top off with additional water to make 5 gallons. Add the yeast when cool and ferment to completion. Botle when fermentation is complete.

As some of you may know from already answering my many, many beginners questions, i am a beginner. I am not really sure how to sparge. I have done some research and it seems like there is multiple ways. Is that correct? Which one should i use for this recipe? What all do i sparge? The recipe is somewhat vague and any help would be greatly appreciated. Thanks!

It appears that your directions are a little...confused.

Sparging is carried out while the wort is being collected which is, of course, before the boil. Sparging is simply a method of rinsing all of the sugars from the grains so you get the most bang for the buck. For the most part, for extract and partial mash recipes it is an unnecessary step.

For all grain brewing sparging is not required but is more a matter of economy. If you don't sparge a lot of the sugars will be left behind. At any rate, generally speaking hot water (< 168˚ F) is slowly added to the grain bed while the wort is being with drawn. You want the water to enter slowly to avoid disturbing the grain bed which can result in a stuck sparge. You want the water coming in at about the same rate as it is being withdrawn otherwise with mash may become compressed resulting again in a stuck sparge. The wort simply dribbles out and can take hours to collect without taking corrective measures.

In terms of corrective measures there are two commonly used methods. The first is to stop the flow of water in and out of the lauter tun and then "slice" the grain bed in a coarse sort of grid pattern. After a few minutes of allowing things to settle the valves are once again opened. This hopefully will uncompact the grain bed and the wort will once again flow freely. If slicing doesn't work then the other alternative is to remove the grain from the mash tun and then put it back. As you can see this is a procedure of last resort.

For my mashing system I have a cooler which contains hot water (the hot liquor tank) at a higher elevation than my mash tun which in turn is higher than the brew kettle. In my case, the hot liquor tan is placed on top of the refrigerator with the mash tun on the stove and brew kettle on the floor.

The hot liquor tank has a valve and piece of tubing connected to it. The tubing leads to my mash tun. On top of the grain bed I place two cheap aluminum pizza pans. These pans have hundreds of small holes that I've made with a push pin. The purpose of these plans is to break up what flow of the water entering the mash tun so it gently percolates into the mash. Tubing from the mash tun leads into the brew kettle on the floor. Wort is initially collected into a pot and reintroduced into the mash tun until the wort coming out is relatively clear. Then you simply slow the water to flow into and out of the mash tun until you've collected sufficient wort.

Well there is sparging in a nutshell. As you had said there are different methods but this is how I do it.

At any rate, I don't really believe this is something you need concern yourself with a present with partial mashes but I wanted to answer your question as best I could.

- Scott

Thanks for all the info Scott!

You said not to worry about it?
So this recipe will be ok without sparging?

Thanks again

Unless your recipe calls for a significant amount (i.e. ~40-50% of the fermentables) of base malt (i.e. two or six-row malted barley, Munich Malt, Wheat Malt, etc.) I would not bother sparging.

It is an extra step and the gain is marginal for the amount of malt you are actually using.

Your recipe should be fine without sparging.

Good luck!

- Scott

I have seen sparge used in this sense a few times before. Some people (for whatever reason) think it's a good idea to rinse (sparge) the hops to "get all the good stuff out". In my system, the hops act as a filter bed to "keep all the bad stuff out". In any case, it's completely unnecessary.

To get the most out of hops I usually step them in hot water, strain that water (full of hop aroma) into the fermenter, and then add the hop pulp in the strainer into the boil to get the bitterness out. Boiling the hops for a long time of course kills the aroma so my idea is to get the aroma out before boiling them. It seems more effective than the "sparge" way of doing it, but everybody has their own methods.

As mentioned earlier, sparging is a step used to rinse the grains after mashing. It is a good way to collect all of the sugars, by rinsing water over them, and collecting that water into the brew kettle before the boil.

There is no reason whatsoever to sparge after the boil. You can potentially do more harm than good because there are tannins in the hop leaves, and grain husks, left behind that you don't necessarily want in your beer.

Steeping some grains for color or other qualities will not contribute substantially to the grain bill used for sugars, and since you're boiling at way over mash temps, you don't want to leave the grains in for that long in the first place.

Steeping is usually done early on before the water has reached 160, or for a few minutes after the boil to impart qualities to the nose, if steeping ground coffee in the brew for example.

Likewise, a long term boiling of hops is not the way to affect a hoppy aroma. Adding hops early on the in the boil will affect the hop bitterness and impart certain other characteristics of the hops to the flavor. The best methods for hops aroma are to hop late in the boil, in the last 5 minutes or so, dry hopping in the fermenter, or using an infuser when transfering to a secondary fermenter.

Hope that info helps.