Fly Sparge arms

[Jbug]

Could I get some ideas on sparge arm designs? I'll be mashing in a rectangular cooler and I haven't ran any tubing yet so any type would be fine...


Josh

[BDawg]

All you really need is to make a plain copper pipe rectange and drill 1/8" holes in it. All it really needs to do is keep the water from drilling into the grist. You can use flexible tubing to connect through a fitting drilled through the lid, then you can keep the lid closed and the flexible tubing lets you change the height (important for big and small beers). Think about a float valve switch that you can hook up to your pump. That'll let you set it the float will turn the pump on and off so you can sparge "automatically".


HTH-

[Jbug]

Ok cool... What size pipe? 3/8 ok? No pump in the brewhouse yet BTW just good old fashion gravity I'm assuming this design would work either way...


Josh

[scotchpine]

I would think gravity feed would be fine as long as you have a valve to control the flow. I was thinking about making one in the same situation and wondered if there was any downside in using pvc instead of copper.

[Holt]

I took the fancy, copper sparge ring off of my MoreBeer rig and replaced it with a 5 foot length of high-temp silicon hose coiled around the top of my grain bed. It works great and is super easy to clean.

[Jbug]

Thanks... There's definitely a valve in place so that won't be a prob. I've bought the copper today... I should be posting pictures later


Josh

[krizwit]

I have used several fly sparge designs and my current one is some high temp silicone attached to some copper pipe. The tubing generally floats just below the liquid level. Easy to clean and works...

[mabrungard]

A sparge water distributor does not have to sprinkle water on the grist. A better solution is to use a downlet tube or pipe to gently let the sparge water flow out over the grain bed. In addition, the grain bed should be kept slightly submerged most of the time. That way the water is completely distributed over the bed and you don't drill holes in the bed.

The other thing about water distributors that sprinkle is that they lose more of the water's heat to the air. That means that its harder to reach or maintain the mash out temp in the mash.