I'm still learning all-grain and have questions about the sparge water addition.

1) Do you let the grain bed compact; i.e. drain out all the first runnings or do you leave the grain bed covered with water?
2) How vigorously do you stir in the sparge water?
3) How long do you let the sparge water sit on top of the grain bed before draining?

Thanks in advance for the feedback....

Uli

1) Yes, drain it all.

2) Stir like crazy, but don't detach the braid/manifold.

3) I let it sit for about five minutes, but I've heard you don't gain anything from letting it sit.

1) Yes, because compaction doesn't matter in a batch sparge. There is a German brewing technique similar to batch sparging where the grain stays submerged but that's not what typical batch spargers do.

2) I stir pretty good. i have a 4 ft braid and try to not disturb it but I get all the nooks and crannies because there is sugar there.

3) 5-10 min. This lets some dust settle and the grain bed do a better job of filtering. I vorlof here again but others might not.

Robert, I bet you gain something by letting it sit because it gives the hot water time to penetrate the grain.

But do you really need to penetrate the grain again. I think 60 minutes of mashing would've accomplished this. I thought ( I've been wrong) that sparging was just a matter of rinsing any left over sugars hanging out in the grain bed.

I vorlof, drain, refill, stir (no wait), vorlof, and drain. No wait, cuts a lot of time off my brew day. I was letting the mash sit 5-10min before the second vorlof. Just a side note: sometimes I add some sparge water before my first run sometimes I don't. Most times I'm going for two runs. Makes for good efficiency and doesn't take to long.

AZ, I add water sometimes, too. I rarely do more than one sparge and find it's better for efficiency to gather the same volume of wort in each draining.

Robert, there is still sugar in the husks and such but now that you mention it the time it takes to drain should be enough to get most of that.

I've always got better eff. with more sparges. But I have moved to the same volume of wort and two total runs. Works best for time/eff. balance.

Sir Denny said there is no benny from extend wait "sparge mashes"

Thanks for the advice and feedback all!