anyone build a rotating sparge arm?

[chapesh]

i am building a rotating sparge arm(from copper), i was wondering about a few things. first how do i calculate the amount of h2o coming out of the arm? do i just add the area of the small holes together? secong is there an easy way to find the center of the copper T for drilling? here are my specs as of now, 6.5" of 1/2" copper to a 1/2" 90, then a 1" drop reduced to 1/4" copper app. 3/4" to a T with each arm being 1/4" @ 5.5". thnx.

[Mill Rat]

Hate to rain on your parade, but IMO a rotating sparge arm is a solution in search of a problem. Keeping an inch or two of clear sparge water above the grain bed will allow you to just run your sparge water tube across the top of the grain bed and not stir up the top of the bed too much. That extra water will also help you keep from setting the grain bed. Put your time and money into something with a better reward for your efforts (like posting to this web site LOL).

[HogieWan]

I bought a sparge arm when I started AG. I like using it as it makes my setup simple and my eff. has been great.

[jstrausss]

I usaully brew using a sparge arm I had purchased and for the most part I keep the water just about a half inch above the grain bed. I'm starting to wonder why I don't just do what Mill Rat had suggested. anyone have any thoughts on that?

[HogieWan]

if you have a sparge arm, no reason to ditch it. I use one and keep the water 1-2" above the grain

[danno]

the whole purpose of a sparge arm is to diffuse the sparge water so you don't get any channeling, which will kill your efficiency. any method, whether you use an actual sparge arm, or run your sparge water across an ice cream bucket lid, or through a shower head, or whatever, just avoid the channeling and all is good...

[jstrausss]

o - ok so to avoid the channeling. That makes sense. I was always wondering what other reasons why this is done with the arm. I won't ditch it but I may start going with a 10 gallon batch and the arm I have just only covers the top of a 5 gallon pot.

[chapesh]

and you have just hit the reason for wanting to build my own, my old one works fine however for a ten gal batch it is just to time consuming and small. i wanted to build one slightly larger and therefore have the ability to flow more h2o if needed. i am just about finished soldering the copper wire inside the piping is a bit of a challenge. i shall post if it is successful.

[HogieWan]

Originally posted by chapesh
i shall post if it is successful.

please do

[MichaelM]

yea I would be interested on how you built it

[generalzonzo]

I tried building a rotating sparge arm, but I could not drill small enough holes in the tubing. The holes that are in a Phil's sparge arm are very small. The smallest bit I was able to get my hands on was a #70 Wire Gauge bit. When i got done drilling the holes it was obvious that they were too large in diameter. When I ran it, i had to have it full bore to spin, otherwise it would just drip out of the holes. Also, at full bore, it would have been a 15 minute sparge. I abandoned the idea and went back to placing my HLT hose into the LT that I have a tupperwear lid floating on the water above the grains. The lid allows for gentle distribution of sparge water on top of the grain bed minimizing channeling and disturbance of the grains.

[jstrausss]

That would be great chapesh. Maybe you can take a pic of it :)

[chapesh]

well i built it, and it doesn't spin! darn! however all is not lost, i found that it could drill the holes at different angles and get good coverage. so the effect is the same only different. just kidding. but it will work. i think that whoever said the holes weren't small enough was right, it just doesn't produce enough force to spin. i gues i could stand there and spin it by hand if i really wanted to but i doubt i'll do that. oh well back to the drawing board.

[jstrausss]

My brother and I are trying to solder some copper to maybe see if we could have a 1/2' length go down the side of the pot with small little slights or slices running down the copper. The other end is connected to our brew pump which is able to handle the heat. Hopefully we can make these small slights small enough to cause a spray that will spray across the 10 gallon brew pot and along the sides. well see. this weekend we will be testing that. :confused:

[generalzonzo]

The slits are an interesting idea. You may want to see if you can use an utility razor blade to score the copper tubing repeatedly to make the slits. I think if you use a saw blade, or cut-off blade of some sort the slit may become too thick.

[jstrausss]

ok - thats a good thought. a utility razor might be doable. alittle dangerous for me because I would probably be drinking some brew while I'm playing around with that but still doable if I take my time and becareful about it.

[generalzonzo]

I would suggest securing the tubing in a vice of some sort, being careful not to crush the tubing. I don't suggest holding it, although you may convince your brother to hold it :D . Then with two hands draw the razor towards you in a semi-controlled fashion. If you are drinking, to the extent that you may inflict bodily harm and catch yourself with the razor, good news it that the cut will be quick and most likely painless, bad news is that you won't be able to drive yourself to the ER!?! Good luck!!!!

[jstrausss]

Thats funny. lol Thanks for the ideas and for the safty tips :)

[Saint-Thomas]

Originally posted by generalzonzo
I tried building a rotating sparge arm, but I could not drill small enough holes in the tubing. The holes that are in a Phil's sparge arm are very small. The smallest bit I was able to get my hands on was a #70 Wire Gauge bit. When i got done drilling the holes it was obvious that they were too large in diameter.
This just gave me an idea. Here's a method I've used to build burners. You can get removable welding tips in various sizes. I'm talking holes you can barely see. So these tips come threaded to a uniform size, and you could drill your holes then tap them to accept thee tips. I think the tips are kinda pricey (maybe $1), but I can't remember.
The cool thing is you could change to various sizes to control flow. Of course, there are probably easier ways, but if you are going to build it yourself, I think this would be a good way to get really tiny holes without too much headache using off the shelf parts.

[MikShau]

Just to throw in my $0.02. I use a cpvc tube with large holes ( doesn't spin) with a gate valve and get around 70% mash efficiency. I used to hand ladle the sparge water with an old plastic lite beer pitcher onto the lid of an old margerine container and got 75%.

Difference? I don't have to constantly monitor the sparge ( or burn my hand with sparge water). Personally, I think the extra $0.20 worth of grain is worth not having to stand up and work for the whole sparge.

[generalzonzo]

Interesting, could you send a link to such tips? The rotating Phil's sparge chumpy has ~15-20 holes per arm. Also, would the lack of pressure even get water out of the tips?

[Saint-Thomas]

I had some difficulty finding a wide selection, but what you want to look for are wire feed contact tips. AirGas is where I bought mine locally. I think it is called MIG welding. Here's a page from Campbell Hausfeld which shows them in 0.024" , 0.030", and 0.035". Very small holes. I assume they come larger too. Like I said, the idea is you can install these bad boys a lot easier than trying to drill a tiny hole in copper using an expensive and fragile drill bit.

I guess the best way to find them is to ask your local welding supply store. Tell them what you want to do and they will be excited about helping you! Whenever I go to any supplier searching for parts to use in a non-standard way, the staff's curiousity drives them to be quite helpful. Their knowledge of the products will be a huge advantage for you.

Also, I'm sure there are much cheaper sources on the web if you look hard enough. Good luck and share your results!welding tips (http://http://www.campbellhausfeld.net/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/CategoryDisplay?catalogId=10001&storeId=10051&categoryId=10618&langId=-1&parent_category_rn=10523&top_category=null)

[BrewDog]

Mine doesn't spin, but it works well enough. I get about 78-80% efficiency with it. Just a single T and 2 pieces of copper that I bent and drilled. The connector is a 1/2" hi temp quick disconnect that I got from morebeer or northern brewer (both sell them).

pic (http://www.west-point.org/users/usma1986/42894/images/spargearm1.jpg)

[jstrausss]

not to change the post alittle, but I always have trouble figuring out the efficiancy. Can someone explain that to me?

[MichaelM]

Here is my sparge arm out of CPVC

http://www.morganwhips.com/homebrew/spargemanifold.jpg

I drilled some TINEY holes in it but they where still to big so I added a drop of cpvc glue to each hole let it dry then ran a needle through the glue drop...... I now get a nice very fine shower thats pretty adjustable for flowrate :)


Edit: Maybe you could try the same thing with the copper arm you made but use like rubber cement or something... let it dry then use a needle to make some tiney tiney holes....

[jstrausss]

hey thats great. I wonder if you can do that with copper? What did you use to attached those fittings?

[generalzonzo]

Here is an article from BYO on Calculating Brewhouse Efficiency.

http://byo.com/mrwizard/1145.html

You can find a theoretical lab yield spreadsheet on the web for most grains and adjuncts.

[MichaelM]

its all cpvc so I used a universal pvc/cpvc/abs glue thats clear because all the cpvc glues are usualy colored.... the fitting at the top is just a cpvc 1/2 inch slip to 1/2 inch female then screwed a 1/2inch male to 3/8's barb into it..... I just attach a 3/8 hose from my HLT(right now my bottleing bucket ) to the barb on the sparge arm and open the valves. here is the setup but I dont have my sparge arm sitting on the mashtun in it.... I will take a few more pics this sunday when I do my next brew

http://www.morganwhips.com/homebrew/brewsculpture.jpg

[jstrausss]

Thanks generalzonzo Very helpful but it makes me wonder if calculating efficiancy is really nesassary for the home brewer?

[generalzonzo]

Some guys do it religiously, I myself did it once and decided it was too much like level 3 college calculus. I believe there are brewing software packages that help with the calculations. I guess it is more important if you are trying to replicate the same style repeatedly. I take gravity readings with a refractometer throughout the sparging process, as well as at the end of the sparge. As long as my gravity is where it should be I am happy.

[HogieWan]

I use beersmith for recipe calculation. After the brew session is done, I adjust the batch size for what I actually collected and then just adjust the "efficiency" field until the OG is what I measured. It's been steady 82% since I started - no matter how good or bad the brew session goes.

[generalzonzo]

So, BeerSmith performs this calculation. Does anyone know if BeerTools does?

[BrewDog]

I'm in the same camp as Hogie. I 'reverse engineer' the efficiency after every brew session based on measured values.

When I first started AG, I was all over the place. Now, I can pretty much rely on using 79% as a standard efficiency rating for MY setup, which pretty much hits 78-80% using my current equipment.

Knowing this allows me to basically take anyone's recipe, adjust it (in Promash) for my setup, and come up with a beer that's pretty darn close to what their recipe called for. To me, the big advantage is that I'm never guessing any more at how much I need of this or that. I pretty much know in advance what I'm going to need to use, and for the beers I have already made, I can pretty much recreate them at will even given different hop alphas, or even to some smaller extent grain availability, etc.

[HogieWan]

Originally posted by generalzonzo
So, BeerSmith performs this calculation. Does anyone know if BeerTools does?

yes - when you enter the recipe calculator, the top section includes the efficiency (I think the default is 75%). Just change it and hit "calculate" If the OG is higher than your measured OG, back the eff. down. Just make sure you have your volume measured accurately

[Saint-Thomas]

Is this "reverse engineering" method reliable? I just completed my first all grain batch and ran it through Promash and did just that. I was off my target gravity by .002 which was (I think) 88% efficiency. I had all kinds of problems along the way, like not taking deadspace/ grain absorbtion/ etc. into account and I ended up having to quickly heat up an additional gallon of sparge water. Then I inaccurately measured the post boil volume by putting it into a "five gallon" bucket before cooling. I don't know that it was actually five gallons, but I thought it looked short so I added about two quarts water.

Given my mistakes made, coupled with my insecurities of first time jitters, I find it difficult to believe the eff. was so high. Also, the iodine test showed no starch in the liquid mash, but if I tested it with a piece of grain, it would eventually (after a minute or so) turn dark. Did I get full conversion?

In any case, I am proud of it and feel confident it will turn out well.

[HogieWan]

grain pieces will always turn the iodine black, regardless of conversion.

[Saint-Thomas]

I suspected that, but wasn't sure. Thanks HogieWan!

[Beervana]

I haven't built a rotating sparge arm but I did a super cheap and easy thing that allowed me to basically get the same benefits as a sparge arm (no channeling, unattended sparging).

I grabbed a metal colander, stuck some shishkabob sticks through some of the bottom holes in order to make the colander sit on top of the lauter tun, put a glass in the middle of the colander to block the center holes because the hot liquor hose would tend to drain through those holes if they were open, then adjusted my flow/drain rate to just trickel on out. It worked great and I didn't have to do anything except kick back and enjoy a homebrew while the colander sprinkled sparge water for me.

A bit ghetto, I know, but it worked very well in a pinch. I'll probably be picking up a sparge arm here shortly unless I get good efficiency with batch sparging.

Cheers!

[HogieWan]

beervana - a lot of people have employed cheap shower heads for sparging, so don't feel ghetto for your approach, it's a good idea

[Beervana]

Thanks Hogiewan,
Heh yeah I guess homebrewing and "ghetto-ish" equipment kind of go hand in hand. Now that I think about it, that's one of my favorite aspects of homebrewing. The fact that you can take household items or parts you get from a hardware store and use your brain and hands to make them into tools to create great beer.

I bet the shower head thing would work great (thanks for the tip). I think I'd just need to find one with a large enough overall diameter to evenly cover the entire top of my igloo lauter tun.