Steeping and Sparging qustions

This is going to be my second brew and the steeping of specialty grains sounds good to me and fairly easy. However this leads to a few questions that i am sure most of you all have more than an abundance of knowledge about.

1. I have read several threads about specialty grains and it is a lot like making tea. However then they all mention sparging, what exactly is this step? Is it just pouring hot water through the grains i have already steeped? Do i just use the water that i have steeped the grains in?

2.I am also trying to decide if i should use Cara Pils to add body, the snag is that i have read it will create a starch haze to the beer. Should i just use Malto Dextrin Sugar or should i use the Cara Pils?

As always your insight is appreciated.

1. Yep, you can 'teabag' or put the grain in a strainer & pour hot water over it. The purpose is to wash the flavors & sugars out, so new water is best.

2. MD is a better choice for extract brewing.

I use CaraPils all the time. Irish Moss helps with the haze as well as aging in secondary. I've steeped grains since day one. I have a strainer that fits over my brew pot (4 gal) that I strain my grain bag in. I simply make a pot of water in my coffee maker and use that to sparge the grain bag. The water is at about 170* and I SLOWLY trickle the water over the bag to get all the flavor and sugars out. Temps higher than 180* will pull off flavors from the grain husks so watch that.

PM me your email address and I'll email you a great article from BYO magazine that goes into detail about the process of steeping specialty grains. I'd post it here, but the mods say it's a no no (rightfully so, most likely).