BIAB - cold water sparging

I mash inside in a turkey fryer that can hold 7.5 gal. I also have another pot that can only hold about 4 gallon. This has proven a major PITA on larger grain bills (think 12+ lbs) since I have to sparge once, heat up some more water, and sparge another time or just mash incredibly thin to get my boil volume. I have a glass stovetop and I don't want to shatter it using too much weight.

So I was thinking, could I just mash as usual (around 1.5 qt/lb) and use COLD WATER in an ale pail to sparge ? I usually have to sparge with upwards of 3 gallons to get my boil volume, so it would save me the cost of buying a new biggish pot (6+ gallons). I have read Kaiser's thread and his report on the lack of evidence in decreased efficiency from sparging with cold water providing you get proper conversion before sparging. What I'm worried about is his concerns with haze in the final product because of the break happening at this stage compared to after the boil where it can be left behind. Anyone else sparging with cold (55F) tap water in large amounts ?

Well I was going to suggest Kaiser's thread, but you beat me to it. Commented so I track this thread and see what others say. Curious to learn more about this topic, in terms of energy efficiency a cold sparge saves time and energy- but could introduce it's own issues. Again, curious to see if anyone with experience comments on this.

I've done it a few times without any noticeable issues, but never done a batch side by side like this.

I may be mistaken, but I don't think Kaiser uses 55F water to sparge. He uses hot water from the tap (~120F).

I have cold water sparged several times and have not noticed any difference or had any issues.

The last BIAB brew I did was a club brew a someone elses house. Did a cold water sparge and got 86% efficiency. So, my opinion would be yes you can. Actually this was the highest efficiency I have had to date, so now I have to decide if I want to continue to do cold sparges.

Can someone link to the Kaiser thread? I'd like to read it.

The only thing I can think of is that it would take longer to reach a boil, since you're adding water that is less than ~170 to your runnings.

I don't understand your issue here though, shouldn't you be able to heat up enough water to use all at once? You have 11.5 gallons total capacity that you can heat. If you heat up all your water at once, you can also store some it temporarily in a bucket before you need it. That's what I do.

Devilishprune, my concerns are with the glass top cracking with so much weight. You can visibly see the top flex when you put more than 4 gallons of water at once on it: I wouldn't risk putting 11 gallons. With normal coil burners I wouldn't be so squeamish It also would be a LOT simpler to just sparge with cold water: the time added to get to a boil is pretty much immaterial since with my setup, I would have to either lower my grainbill to be able to mash in 4 gallon or heat sparge water TWICE on a dinky stove. My turkey fryer outside can get 6 gallons tap water to a boil in about 40 minutes. I have tested it when seasoning the pot.

Kaiser did sparge with very cold water: 54 F to be exact. I saw a post by Bobby_M later on mentionning he did sparge with 120 F water, but have not yet found the source of this affirmation. Not saying its false, maybe Kaiser changed his methods later on after his experiment.

Link to the thread.

After reading that, then I think it should be a great option for you.

It seems like he mentioned that his WORT never cleared. For me, wort clarity isn't indicative of final product clarity. He thought that he had a cold break in the tun, which should be okay because you want to have a cold break in your kettle right? All that crap settles eventually anyway, so I would think that it would just swirl around in the boil for a while (perhaps redissolve?) and then sink the bottom with the rest of your cold break.

I looked at the pictures on his brew log and both beers seemed to be plenty clear to me. With your current system, I'd say go for it and tell us the results!

It'll be a few weeks before my next brew day, but I'll be sure to update this thread with my findings.

Isn't 11 gallons of water *roughly* (don't beat me up hear), 80 some pounds? I would not put that on a glass stove either. Beyond not wanting to wreck my stove top, I couldn't imagine explaining that to my wife.

I'm not an expert at this at all, but I think the 'try and see what happens' is a good move and a great solution for your situation.

Maybe I missed it, but why sparge at all? That's the whole reason I BIAB, so I've only got one pot to mess with. Is it just efficiency? I get 70% with no sparge and while that's not great, the extra grain is easy compared to messing with a second vessel.

His pot is too small to do a no-sparge BIAB, especially with larger grain bills.

conpewter said:

His pot is too small to do a no-sparge BIAB, especially with larger grain bills.

Click to expand...

That's exactly where I'm at too. When I bought this pot, I hadn't heard of BIAB yet. But, I want to try it, tomorrow actually. And, I'll have to do a sparge. But, I'm thinking I'm going to stick with the hot water sparge, for now anyways.

I don 't know if this will help or not, but the way my system is set up, I can't sparge my BIAB into the kettle. So this is what I do:

I have two home depot 5 gallon buckets. I have one 5 gallon plastic water carboy.
I cut the top off the plastic carboy and I set it inside the bucket.
I put the bag in the bucket and I sparge the grains.
The reason I have to is I life the carboy and grains out of one bucket and move it to the second than take the first bucket (filled with wort) and dump it in my kettle.

It's a little cumbersome, but it works. If you think about doing this (for people that can't sparge in place). The 'funnel' of the plastic carboy will push tight against the bottom of the bucket, so you either need to drill some holes or cut some lines for the wort to escape.
Material to consider...

Retrofit said:

I don 't know if this will help or not, but the way my system is set up, I can't sparge my BIAB into the kettle.

Click to expand...

I appreciate that information. Right now, after a fair bit of thought, this is how I'm going to try this:
Heat 4 gallons water in 30qt pot. Add the bag and dough in after water is up to temp, so as not to burn the bag hanging over the side, or touching the bottom, with the high heat. Mash, and then mash out to 170f. Once this reaches temp, I'll take it off the burner (pretty sure it'll hold close to target temp for 15 minutes) and put my 20qt pot on with 2.5 gallons and heat to 170f. Lift and twist grain bag to get all the goodness out I can and then simply plop it into the 20 quart and stir it around for 15 minutes. Then lift and twist again, and combine sparge with 1st runnings and proceed from there.

I think a cold water sparge wouldn't really speed me up too much because I'd still have to heat that same amount of water at some point in the process. And, I don't think it would save any fuel for the same reason. Though, I still want to know if a cold water sparge will work.

UPDATE:

I used the cold sparge on my Amber and the beer came out clear, but hazier than previous brews with conventionnal methods when I could read the newspaper through them. On the other hand, I didn't use any finings and none of the bottles have spent more than 48 hours in the fridge, so the findings aren't conclusive.

I brewed two other beers with the method and there has been no drop in efficiency whatsoever. Hit 1.031 on my mild for 75% (higher than expected) and 1.036 for 70% on my Bitter, altough my volume is a bit on the high side. The wort was both very cloudy for those two batches when it hit the burner, but okay after the boil. I'll update again when it'll be time to bottle regarding clarity, but it looks good so far. One less step to mess around with and I probably saved close to half an hour.

Why not boil the extra sparge water first, set it aside and then use it at whatever temp it is at when you need it... I'm sure it will still be in the 150+range...

I'm surprised to hear that cold sparging works, but if it does, then that's an easy fix. I would think that hot water would do a better job of rinsing off remaining sugars, but then I've never tried that...

That would be fine, if not for the fact that it would take twice as long and I would have to go outside to do it (my glass stove top can handle 2-3 gallons max). Right now, all I have to do is mash and 5 minutes before it ends, fill my bucket in the bathroom and dunk the bag in the resulting water for 15 minutes. Starting with lukewarm wort adds about 10 minutes to the boil time. I can manage that since I have a lot less equipment to clean and mess with.

Sugar is more soluble in hot water, but we're talking several gallons for a few pounds of grain. I now perform a direct fire mashout though to insure complete conversion (before I used 185F water to sparge, hence performing the mashout at that time).

Constant siring a BIAB will maximize your conversion efficiency, so hot sparge water is not necessary for extra conversion in a MLT.

UPDATE #2: I bottled my mild today. The beer was brewed with Notty, wich flocculated like a brick. I also cold crashed outside in -17C weather and fined with gelatin. The beer was still cloudy.

The amber I used the cold water sparge method also never cleared up totally. I tested the method on another beer, a bitter, wich was brewed the day after the mild. Altough the yeast has formed a tight cake, the beer is still cloudy. 0/3 regarding good clarity.

Verdict: cold water sparging is good for normally hazy beers or dark beers (stouts, porters, etc.). I will go back to the hot sparge method though. I value clarity too much.

Did you use whirlfloc in the last fifteen minutes of the boil? This has been necessary for me to get good clarity on BIAB beers. I would not think that using a cold or hot sparge would make a difference a long as you used some in the boil.

No, but every beer I've brewed with BIAB and a hot sparge have come out crystal clear. With enough fridge time, even my witbier turned out completly clear, like an american lager.

Thanks for the updates!

I would be interested to know if whirlfloc would help out with your clarity.