BIAB with sparge

[enkamania]

Greetings,

I've been a no sparger forever, because I enjoy the ease. We just got a hot water dispenser that pours 170-180 degree water, so I wouldn't have to heat up anything separate. So my questions are:

1. What water to grain ratio do spargers use?
2. How much sparge water?

Thanks

 

[hezagenius]

When I sparge with BIAB, for a 12# grain bill, I usually do a dunk sparge with 2-2.5 gallons. I press the heck out of the bag after the mash, then put the bag into a smaller kettle and pour in the sparge water, stir, and cover for 10 min. Then press the heck out of the bag again and proceed. I usually find I get an additional 5% in efficiency when I sparge. It just adds a lot of extra work.

 

[wilserbrewer]

If you use a pulley to hang and drain the bag, I prefer doing a slow pour over the bag sparge of a gallon or two. I like this method for both ease and effectiveness.

Fwiw, you can do a cold sparge without adverse affects except cooling the runnings and adding a bit of time to reach boil.

 

[Sadu]

I have tried many combinations of BIAB sparge. I have also done no-sparge and agree it's simpler and faster, but there are some benefits to adding a sparge step. None of these are game changers but for me I find it worthwhile.

- adding a sparge got me 10 points of efficiency, this seems to be a common theme
- For big beers especially I find the sparge is necessary to get decent efficiency
- If your mash starts getting a bit cold you can add a liter of hot sparge water to bring temps back up without affecting your volumes
- Takes a lot less time to heat strike water which can be a bottleneck, so your brewday starts faster. Heat the sparge water while mashing.
- No-sparge will increase your mash pH meaning you need more acidification to bring it into the right range. This might work against you if you have medium-high alkalinity in your water, not a big deal for RO water or similar.
- Sparging lets you split your mineral additions between mash and sparge water. I find this helpful for low-mineral lagers where all the minerals go in the mash

To answer your questions, use the same amount of water you would normally use for no-sparge. For a standard 1.060 type grain bill you can use about 50/50 between mash and sparge. I recirculate so I prefer a thinner mash to the 1.5 quarts per pound that seems to be standard, plus I work in metric so I can't remember what that ratio means anyway. I haven't found the exact ratio to be super important, for me I'll use as much water as needed to recirculate cleanly and everything else is secondary.

 

[doug293cz]

If you are going to dunk sparge (or regular batch sparge) a good rule of thumb for optimal lauter efficiency is 60% of total brewing water for strike, 40% for sparge. Total brewing water equals target pre-boil volume plus expected grain absorption. This is based on rinsing efficiency analysis that shows max efficiency when you have two equal runnings for initial and sparge run-offs. A single dunk/batch sparge should give you an additional 8 percentage points on your lauter efficiency compared to no-sparge.

Brew on

 

[jtratcliff]

I do about 6-7g strike water in my boil kettle at about 2.5-3 qts/lb then the remaining 1.5-2 g dunk sparge to reach my pre-boil volume... because that's what my available pots will allow....

While @doug293cz points out the "optimal" lauter efficiency, make reality work for your set up... If I could, I'd do 60-40, but I can't... So I do what I can with what I got...

 

[wilserbrewer]

Agreed, I try to find a compromise between efficiency, ease of execution, and benefit.

A smallish pour over helps efficiency, is easy to do, and also has the benifit of allowing you to sparge to reach pre boil volume. The sparge allows you to not be overly concerned with water volumes, as the pre boil volume can be easily measured as you continue sparging and bag draining.

Typically I'll mash in with strike water at batch volume, and the small sparge will be approx equal to grain absorption plus boil off plus other losses....or pre boil volume.

 

[enkamania]

I would probably just do the pour over variety, as I don't want to clean another pot.

 

[RocketBrewer]

When I BIAB, I use a pulley to raise the bag and put a stainless cross bar on top of the pot (I've seen some use an unused BBQ grate). I have a steamer basket from an old pot that I set on top, then I lower the bag into the basket where I can open the bag and trickle the sparge water over the whole thing. This has worked great for me. I adjust the strike/sparge amounts to help control the mash PH. I use beersmith and can just adjust the strike water to what I want and the sparge amount will be re-calculated automatically (they will always add up to the same amount total).

 

[wilserbrewer]

When I BIAB, I use a pulley to raise the bag and put a stainless cross bar on top of the pot (I've seen some use an unused BBQ grate). I have a steamer basket from an old pot that I set on top, then I lower the bag into the basket where I can open the bag and trickle the sparge water over the whole thing. This has worked great for me. I adjust the strike/sparge amounts to help control the mash PH. I use beersmith and can just adjust the strike water to what I want and the sparge amount will be re-calculated automatically (they will always add up to the same amount total).

Sounds like you have it dialed in....fwiw I was very surprised how well it works simply pouring sparge water over a hanging closed bag....

Intuition let me to believe it would be a fail, but it works rather well and is very easy....

 

[csurowiec]

I do a dunk sparge in a brew bucket. I mash with 2/3 of my total water then after a quick drain move my bag to a brew bucket. I pour the other 1/3 of my water over the grain into the bucket and stir it often over a ten minute span. Then I pull the bag, squeeze it a ton, then add the contents of the bucket to the kettle which is already on the heat and on it's way to a boil. It routinely gives me 80_85% efficiency on a 1.050-1.060 grain bill.

 

[violinguy]

A smallish pour over helps efficiency, is easy to do, and also has the benifit of allowing you to sparge to reach pre boil volume. The sparge allows you to not be overly concerned with water volumes, as the pre boil volume can be easily measured as you continue sparging and bag draining.

Bingo. I started a similar procedure with my last brew (my 3rd BIAB). I mash with 18 quarts (for a 3 gallon batch). Then I pull the bag out and put it over the kettle in a colander and pour hot water over it until I'm back up to 18 quarts (4.5 gallons for a 3 gallon batch).

For my next brew, I've ordered my grains double crushed (Ritebrew) and I'm going to test and adjust PH as necessary. When all is said and done, I should get 75%+ efficiency and a yummy beer, a single hop pale ale since you asked.

 

[Zzyzx3]

For those that do the pour over method, do you just carefully pour over to make sure water doesn't leak too much out of the sides of the bag? I just imagine you could pour too much water out of the sides of the bag which would not allow the water to wash the grain on the bottom of the bag. Not sure if it is a real world problem or something I am over worrying about...