How long does your sparge take?

i've been doing BiaB and if I even bother to sparge, sparging take me about a minute and my efficiency seems to run about 78%. From starting to heat water to finishing clean up usually runs 2 1/2 to 3 hours.

 

Sorry to grill you, but does the bazooka screen kill the siphon at the valve? And if so, how do you avoid dead space? Do you have a pick up tube to put the bazooka down nearer the bottom?

 

I use a pump, so siphoning isn't really a factor. Still, I can't pick up anything below the level of the screen.

I have about 1 - 2 inches of dead space in the bottom. No, I don't have any type of elbow to get it closer to the bottom. It doesn't bother me at all. It would have a couple of years ago, but I've learned it isn't important. I thought about fashioning an elbow to get it to the bottom, but I now see no need.

It is not important. It affects your brewhouse efficiency some, but that isn't important either (I learned that too).

[edit] I do use one of those hanging hop baskets. I am sure that I would have more problems with my bazooka screen and my plate chiller if I did not keep the hop pellets separated from my wort by this hanging screen.

 

I dont really get the fly sparge = longer brew day concept..... I begin my fly sparge, start collecting wort and once I get a few inches in my BK I fire up the burner....by the time its to my target volume its just about ready to boil

your time is limited anyway for the time it takes to get your wort to a full boil, so sparging in 5 minutes or an hour really makes no difference to me IMO

also, I can set it and forget it....periodically check that there is a couple of inches of sparge water over the grain bed....this frees me up to drink some brews; weigh out hops...do some sanitizing etc...

my typical starting boil volume is around 14 gallons so I'm not sure if that is a factor or not

not saying either method is better than the other....just throwing out my 2 cents

 

Hi, all-grain newbi here. Just did second batch after refining my manifold and sparging for about an hour instead of 30 min. 13 lbs gave us 1.030 and our first batch gave us 1.048. My question is, if I'm shooting for a 6-6.5 gallon boil to start and I'm mashing with 1.25 quarts per lb of grain and I DON'T sparge, how do I get the rest of the wort? Just add water or do a second mash?

 

Add a large mash-out infusion to get the full boil volume in a single lauter. Requires a large MLT.