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A sparge may have helped a little, with a high OG mash a lot of sugar gets left behind in the grain. I did a IIPA that was 1.088 and got around 73% efficiency w/o sparging. I estimated 65% so I ended up watering it down a little before boiling.

Seems feasible. I don't see the need to boil for 20 minutes after mashing. You could even mash overnight and sparge and boil in the morning.

My results have conclusively shown that a thinner mash is better for mash efficiency. However, you can opt for a thicker mash and then sparge which may result in an ever higher efficiency.

His "coarse" crush was 0.030" (credit card width), which is relatively fine and normally recommended for BIAB. It is also much narrower than than the 0.045" that his mill's manufacturer recommended. If the goal was to truly test a coarse crush he should have used a gap of at least 0.045" if not...

Yes, you're correct. But the benefit of a finer crush, at least from my perspective, is a faster mash, not necessarily a higher OG. Given a full hour to mash both the fine crush and a very fine crush are pretty much guaranteed to completely convert.

I use gloves and my hands and arms. I can get a few good squeezes before taking a break to let the burns cool down. I tried using a 15" colander that sits on top of the kettle, but the bag plugs the holes of the colander and drains poorly. I need to widen the holes.

Another poorly thought out experiment from Brulosophy. He should have computed the mash efficiency rather than the post-boil gravity. The grain absorption and boil off will introduce further variations in gravity between post-mash and post-boil. And he should of measured the mash gravity during...

I typically get 70-75% efficiency without sparging. On my last brew I decided to sparge by pouring 2 gallons of water over the grains and got 84% efficiency. It wasn't much extra work. Next time I'll try dunk sparging instead.

I admit I know little about FWH, but I read that you do it with the later addition hops, like 30-0 minutes, not the bittering hops as you appear to be doing.

I've never heard of first wort hopping until now. I just follow the recipes, none of which I've seen mention FWH.

I siphon just because it's easier than lifting/pouring 8 gallons from the kettle. Once it's down to a gallon or two left I'll pour it.

I have to lift the bag out completely because it's so wide that the bag touches the side of the kettle causing the draining wort to drip down the side of the kettle onto the floor. I don't believe in HSA and there have been experiments that support this. But like many others things, it will...

I wouldn't toss it because of mold. There's plenty of methods to clean it discussed above. It may not look like new but does it really matter? Why anyone would toss a bag for this reason is beyond me. I'd only toss a bag if it was ripped rendering it completely useless. If the bags only cost a...

What did your OG end up being? As mentioned, I would just add water to the fermenter to reach your desired volume or OG. Ditch the mercury thermometer. If you break it in your beer you will ruin the whole batch. Also you don't need to "mash out" with BIAB. This is more for the guys with normal...

I've had mine for several years now and it's still going strong! Just did my biggest grain bill yesterday (28 lbs) and the bag and little pulley did just fine!

Doesn't look great, I see unopened grains in there.

Try double crushing. I do this at my LHBS and it seemed to be good for a 5% boost in mash efficiency. However, if the mill isn't set right to begin with, then double crushing won't help much. As a test, you could "crush" your grains in a blender. Turn them into dust, or pretty close to it. With...

Usually 5 hours... 1 of that is boiling, 1 is mashing, and 1 is heating (propane burner). So about 2 hours for setup, cleanup, filling water, etc.

Scary! Thanks for the heads up and glad you're okay. I'm surprised we don't hear about grain bags falling into the wort more often.

For BIAB I think you should be less worried about conversion efficiency and more worried about overall mash efficiency, which would be how much of the potentially available sugar in the grains actually makes it into the kettle.