BIAB Sparging Techniques

Until now I have only been doing 3 gallon BIAB batches in the all grain world. This has worked great with my 9 gallon Bayou kettle.

The problem is that I want to do 5 gallon batches now like I did with extract but my kettle is close to it's limit for most grain bills to do this. The next brew day I am planning a recipe that the Priceless BIAB calculator is calculating total volume to be 8.65 gallons with grain and full water volume.

Is this cutting it too close at the top? Not sure how much that will rise when heated up to 153F and then 170F. Of course the other option is to sparge which I have not been able to find much info on for BIAB. I have an additional 4 gallon kettle I can use. What is the best way to get this done?

I think that's cutting it too close. I would do a dunk/batch sparge in your smaller kettle if it will fit, or in a bucket if it won't.

I had a 9gal kettle from adventuresinhomebrewing that I used for my first year or so of brewing. I slowly kept getting more bold with my water volumes and would usually fill it like 3" from the top so that when I would add my ~10-12lbs grain, it would be pretty close to the top. Had to scoop out some hot water from the mash once or twice on big beers, but it did work to get me 5.0 gallons into the fermentor. It worked well once I got good at estimating my grain bill size vs water needed. I only upgraded my setup out of necessity for a move

I would "sparge" BIAB style by rinsing my bag with cold water and trying to squeeze out as much of the extra sugars as possible, then add back into the kettle

With an additional 4-gal kettle, you are in fine shape to do a BIAB with a batch sparge.

I would recommend calculating the water volume you need, subtracting the amount for grain absorption and then dividing this number by 2. That would be your sparge volume. Add the grain absorption water volume to get your mash water volume. If this volume is greater than your 4-gal kettle will hold (with grains) then just shift some of the water back to the mash step. The exact splitting of the water is not important as long as you have adequate amount to mash with and enough sparge water to rewet the grains in the bag.

When you are done with the mash, raise the grains out of the mash kettle and allow most of the water to drain back into your mash kettle. Then transfer the bag and all into your sparge kettle. I stir to break the grains back up into the available water and then allow it to sit for around 20 minutes. Lift the bag and allow this to drain as before. Squeeze or don't as you regularly do. You can combine the two pots.

Typically when doing this, I will be bringing the first wort up towards boil while the grains are steeping in the sparge kettle.

Makes sense to me. I usually hang my grain bag from above using bungee ropes above my kettle a couple inches to drain for a while before I squeeze the rest into a 5 gallon bucket. Would it work to "sparge" the bag at that time or is it going to disperse the water all over the floor instead of in the kettle?

Does it really not matter if the sparge water is at my mash temperature or cold...or can I use 170F sparge water to satisfy my Mashout? I'm kind of lost as to how the mash out would be accomplished with this method as well.

Oginme said:

With an additional 4-gal kettle, you are in fine shape to do a BIAB with a batch sparge.

I would recommend calculating the water volume you need, subtracting the amount for grain absorption and then dividing this number by 2. That would be your sparge volume. Add the grain absorption water volume to get your mash water volume. If this volume is greater than your 4-gal kettle will hold (with grains) then just shift some of the water back to the mash step. The exact splitting of the water is not important as long as you have adequate amount to mash with and enough sparge water to rewet the grains in the bag.

When you are done with the mash, raise the grains out of the mash kettle and allow most of the water to drain back into your mash kettle. Then transfer the bag and all into your sparge kettle. I stir to break the grains back up into the available water and then allow it to sit for around 20 minutes. Lift the bag and allow this to drain as before. Squeeze or don't as you regularly do. You can combine the two pots.

Typically when doing this, I will be bringing the first wort up towards boil while the grains are steeping in the sparge kettle.

Click to expand...

Sorry I posted before I saw yours. Thanks for the detailed explanation here. I could be over complicating this scenario but this seems like a little more work than typical "pull the grain bag out and sparge with water until you get your volume". Luckily I etched graduated markings into my kettle for every half gallon, so getting my volume should be no issue and pre-measure isn't a necessity.

I have a 9 gal Ballington tallboy BK by Concord. I also still have my original 5 gal BK I used to use for extract brews. I put my mash water in the 9 gal and my sparge water in the 5 gal. I have even done infusion step mashing with water from the 5 gal. I usually reserve 8-10 qts for sparging.

I have mashed as much as 16 lbs. I put my bag in the turkey basket. When the mash is done, I hoist the basket and use a perforated shortened HD bucket resting in the basket to do a fly sparge with the water from the 5 gal. Here's a picture. Sorry about being sideways. The photo also doesn't show the bag but it would be clipped to the rim of the basket. Takes about 30 min to sparge with 8 qts.

BlueHouseBrewhaus said:

I have a 9 gal Ballington tallboy BK by Concord. I also still have my original 5 gal BK I used to use for extract brews. I put my mash water in the 9 gal and my sparge water in the 5 gal. I have even done infusion step mashing with water from the 5 gal. I usually reserve 8-10 qts for sparging.

I have mashed as much as 16 lbs. I put my bag in the turkey basket. When the mash is done, I hoist the basket and use a perforated shortened HD bucket resting in the basket to do a fly sparge with the water from the 5 gal. Here's a picture. Sorry about being sideways. The photo also doesn't show the bag but it would be clipped to the rim of the basket. Takes about 30 min to sparge with 8 qts.

Click to expand...

This is an awesome technique thanks for sharing! If youhave time could you post a photo of the home depot bucket alone? I'd like to see how you have it perforated. Do you just pour the entire sparge volume in the bucket and the perforations you have slowly sparge the grain below on it's own?

Here's a picture. I drilled a pattern of holes with a 1/16th bit. I started with a few holes and then tested it. I added additional holes until it drained at just the right rate.

The most efficient way to do a dunk sparge is to squeeze the bag prior to dunking in fresh water, then opening the bag and stirring well for about 5 minutes to get a uniform sugar concentration throughout the sparge wort, and finally, pull the bag and squeeze again. You might find it less messy to put the bag in the bucket first, and then add the sparge water. Sparge water temperature does not matter if you have good starch to sugar conversion efficiency during the mash. Finer crush helps with conversion efficiency.

Likewise a mash out is unnecessary if you have good conversion efficiency. Just start heating the wort to boil as soon as you pull the bag. The applied heat will denature the enzymes just like a mash out. If your conversion efficiency is low, then a mash out may increase your conversion efficiency by essentially providing a longer mash time (until the enzymes are all denatured.)

Highest efficiency is obtained when the initial drained volume (first runnings) is approximately the same as the sparge volume (second runnings.) The grain will absorb a significant amount of water from the mash, but not from the sparge, since the grain is already wet for the sparge. Because of the grain absorption, efficiency drops as the size of the grain bill increases, and the wort retained in the grains contains a larger percentage of the total sugar.

The squeeze after the initial bag drain is more important than the squeeze after sparging. This is because the initial mash wort has a much higher sugar concentration than sparged wort. Therefore, a squeeze after the initial drain delivers more sugar to the BK than does a squeeze after the sparge. If you are only going to squeeze once, do it before you sparge.

The chart below compares full volume (no-sparge) BIAB efficiency vs. BIAB with dunk sparge (with equal first and second runnings.) The chart assumes a 5.5 gal post-boil volume, and 100% starch to sugar conversion (efficiency will be lower if conversion is less than 100%.) The different lines represent different amounts of retained water per lb of grain. How long you drain and/or how aggressively you squeeze will affect the grain absorption rate.



The curves will shift to the left or right for different size batches, but the trends are the same.

Brew on

I've got an 8 gallon kettle for 5 gallon batches, I max it out to within half an inch of the top grain and water.....it keeps the mash temp that much better.

Then i sparge in however much more water i need by heating some water in a kettle and sparging in my fermenter bucket.

Arnobg, the HD bucket holds about 2 gal so I can put that much in at a time. I usually sparge with 8-10 qts and it takes about 15 min per gal to drain.

BlueHouseBrewhaus said:

Arnobg, the HD bucket holds about 2 gal so I can put that much in at a time. I usually sparge with 8-10 qts and it takes about 15 min per gal to drain.

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I think that's a very creative setup but I don't have the turkey basket with my kettle.

I am thinking maybe I can keep the bucket full size, put holes in the bottom like you have but a lot larger to drain easy and then transfer my BIAB into that bucket and suspend the bucket a couple inches above my kettle and sparge with a second bucket set up exactly how you have that one. Essentially doing the same exact thing but using a second bucket instead, as my metal basket. Will the temperatures be too high for the plastic?

You could put some kind of grate over the top of the BK and rest the sparge bucket on top of that.

I just bought a 10 gallon kettle to do no sparge BIAB but here's how I did it in a 7.5 gallon. Like others, I used the basket that came with the pot and suspended it with S-hooks. As the level rose during sparging, I walked it up until eventually putting the bag in a colander. I also used the pot lid to press the bag.
View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1447285514.553200.jpgView attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1447285541.098584.jpgView attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1447285556.470597.jpg

arnobg said:

Until now I have only been doing 3 gallon BIAB batches in the all grain world. This has worked great with my 9 gallon Bayou kettle.

The problem is that I want to do 5 gallon batches now like I did with extract but my kettle is close to it's limit for most grain bills to do this. The next brew day I am planning a recipe that the Priceless BIAB calculator is calculating total volume to be 8.65 gallons with grain and full water volume.

Is this cutting it too close at the top? Not sure how much that will rise when heated up to 153F and then 170F. Of course the other option is to sparge which I have not been able to find much info on for BIAB. I have an additional 4 gallon kettle I can use. What is the best way to get this done?

Click to expand...

I've gone tighter, I did a 8.8G volume in a 9G kettle. I usually like to leave about an inch or so to stir. When I had to do a substantial sparge, I used to take my grain bag, place it in a cleaned frosting bucket from the grocery store, dunk it in there, open the bag up and stir the crap out of it, then pull the bag, dump the runnings into the brew kettle, and leave the grain bag into a second bucket with holes drilled in it.


Nowadays I do a more equal runnings approach, as it lowers my mash size and lets me do some cool stuff in my small batch setup now, and should theoretically increase my mash efficiency (assuming conversion efficiency is held constant)

especially if you do a no-added heat mash, it's actually good to have the kettle almost totally full.

I just wrap my kettle in an old sleepingbag during mashing, i lose less than 1 degree per hour if i make sure it's full.

How I sparge, I use a "zappo" from the joys of homebrewing, I bought a 5 gallon food grade bucket from lowes, drilled a thousand holes in the bottom, place this bucket in my bottle bucket, then move the grain bag into the 5 gallon bucket, the bag acts as a filter, I sparge as normal as if I had an igloo. works great.

I'm pretty lucky in that I can do a full volume mash for almost any beer up to 10 gallons by choosing a 5, 8, or 15 gallon kettle. So I really don't need to sparge. If I did need a sparge I would suspend the bag over the kettle and pour over the grains using a large tea kettle. Having tried dunking, I am just not a fan. Of course, YMMV. I generally do either 3 or 5 gallon batches but can go higher if I want.

Appreciate all of the suggestions and techniques you all have shared. Had the day off today to tinker and here is what I came up with.

I don't have a stainless basket with my kettle so I had to improvise. The plan is to remove the grain bag from my kettle after the mash and place it in this bucket which has holes in the bottom (essentially a plastic basket to hold it out of the wort). I rigged a pulley system so that I can hover it over the kettle at any height. I will sit a stainless strainer over the top of the bucket/grain bag and slowly pour my sparge water in that way until I get close to my volume and squeeze the rest.

Any issues with this?

be sure to convince yourself that the grains have cooled significantly from the last time you rinsed them with cold water to sparge. Squeeze them for the half second it takes to burn the $h1+ out of your hands. At this point, it is optimal to howl in pain as it will increase your sparge efficiency. Rinse and repeat

this is my tried and true BIAB sparge technique

m00ps said:

be sure to convince yourself that the grains have cooled significantly from the last time you rinsed them with cold water to sparge. Squeeze them for the half second it takes to burn the $h1+ out of your hands. At this point, it is optimal to howl in pain as it will increase your sparge efficiency. Rinse and repeat

this is my tried and true BIAB sparge technique

Click to expand...

During my first 3 gallon all grain in which I didn't need to sparge, I learned this real quick. Came out with 80% efficiency though so I was happy. I guess to be able to match that this time I plan on squeezing the bag yet again, but hopefully I can use the kettle lid to help keep my hands from being scolded!

m00ps said:

I had a 9gal kettle from adventuresinhomebrewing that I used for my first year or so of brewing. I slowly kept getting more bold with my water volumes and would usually fill it like 3" from the top so that when I would add my ~10-12lbs grain, it would be pretty close to the top. Had to scoop out some hot water from the mash once or twice on big beers, but it did work to get me 5.0 gallons into the fermentor. It worked well once I got good at estimating my grain bill size vs water needed. I only upgraded my setup out of necessity for a move

I would "sparge" BIAB style by rinsing my bag with cold water and trying to squeeze out as much of the extra sugars as possible, then add back into the kettle

Click to expand...

What about treating the sparge water to the the mash pH to avoid tannin extraction?

Finlandbrews said:

What about treating the sparge water to the the mash pH to avoid tannin extraction?

Click to expand...

Acidifying the sparge water to a pH of less than 5.8 will prevent the extraction of tannins. Brunwater, and other water calculators, can help you do this if you have good water analysis report. You can also use a pH meter to test the sparge water before and after acid additions. Lactic or phosphoric acids are good choices for sparge water acidification.

Brew on

arnobg said:

During my first 3 gallon all grain in which I didn't need to sparge, I learned this real quick. Came out with 80% efficiency though so I was happy. I guess to be able to match that this time I plan on squeezing the bag yet again, but hopefully I can use the kettle lid to help keep my hands from being scolded!

Click to expand...

Get some of these kind of silicone grill gloves (from HD/Walmart/etc) that my "brewing assistant" is modeling:

View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1447415284.008101.jpg

...I lift up my bag and squeeze the crap out of it with those, without getting scalded or burnt. Pretty useful.

As far as my sparge setup - you can see in the pic I use two pots and do the dunk sparge. I only do 2-3.5 gal batches, using the 5 gal pot for mashing (put in the oven on warm to maintain mash temp) and the 3 gal pot for sparging. Usually use 2.0 qt/lb for mash volume (down to 1.5 for bigger grain bills/OGs), and then anywhere from 1/3 to 1/2 that volume for sparge (depending on batch size and ability to fit grain and water volumes in both pots). My efficiency is anywhere from low 80s to upper 60s... usually right around 75%.

Finlandbrews said:

What about treating the sparge water to the the mash pH to avoid tannin extraction?

Click to expand...

doug293cz said:

Acidifying the sparge water to a pH of less than 5.8 will prevent the extraction of tannins. Brunwater, and other water calculators, can help you do this if you have good water analysis report. You can also use a pH meter to test the sparge water before and after acid additions. Lactic or phosphoric acids are good choices for sparge water acidification.

Brew on

Click to expand...

I'll be honest I haven't even started to get into water profiles yet, but I do know my water is okay as far as chlorine goes due to a limited water report provided by my city. Beer has been tasting good so far...

Is there any quick fix to the possible pH issue with sparging?

FatsSchindee said:

Get some of these kind of silicone grill gloves (from HD/Walmart/etc) that my "brewing assistant" is modeling:


...I lift up my bag and squeeze the crap out of it with those, without getting scalded or burnt. Pretty useful.

As far as my sparge setup - you can see in the pic I use two pots and do the dunk sparge. I only do 2-3.5 gal batches, using the 5 gal pot for mashing (put in the oven on warm to maintain mash temp) and the 3 gal pot for sparging. Usually use 2.0 qt/lb for mash volume (down to 1.5 for bigger grain bills/OGs), and then anywhere from 1/3 to 1/2 that volume for sparge (depending on batch size and ability to fit grain and water volumes in both pots). My efficiency is anywhere from low 80s to upper 60s... usually right around 75%.

Click to expand...

I need to get some of those, where can I find the brewing assistant too?

I now want to wear a child sized spiderman costume every time I am brewing

arnobg said:

I'll be honest I haven't even started to get into water profiles yet, but I do know my water is okay as far as chlorine goes due to a limited water report provided by my city. Beer has been tasting good so far...

Is there any quick fix to the possible pH issue with sparging?

...

Click to expand...

If you don't want to worry about the sparge water chemistry and possible tannin extraction, just sparge with unheated water. IF you have good conversion in your mash, the cool sparge will NOT decrease efficiency.

Brew on

arnobg said:

I need to get some of those, where can I find the brewing assistant too?

Click to expand...

I'll rent him out to you, cheap! It's about time he starts pulling some weight around here, the freeloader... [emoji12]

FWIW I brewed a 2.5 gallon BIAB this weekend. Mashed full volume and let the bag drain while the wort heated up.

I had to pick up my kid from dance so I heated the wort to almost boiling and then went to get her.

When I came back the bag had completely stopped dripping. I gave it a squeeze and wort just came running out. Still lots more wort in that grain! Now I don't know exactly how much difference it would have made against the efficiency, but as anecdotal evidence, the grain wasn't completely drained out.

My volumes and gravity were where I expected, so I continued on. If someone were to be really anal about their process they might try to rig up a squeeze device and measure the extra wort. To me it wasn't worth the effort. If combined with a dunk sparge I think the remaining wort would probably be almost of no consequence to anyone.

Homercidal said:

FWIW I brewed a 2.5 gallon BIAB this weekend. Mashed full volume and let the bag drain while the wort heated up.

I had to pick up my kid from dance so I heated the wort to almost boiling and then went to get her.

When I came back the bag had completely stopped dripping. I gave it a squeeze and wort just came running out. Still lots more wort in that grain! Now I don't know exactly how much difference it would have made against the efficiency, but as anecdotal evidence, the grain wasn't completely drained out.

My volumes and gravity were where I expected, so I continued on. If someone were to be really anal about their process they might try to rig up a squeeze device and measure the extra wort. To me it wasn't worth the effort. If combined with a dunk sparge I think the remaining wort would probably be almost of no consequence to anyone.

Click to expand...

Had you measured the before and after squeeze pre-boil volumes, you could have calculated the two different grain absorption rates, and then used the chart in post #9 (https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showpost.php?p=7205802&postcount=9) to determine the efficiency difference due to squeezing.

You are correct that a sparge is likely to give a larger increase in efficiency than a squeeze (also evident by examining the chart in post #9.)

Brew on