How do you sparge 25 pounds of grain?

[haeffnkr]

Hi,
Just like the title says....

I recently had 25 pounds of grain for a 12 gallon batch.
I brew in a converted keggle so I needed to add/sparge/drain/squeeze 4 gallons back into the pot to start my boil with 14 gallons of wort.

I was using a 5 gallon bucket with a bunch of holes in the bottom and a few on the sides, close to the bottom.
Grain was too much for the bucket.
So I need a bigger bucket of some sorts I guess.

What do you all use to sparge a lot of grain?

thanks
Haeffnkr

 

[BeerGrylls]

Have you considered a hoist like the ones available from our fantastic wilserbrewer here? You use the ratchet pulley and lift it above your vessel.

 

[chato]

I use multiple pots/buckets with paint strainer bags. I ladle the grist into two or three containers with strainer bags, divide my sparge water evenly amongst them, then squeeze/drip the bags one at a time with a colander. Works great!

 

[jahdub]

I haven't tried 25lbs, but I still had room to spare last week when I drained a 24lb batch in my 5 gallon bucket. I spilled a bit of wort getting it in, though. Gonna drain over the kettle a bit longer next time.

 

[haeffnkr]

Hello,
A little more about my setup.
I have an E-BIAB setup with a keggle.
I make 12 gallon batches in this keggle.

I suspend my bag over the keggle for 3-4 mins to get the majority of the water out of it, then move it to the sparge bucket.
Then, In order to start my boil I need to add my stir motor back into the keggle so the wort does not burn, therefore I can not suspend the bag over the kettle for 20 minutes like some do with a gas fired BIAB.

I currently use a 5 gallon bucket with holes in it to sparge.
The last brew I did had 25 pounds of grain and I still needed to sparge/squeeze another 4 gallons of water in the keggle before the boil started.
The bucket barely held all the grain and had no room for the extra 3 gallons water I needed to sparge over the grain.

What I am looking for is a solution to sparge/squeeze the 25 pounds of grain and an added 3-4 gallons of water.
I guess the obvious answer is use a bigger bucket, but what?
A 7 gallon brew bucket or 2 plastic trash cans or plastic tubs or is there another solution I am missing all together, that does not include hanging the bag over the pot and/or pouring sparge water over the hanging grain bag.

thanks for your help
haeffnkr

 

[jahdub]

I use a 5 gal with holes for my grain and a 6.5 gal to catch the wort runoff. If you need a huge sparge, you could always do it in steps. Since you have a keggle, do you absolutely need your sparge to be 3 gallons? You'll get better extraction using a higher water:grain ratio.

 

[DurtyChemist]

I have about 4 spare fermentors so I would drain the first runnings into those and pour the sparge water on top. Collect the sparge water into more buckets if possible then deal with 25 lbs of soaking wet grains.

 

[Chris7687]

Question, do you find your efficiency that low that you cannot just pour the water into the top of the bag as it is hanging over the kettle and let it just drip back in? I have done a few 11 and 16 gallon batches, but can't recall if the efficiency was that low.

 

[LLBeanJ]

What's the hurry to start the boil? Why not hoist the bag, pour sparge water over it until you've collected all your wort, then add your stir motor and start heating for the boil? You lose, what, 15 minutes tops while you sparge?

 

[haeffnkr]

What's the hurry to start the boil? Why not hoist the bag, pour sparge water over it until you've collected all your wort, then add your stir motor and start heating for the boil? You lose, what, 15 minutes tops while you sparge?

You can do a lot in 15 minutes.
My brew nights are scheduled to be done in 3.25 hours including a 60 minute unattended mash.
With my little kids running around need to be put in bed then my wife needing to go to bed early ... my brew time is set at 3.25 hours start to finish.

Basically I will have to find some bigger diameter buckets or bins is all I can think of.

thanks for the ideas... keep them coming.

 

[Chris7687]

You can do a lot in 15 minutes.
My brew nights are scheduled to be done in 3.25 hours including a 60 minute unattended mash.
With my little kids running around need to be put in bed then my wife needing to go to bed early ... my brew time is set at 3.25 hours start to finish.

Basically I will have to find some bigger diameter buckets or bins is all I can think of.

thanks for the ideas... keep them coming.

Again to my question and somewhat to the previous poster's... Why not just hoist the bag, start your stirrer and boil, and be sparging at the same time over the pot. From my understanding of what your are trying to do seems A LOT more time consuming to do. Having to hoist the bag, let it drain, then move it to another bucket to sparge, to then pour the runnings back into the BK, and then to have to clean an extra piece of equipment.

Sorry, I don't see how this saves you any time. I also do not see the purpose, unless you are adding a drastic amount of points (sugars) more to your pre-boil gravity. I have done large 11 or 16 gallon batches and just hoist, sparge over the kettle, and then boil. I never got under 75% effic.

 

[Siberian]

Do you heat up the mash towards the end prior to lifting the bag?

I've found if I raise the mash temperature to 167-168 and hold it there for 5 minutes when I lift the bag my run off is a lot faster and I gather what I need that much quicker.

I don't sparge at all however, my efficiency is only 72-73%, I just toss in a bit more grain to solve that particular problem. I can raise the temperature fairly easily since I'm doing BIAB with a RIMs.

Maybe that's the answer though? Look into adding some basic recirculation so you could boost the heat prior to pulling the bag. You might even find with RIMs your conversion would be faster and you could shorten you mash time.

 

[haeffnkr]

dupe.....

 

[haeffnkr]

Again to my question and somewhat to the previous poster's... Why not just hoist the bag, start your stirrer and boil, and be sparging at the same time over the pot. From my understanding of what your are trying to do seems A LOT more time consuming to do. Having to hoist the bag, let it drain, then move it to another bucket to sparge, to then pour the runnings back into the BK, and then to have to clean an extra piece of equipment.

Sorry, I don't see how this saves you any time. I also do not see the purpose, unless you are adding a drastic amount of points (sugars) more to your pre-boil gravity. I have done large 11 or 16 gallon batches and just hoist, sparge over the kettle, and then boil. I never got under 75% effic.

I appreciate your questions.
I am not sure I am following your questions/suggestions though.

My keggle can hold a fuzz over 16 gallons total and with 13 gallons of water and 20-ish pounds of grain that leaves me with about 15 gallons total volume.
After I pull the bag out I am at about 10.5 gallons and need to squeeze the bag and add 3 gallons to get my to by pre boil volume of 14 gallons.
I consistently get 80% efficiency using this process.

My current process/thinking is I mash for 60 minutes total, that is typically a step mash schedule, maybe 2 or 3 temps, ending at 165, with my stir motor going the whole time (yes I could shorten that mash time but for now I have consistent results and good beer so I am not changing it)
After 60 minutes I pull off the stir motor and hoist the bag just long enough to get the bulk of the wort to stop draining, which is only a minute or 2 then put the half wet bag into my sparge bucket.
I then put the stir motor back on and start the ramp up to Boil.
While the boil ramp starts, I press the grain a bit and add the 3 gallons of sparge water, in repeated steps currently since my bucket is too small with more than 20 pounds of grain.
As the ramp up is going I add the sparge water in a few steps over the 30 minutes time it takes to go from 165 to Boil.

So I currently sparge in parallel as the boil is ramping up.
If I just let the bag hang for 15 minutes and tried to do some sort of sparge over the hanging bag it would result in the added 15 minutes to my process since I would not start the boil until I pulled dripping bag away from the boil kettle.

Chris - I can not hang the bag and run the stir motor at the same time, the wort would run all over the stir motor.

I need to run the stir motor as the wort is ramping up to boil because I have burned 2 batches when not doing so.... the element is full on and the dust in the wort will stick to the element and burn with out the stirring.

I do get some points added in sparging this way but that is not really why I do it, It is the only way I get my boil started asap and still get some sugar out of the grain.

If I had a bigger bin for sparging I could add my 3 gallons sparge water over the grain bag at once, let it drain and add the 3 plus gallons into the kettle at one time.

The only other thing I see is to do what you bring up and add more more grain so I just pull the wet bag and add the plain water right to the kettle to save some time and clean a few less buckets, but rinsing out 2 vs 3 buckets is not much of savings and they dont have to be sanitized regardless.

So there it is...
Keep the comments coming.

 

[haeffnkr]

dupe...