Mash and boil sparging

[Cody s]

I have a mash and boil that I treat as a biab meaning I raise the grain basket and let it drip. I would like to try sparging but all I have is an extra pot and burner.
My question is how do people sparge, do you just pour hot water over the basket?
I have a glass jar that I can scoop hot water and pour over the grains. I plan on mashing with 4 gallons and sparging with 3. Is thier something else I should know?
Any advice would be helpful, I plan on brewing a wheat lager this weekend.

Thanks in advance,
Cody

 

[jtratcliff]

You can even pour cold water over the basket... For fly sparging you want hot water to raise
the temperature of your grain bed in order to denature the amylase enzymes and stop conversion
so that you can lock in you mash profile. Fly sparging is a slow process and can take 45-60
minutes, so conversion can still be occurring during a long fly sparge.

But for batch sparging (which BIAB dunk sparging and pour over sparging kind of are),
it happens quickly and you're often already firing the kettle under the dripping bag or basket.
So the temperature isn't as important. People on here have done comparisons and found
hot vs cold sparge to make no discernible difference in extraction on the homebrew scale.

I do stovetop BIAB in a 10g kettle... 6g batches usually. I usually heat 7.5-8g of strike water
for 12-13ish lbs of grain, then dunk sparge in 1.5 g in a smaller (3g I think) kettle. I gain a few
points from the sparge, but nothing major. I usually do heat the sparge water during the mash
and dunk in that just so my 2nd runnings don't cool off my 1st runnings on the way to a boil. But if I
didn't have a big enough 2nd kettle to heat (and dunk) in, I'd have no problem pouring over
a gallon or 2 of unheated water. Or even skipping a sparge altogether if I could all the water in
the main mash.

I think you'll get better efficiency by crushing as fine as your basket will allow, mashing as
thin as you can, and only pouring over whatever is necessary to make your volumes... Hot
or cold doesn't matter.

 

[Cody s]

When you say mash as thin as you can what do you mean?
I usually use about 10 lbs. of grain to 5 gallons of water I am thinking this is pretty thin.
Sorry for the newbie questions I have been brewing for 25 + years but just started all grain last year and will never go back to extract

 

[jtratcliff]

Mash thickness is often quoted in qts / lb ... quarts of water per lb of grain..
https://byo.com/article/managing-mash-thickness/

"traditional" 3 vessel brew often recommends 1.5 qt/lb or so... With the rest
of the required volume of water made up with sparging... Either batch or fly.

The original BIAB method was a full volume, single vessel method... so *all*
of the required water was added to the mash... No sparge at all. That's the
thinnest possible mash.

For me, I often can't fit all the grain *and* all the water in my kettle (or am not
comfortable with the mash being so close to the top). So, I use as much water
as I can (or am comfortable with) and then sparge with enough water to make
up my final volume.

So I mash "as thin as I can" i.e. "with as much water as I can"... often as much ~3qts/lb or so.

 

[jtratcliff]

Oh, also... http://brulosophy.com/2016/02/15/th...in-liquor-to-grist-ratio-exbeeriment-results/
just because it coincides w/ my anecdotal experience

 

[Riverevir]

I don’t know everything about your setup but use the M&B as well. What I’ve taken to doing is placing the full volume that the unit will hold in it when I’m heating to strike temps. I then place a few pots under the ball valve to pour out a few gallons to give room for the grain. My “sparge water” then goes on the stovetop with a burner or two on until I need it.

It works for me, and I generally mash with 12 lbs of grain and pour the water over as the water trickles more slowly.

 

[Alex413]

I have a thing like a big colander which fits perfectly on my kettle 5gal and fits ok-ish on fermenting bucket. All what I do is squeeze and soak in 1-2gal hot water in the bucket, squeeze and repeat till my kettle is full and get high efficiency of 80% and above. The downside of that is quite a lot of trub in wort but it settles down on the bottom of fermenter anyway.

 

[snarf7]

Once my mash is done, I raise temp to 170F, then kill the heat, cover and let it sit for 10-15 mins, then pull the bag, place in a strainer over the top of the pot and let it drain out for 15 mins then give it a light squeeze (I press down from the top...it should be cool enough at that point to handle) so you collect as much wort as you can. I usually get over 80% efficiency and my beers turn out great and it's a lot easier than all these needlessly complicated sparge techniques

 

[Ninoid]

In BIAB no sparge not needed mash out because wort not stay below 75'C too long. Heat is immediately started for boil. If you sparge you must mash out for stop enzyme activity.