Sparge, or no sparge and buy a bigger pot?

[tom_sd]

I'm planning on doing a brew this weekend with a 16# grain bill. I figure I'll need about 8.25 gallons of water. I'm worried this will overwhelm my 10 gallon pot.

Reading around, I think I'll be ok if I mash with less than the full amount of water and then sparge with whatever I didn't put in the mash.

For example, If I mash in 6.25 gallons and then heat up the remaining 2 gallons in a seperate pot to 170*, I can pour that 2 gallons over the bag after I pull it from the pot. Does the mash still need to be heated to 170* before I pull the bag?

My other option is to buy a bigger pot, which will not make CINC-FAMILY happy.

Does this sound like it will work?

 

[BlackGoat]

Probably most people that do BIAB don't sparge at all, they just heat up the mash water a bit and then do dunk it. My relatively cheap method is very effective: I bought two homer buckets from home depot and drilled a ton of small holes in one so that when you nest them into each other you kind of have a false bottom. I do the normal mash in the kettle then transfer the grain bag to the bucket setup, allow it to drain on its own then push down on the grain bag with the lid to a stockpot I have. After this you can either do nothing and just use what had drained out, or you can pour your sparge water over the bag to get some more of the sugars out. I've used heated sparge water and unheated sparge water for this, both very effective and puts my efficiency up in the 75-80% range.

 

[1MadScientist]

What is the OG you are planning on and what volume at flame out are you shooting for?

Initially, with little to go on, it looks like you can do a full volume with starting water of 7.5 gallons, mash volume of 8.75 gallons and a liquor to grain ration of 2.53 qt/lb.

 

[wilserbrewer]

From the rackers calc "can I mash it" here...
http://www.rackers.org/calcs.shtml

16 lbs of grain mashed in 8 gallons of strike water (2 qt / lb) yeilds a mash volume of 9.28 gallons. 8 gallons less about 1.6 gallons absorption and a 1.5 gallons boil off puts you just under 5 gallons post boil.

To account for this shortcoming, I would suggest two things:

1. At the end of the mash rest, add a few quarts of hot / boiling water to completely fill the kettle prior to removing the bag and stir well, and or;

2. Pour a few quarts of sparge water slowly through the grain bag.

I think 16# of grain is close, but doable in a 10 gal. pot. but the options above are simpler and work well IME. You can also conduct a sparge in another bucket or kettle.

 

[Grimster]

I recently decided to switch to BIAB and go all grain, I bought this stock pot in preparation.

When I'm done mashing I invert the lid over a 5 gallon bucket, put the basket on there, and then put my 5 gallon bucket with about 3 gallons of sanitizer in it on top of the grain bag, it fits perfectly into the basket, and then let it drain. I push down on the bucket some to really squeeze it out. While doing this I heat my wort up to sparge temps, then dunk the basket a few times, then squeeze it some more while I bring it up to a boil.

Only 1 brew day done so far but I felt like this worked gangbusters for me. My pumpkin hefe monster (1.068) fermented to a nice and dry 1.010 and it tasted very interesting when I sampled it this weekend. Goes into the keg on Thursday.

Next up a Belgian Tripel.