Sparging

[C-Rider]

I'm a BIABer and tried sparging twice by dunking the bag in the sparge water. But I think it was a bad idea....

Lets say my mash SG was 1.061 and I sparge and got an SG of 1.010. I add that to my main mash wort and I'm diluting it. So what's the sense? Didn't think that little amount of sugar was worth diluting the main mash.

 

[mongoose33]

A lot of people do no-sparge BIAB. If you can get enough wort to drain from your bag, and you hit both your SG number as well as have the volume you want, there's little to be gained from sparging.

You do leave some sugars behind in the bag, clinging to the grain. It's what sparging is supposed to relieve, i.e., rinse that sugar from the mash so you don't leave it behind. You can make up for that either by increasing the amount of grain so what's left behind doesn't matter (you've hit your volume and SG numbers) or you can rinse (sparge) to get what's left.

Theoretically (and usually, practically), sparging allows you to use less grain, which results in lower cost. But you probably would save only a few pounds, which isn't a huge savings.

I do the traditional mash tun. I'll start w/ about 10-12 pounds of crushed grain, add 4 gallons of strike water, and let it mash for an hour. I might draw off 2.75 gallons of first runnings at a SG of 1.09.

I'll then add my sparge water (another 4 gallons) and draw that off after mixing. I'll get almost all of that water back out--for a total of 6.5 to 6.75 gallons--but that sparge will have a SG of maybe 1.030, more or less.

The resulting SG of all 6.75 gallons is then about 1.054--and I've hit my gallons target. After the boil, it's up in the 1.06x range and I'll have 5.5 to 5.75 gallons left to drain into the fermenter.

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I'm not suggesting you do it my way--if I hadn't lucked into a mash tun VERY cheaply I would have done BIAB--just that it illustrates what sparging does. You'll never (by your example) get a sparged SG of 1.010 if you mix. But, if your strike water was only 6 gallons, the BIAB grain absorbed 1.5 gallons, you'd be short in the boil kettle by a couple gallons. You could make that up by just adding more water, but if you could get more sugars off the spent grain in the bag, why wouldn't you do that?

 

[C-Rider]

Thanks....I think I get it. People who sparge get a higher SG from the mash and the diluted wort from the sparge brings it down to what they want.

Doing BIAB I use full amt of water and so I hit or do better on my SG just w/my mashing.

 

[JONNYROTTEN]

I used to lift the open bag,pour water on the grain bed and squish with a pot lid to extract the sugar water to desired pre boil water level.I overshot my OG most of the time.Now I just pour water through the raised bag and let it drain for a bit.My OG went down a bit but now I hit the OG the recipe calls for and I'm ok with that. I don't see dunking the bag is needed with BIAB.

 

[mongoose33]

You have it. If I were doing BIAB I think I'd be starting w/ 8 gallons of water, I'd add a couple/few pounds of grain to make up for no sparge, and I think I'd be there.

If you're getting what you want, nothing is broken. Don't fix it.

 

[BlueHouseBrewhaus]

I do my BIAB in a basket in my BK and mash with all the water minus 8 - 10 qts for my DIY fly sparge. Once the mash is done I hoist the basket to let it drain into the BK (see the first photo). As it drains, I fit a cut down, perforated HD bucket into the top of the basket and fill with my sparge water (second photo - taken without the bag in but you get the idea). It usually takes 30 min +/- for the sparge. This method raised my efficiency by almost 10 points. It has the added benefit of allowing me to mash more grain since I don't mash with the full volume and the grain basket is lifted out for the sparge. My 9 gal BK maxes out at about 16 lbs of grain this way and I can still brew entirely on my stove top.

BTW, sorry for the sideways pic. Haven't figured out how to fix that.

 

[petrolSpice]

I'm a BIABer and tried sparging twice by dunking the bag in the sparge water. But I think it was a bad idea....

Lets say my mash SG was 1.061 and I sparge and got an SG of 1.010. I add that to my main mash wort and I'm diluting it. So what's the sense? Didn't think that little amount of sugar was worth diluting the main mash.

You are correct, you would be diluting it, but don't forget you are extracting more sugar during the sparge (evident by the SG >1.000), thus improving efficiency. Efficiency is based solely on the amount of sugar you are able to remove from the grain.

I BIAB too but have never sparged. I just squeeze the hell out of the bag and get 65-75% mash efficiency. I do want to try sparging but it's hard to justify the extra time and complexity when you can easily add an extra pound of grain for around a dollar.

 

[RM-MN]

When you do your BIAB batch, no sparge you leave sugars in the grain. That's fine so long as you have a big enough vessel to do the no sparge at full volume. You then do your boil and boil off some of the water leaving you with the right amount of wort at the intended OG. When you sparge you can pick up some of the sugars left behind. You still boil off the same amount of water but you have more total sugars so your OG would end up a bit higher so your brewhouse efficiency goes up and you have to adjust your recipe for that extra sugar.