BIAB Sparge Dunk

[Dazzelknight]

Another beginners question. When doing a BIAB, after the mash I lift the bag and place on a solid adjustable sieve on top of my pot and rinse the grains with a jug. I find this very messy as the weight of the grains tend to make the bag spill over the sides. Iv seen people use a hoist to lift the bag but it’s not practical for me to do that. So I’m thinking to fill a bucket with my sparge water and place the bag into that, leaving it to soak and giving it a few dunks before adding to my wort ?. Is this good practice or will I be committing a crime ?

 

[stripeyjoe]

You could get the bucket, drill a load of holes in it and put the BIAB bag in that on top of your boiler and then sparge...

 

[Cheshire Cat]

Or you could buy a grain basket 31cm X 30cm off Amazon for about £67. Hazelwood has that set up.

 

[Galena]

I find the easiest way to batch sparge is to have your sparge water ready at temperature in another vessel (I use an insulated drinks chiller)
Then drop your mash into a bucket leaving the grain where it is. Pour the sparge water into the kettle onto the grain, stir well and leave for 5 mins. Drain into the bucket with the mash. Allow the bag to drain a little and then remove it. Then pour the wort from the bucket back into the kettle and do the boil.

 

[cushyno]

@Dazzelknight your proposed dunk in a bucket approach is perfectly acceptable.

I sort of do BIAB in a coolbox - a cross between BIAB and a three vessel approach. I mash in a bag in a coolbox to retain the heat. At end of mash I lift out the bag and drain over a large stockpot, tipping wort from coolbox into stockpot too (it could be any vessel, just need something to hold the first runnings while sparge transferred from boiler to coolbox). After it has drained and a quick bag squeeze, the bag goes back into the coolbox with my sparge water in.
Batch sparge for 20 minutes stirring after 10 min, and that's it. No messy fly sparging by tipping water through the bag.
I don't lose efficiency with this method. I'm consistently at 79% now with this method.

 

[Dazzelknight]

All great ideas lads. Thing I was worried about after doing some reading on the subject is that if u upset the grain too much, you can release a lot of starch and other nasties from the grain rather then just the sugars which may effect your wort. It’s same as some people say it’s no problem to squeeze the bag and others say not too. A lot of conflicting advice out there. I’v just bought this Ace boiler, I was doing stove top before and struggled with that and my pot as a wider circumference then this new boiler. I’m gonna get a pump so I can recirculate whilst doing the mash, so iv basically got a cheap all in one, but the sparging part is a head scratcher.

 

[Dazzelknight]

I find the easiest way to batch sparge is to have your sparge water ready at temperature in another vessel (I use an insulated drinks chiller)
Then drop your mash into a bucket leaving the grain where it is. Pour the sparge water into the kettle onto the grain, stir well and leave for 5 mins. Drain into the bucket with the mash. Allow the bag to drain a little and then remove it. Then pour the wort from the bucket back into the kettle and do the boil.

Think this is the solution to my set up

 

[cushyno]

Think this is the solution to my set up

I agree with @Galena , though I would advocate increasing the 5 minutes to 20 minutes and ensure to stir a couple of times during the wait. It really does help sugar extraction.

 

[Dazzelknight]

Or you could buy a grain basket 31cm X 30cm off Amazon for about £67. Hazelwood has that set up.

Like a large hop spider. That be ideal but I’m trying to keep the cost down. I’m pairing a boiler up with a circulation pump for a poor mans all-in-one. It will do me till I win the Grainfather raffle

 

[Galena]

I agree with @Galena , though I would advocate increasing the 5 minutes to 20 minutes and ensure to stir a couple of times during the wait. It really does help sugar extraction.

Perhaps I should try a longer sparge, the reason I do 5 mins is because when I was first getting into brewing and studying the various methods, in This John Palmer Video he suggests 5 mins as enough, and I usually often 78 -80% efficiency on my brews, though I do religiously recirculate the mash which I think helps.

 

[cushyno]

Perhaps I should try a longer sparge, the reason I do 5 mins is because when I was first getting into brewing and studying the various methods, in This John Palmer Video he suggests 5 mins as enough, and I usually often 78 -80% efficiency on my brews, though I do religiously recirculate the mash which I think helps.

5 mins may be enough. I have found benefit in going longer, though sometimes I wonder if my sparge water isn't hot enough for a full mash out and the sparge acts like a second mash step in the low 70s, leading to increased conversion.
I suppose 5 mins with plenty stirring would be enough to wash the grains thoroughly.

I'll have to do a tightly controlled experiment sometime.

 

[Dazzelknight]

Perhaps I should try a longer sparge, the reason I do 5 mins is because when I was first getting into brewing and studying the various methods, in This John Palmer Video he suggests 5 mins as enough, and I usually often 78 -80% efficiency on my brews, though I do religiously recirculate the mash which I think helps.

I’d be well happy with 78-80% conversion,,think uv no need to change your practice.

 

[cushyno]

@Dazzelknight there's an interesting discussion going on about all-in-one efficiency on another thread. I'll point you to my comment on improving efficiency first but the rest of the thread is a useful read.

https://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/...iency-on-all-in-one-system.94555/post-1041862

 

[Galena]

5 mins may be enough. I have found benefit in going longer, though sometimes I wonder if my sparge water isn't hot enough for a full mash out and the sparge acts like a second mash step in the low 70s, leading to increased conversion.
I suppose 5 mins with plenty stirring would be enough to wash the grains thoroughly.

I'll have to do a tightly controlled experiment sometime.

I do stir quite a bit, I don't squeeze though

 

[Rodcx500z]

I dunk sparge all the time sometimes with cold water :tinhat: for about 15-20 mins then sit the bag in a sieve to drain then a good squeeze, i am getting a brewzilla soon so the klarstein will be used for sparge water, now to sort a fridge out

 

[Dazzelknight]

@Dazzelknight there's an interesting discussion going on about all-in-one efficiency on another thread. I'll point you to my comment on improving efficiency first but the rest of the thread is a useful read.

https://www.thehomebrewforum.co.uk/...iency-on-all-in-one-system.94555/post-1041862

So you don’t see a problem with the bag squeeze? Iv been reading it may extract too much unconverted starches and tannings.

 

[moto748]

Plenty of people here seem to do bag-squeezing, I know I do.

 

[cushyno]

I do squeeze too, but not excessively. I don't have any evidence to say it runs my beers, so I'll keep doing it.

 

[Nicks90]

I occasionally dunk sparge and just leave it in my FV in 5l cold water whilst the wort comes up to the boil.
Giving the bad a swish and stir once a while. Good bag squeeze and I dump that in with the boiling wort.
No idea what it does to my efficiency, but as I have a small urn, it allows me to add extra volume that I would normally lose to the grain bill

 

[matt76]

@Dazzelknight I have a crazy left field idea to solve your sparge dilemma...

... Don't sparge!

For the last 18 months (40+ brews) I've been doing what's called full-volume no-sparge mashes.

You mash as normal, grains in the bag etc, except you use the full volume of your mash and sparge water - in my case for my 10L-ish batches that's typically 2.5-3.0kg grain in 15-17L water.

Once you're done mashing, bag out and give it an almighty squeeze and carry on with the boil.

The advantage is it makes my brew day simpler, easier and hence more fun. And the beer of course is absolutely fine.

The disadvantage is my efficiency dropped from 80% when I used to dunk sparge, to 72% with full-volume no-sparge. To get around this you simply add a little more grain - a small amount at the homebrew scale if you work it out. Efficiency is just a number, as long as it's in the right ballpark it doesn't matter too much - much more important IMO that it's consistent and predictable.

(But for the record I've recently started using a re-circ pump and my efficiency is up to about 77% now. In the past I've done overnight mashes and seen efficiency >80% - a very effective way to boost efficiency of you must obsess about numbers!)