# What Do U Use As A Sieve To Sparge With?



## SJW (21/6/04)

W hen i did my Porter on the weekend i had a few dramas sparging the grain after i steeped em. As this was my first time using grain i was flying by the seat of my pants. Anyway poured all the liquid thru the kitch sieve the spooned 1/4 of the grain into the sieve then sparged with some hot water, and so on for 4 times. This worked ok but the only thing i could think of was what i did yesterday. 
I went to Mc Donalds and swiped 2 x 20 litre food containers and in one i drilled about 1000 or so little holes slightly bigger than 1/16th of an inch and a bit smaller than 1/8th of an inch. Now i have a giant size sieve. So i got the grain out of the bin from Saturdays efforts for a test run.
I worked great but i did notice after it drained into the second bucket i tipped that bucket onto the grass, normally would go back into the pot for the boil, and noticed a lot of really fine grain material that got thru the sieve. Does this sound ok or should i simply not pour that last little bit into the boil? or should i just sieve it again with a fine tea strainer when i transfer it to the fermenter, after the boil?


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## PostModern (21/6/04)

I just drop this:







into the bottom of a 10 litre esky and start a siphon on the clear hose. You could make one for $Bugger-all witrh standard plumbing bits from Bunnings. There is no need to solder any of the joints.

The bucket-in-a-bucket setup you describe is what millions of people use. The little bits of grain that make it thru generally get caught up in the grain bed when you recirculate the sweet wort thru the grain. The grain bed will compact and be a better filter.


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## SJW (21/6/04)

I did not know about running the wort thru the bed of grain a second time. I just run a couple of litres of boiled water thru and ran it thru a fine tea strainer back into the boil pot. Then after the boil and hop additions i strained into the fermenter.
So PM what u are saying is that u don't need to put the grain on the cooktop/gas for the first boil or steep? just in an esky with hot water?


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## Asher (21/6/04)

What youve described above is called a "Zapap" bucket-in-bucket lauter tun. Very common, even for all grain brews... your on your way to AG already..... good stuff

Asher for now..


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## PostModern (21/6/04)

SJW, that's right. Read up on mashing. Mine is just a "mini masher" atm. I can only do 3 kilos of grain at a time.

My process is this:
Calculate volume of water required (about 3L per kilo)
Preheat esky by filling with hot tap water (inlude the manifold).
Weigh the grains, put on the kettle and a large saucepan of water to boil, etc
Empty the esky.
Fill to required level of boiling water and top up with cold tap water to hit required "strike temperature" (about 7 degrees higher or lower than required mash temp).
Add grain once temp is right.
Stir until all mash is wet and there are no "dough balls". 
Check and adjust temp with hot or cold water.
Close lid, wrap esky in towels and blankets.
Wait one hour.
To sparge, I suck on the hose and let a litre or 2 flow into a pot. 
Recirculate this back into the mash tun.
Restart the siphon (just opening and closing the irrigation tap) and let it run SLOWLY into the pot.
When all the wort is gone, I refill the tun with water at about 80C, mix then leave for a few minutes then start the recirculation again, then continue collecting the runnings.

Now whether you need to mash or not depends on the grains you are using. Crystal malts, roasted malts etc don't need a mash and can just be steeped and the runnings boiled with your extract. Pale grains, munich and base malts need mashing. I mash every brew as I use between 2-3Kg of base malt, so I may as well mash the specialty grains while I'm at it.


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## SJW (21/6/04)

Mine was just 650g of choc malt & roast barly for the Porter but i was told to do it this way, steep for an hour @ 67deg C, as it is good practice for AG'S.
Also PM, if you do a mini mash with 3kg's do u use a tin of unhopped liquid malt extract aswell? as i think this is where i am headed.


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## PostModern (21/6/04)

I use DME as I had storage issues with LME.
But yeah, I mix the grain runnings with DME and boil with hops for bittering flavour and aroma... It's called "part mashing". 

Sounds like you've been going OK. I don't like the bucket in a bucket setup myself, tho. Much too messy. I can brew with the esky in the kitchen as I still do small boils. Moving up to a 43 litre esky soon. I just have to cut a lid out of my keg (er, I mean stainless steel beverage container), get a wort chiller made up and buy a 3 ring burner. Then it's AG time, baby!


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## Justin (21/6/04)

Yep, you need to add some extract as well.

Hey, SJW does your lower bucket have a tap? If so this makes it really easy to recirculate your wort (specialty grains or proper mash grains) to get a clear run off. And also, all you need to go full grain from here is a big boiler. 

JD


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## SJW (21/6/04)

Sounds tops PM. I am going to Bunnings on the way home to get the gear to make one of those bad boys in your photo. Are they just hacksaw cuts in the pipe?


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## Batz (21/6/04)

When I was doing partials I bought a large thingy that you put over food to stop the flys getting on it , it's made out of wire same as a sieve , only much larger.

With this I could handle 5 kg of grain , I got it a some kitchen shop , don't remember how much but it was cheap enough

I can post a piccy if needed


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## PostModern (21/6/04)

SJW said:


> Are they just hacksaw cuts in the pipe?


 Yes.

The manifold is made to fit exactly in the base of the esky - to prevent movement. You don't want it moving around during the sparge as it lets fine particles get thru into the run-off.

It's a scaled down version of this How To Brew's Guide to Mash Tun Manufacture.


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## pint of lager (21/6/04)

It is the grain husks that do the filtering, not the false bottom, or manifold. 

The false bottom holds back the grain husks, the husks form the filter bed. If the false bottom did the filtering, it would need to be very fine and would probably block upand give the dreaded stuck sparge.

During the start of the sparge, chunks of grain come through, this is recirculated and the wort clears up.

For mini mashes, you can recirculate a bit, or just strain in a kitchen sieve, I used one made of mesh that fitted over the boiler.


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## GMK (21/6/04)

PoMo

the manifold should not fit exactly in the bottom.
It should be equidistance from the sides and the centre to create even flows thru the grain bed.
eg if it is 2 inches between the pipes then the pipes need to be one inch from the sides.


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## wedge (21/6/04)

The equal flow though is only important if you dont Batch Sparge.


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## johnno (21/6/04)

I'm only using a colander at the moment. I dont mind if a few bits of grain get through. When its recurculated it seems to clear up anyway.
It'll do me for now in the learning stage.
Batz can you post a picture of this "thingy" you are talking about.

cheers


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## warrenlw63 (21/6/04)

Bit of that black flyscreen stuff from Bunnings works OK as well.

Cheap and flexible too.

Warren -


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## Batz (22/6/04)

Will do Johnno , soon as I get off this stinking nightshift


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## SJW (22/6/04)

This thing called homebrewing never stops amazing me. I had no idea about any of this stuff.
Anyway i need to decide to stay with my 2 buckets or go with PM's esky & suction manifold thing. 
All the same, i want to do a all extract & part mash next time and i had a Stella the other day so if anyone has a good Stella part mash recipe i could try could u please post it. I guess it is just a Lager with heaps of Hallertau?


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## GMK (22/6/04)

SJW

Upto a couple of years ago Stella used POR.
However, they have now switched to SAAZ hops.


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## SJW (22/6/04)

GMK why then does it taste so different to Pilisener Urquell?


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## Batz (22/6/04)

Here you go Johnno this is what I used for sometime with success

It's really sort of a big sieve , but sold to put over food to keep the flys from throwing up on it , I just could not find a sieve large enough otherwise


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## Batz (22/6/04)

And because it has no handles I sit it in a colander

Hold big mobs of grain , and it was cheap .

Some may find it useful.

Batz


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## johnno (22/6/04)

Thanks batz,
That looks ideal for this sort of stuff. Gonna look around for one to see how much they cost.

cheers


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## SJW (22/6/04)

OK You guys i am going thru the process and i think i will stay with the buckets for now, and may even try and get one of the sieves of Batz.
Anyway do you fellas use some type of shower rose to spray the hot water, or the first litre of the wort, back over the grain bed that acts like a filter? as i would think that u dont want to stir up the grain bed too much


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## Batz (22/6/04)

I poured very carefully out of a jug , and over the back of my stirring spoon

Have you seen GL's site on this


http://users.bigpond.net.au/RBI/About%20Homebrew.htm


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## PostModern (22/6/04)

GMK said:


> PoMo
> 
> the manifold should not fit exactly in the bottom.
> It should be equidistance from the sides and the centre to create even flows thru the grain bed.
> eg if it is 2 inches between the pipes then the pipes need to be one inch from the sides.


 The non-slotted ends fit the esky end-to end. The distance between the two slotted pipes is half the distance from each of the pipes to the side walls.

I posted the link the design is based on http://www.howtobrew.com/appendices/appendixD.html

The idea was (when my friend built the manifold) to be able to do efficient minimashes. As simple as the colander/flyguard, bucket-in-a-bucket designs are, they don't allow you to control the rate of the lauter (with the exception of a tapped outer bucket in the 2 bucket system). The irrigation tap on the plastic tube on my manifold allows you to slow the flow and lauter for as long as you like while avoiding HSA. 

If you like fly sparging on the cheap, you can set up your HLT above the esky/tun and use another irrigation tap and let it sparge at the same rate as the lauter. I just prefer batch sparging, mostly so that once the first lauter is done, I can work out almost exactly how much water to sparge with and not exceed my boiling capacity. Not that I get "supremely" good efficiency (as I leave lots of fermentables behind in "big" 3Kg mashes), but I tend to adjust gravity with extract in the fermenter anyway.

So far I've made about 8 partial mash brews with this and I'm quite happy with it. Happy enough that when I switch to AG, I'll be making a scaled up version of this to use in my 30 litre tapless esky. The great part is that you can still use the esky as an esky on non-brew days


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## SJW (22/6/04)

PostModern said:


> GMK said:
> 
> 
> > PoMo
> ...


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## GMK (22/6/04)

SJW said:


> PostModern said:
> 
> 
> > GMK said:
> ...


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## SJW (23/6/04)

Sorry GMK i did not read his reply correct. He did say that he adjusted the OG in the "fermenter". i thought he ment that he adjusted the OG during the boil. Now that would be a good trick!!!


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## sintax69 (24/6/04)

How do you partial guys cool your wort have you got emerssion coolers etc or do you dump it in the fermenter hot ???? 

did one of the country brewers wet packs and ended up running round the house with a pot of boiling wort that i ended up dunking in the laundary sink but was still hot as hell after adding water to the fermenter30c+ 


sintax


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## RobW (24/6/04)

Make up your volume with ice. Ice cream containers are good, 2 or 3 of those and then tapwater to your final volume should get you close to pitching temp. Drop the ice straight in after the boil so you cool the wort quick & avoid any HSA. Then tip into the fermenter & top up with water.


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## PostModern (24/6/04)

I generally boil in two large pots on my stove. By the time the boil ends, I transfer the contents into the largest pot. I place the lid on the pot then put it in a sink full of cold water. After about 5 mins, I empty the sink then refill it with cold water, ice packs and milk bottles filled with water and frozen - an ice bath. 

It takes about 45 mins to an hour to bring the temp down enough (about 8 litres volume). Occassionally swirling the pot speeds things up a bit and helps to centre the hops and break material at the bottom of the pot.

KenEasy, be careful adding ice to wort. Make sure it's made from boiled water and preferably frozen in a sealed environment. There are a surprising number of bacterial spores in the freezer. You don't want to add them to your wort. However, that's just extreme paranoia.


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## Bobby (24/6/04)

postmodern, when you do the ice bath chuck a good handfull of salt in the ice water slurry, it drops the temp a little more. Thats what i do at uni and it works well.


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## Batz (24/6/04)

When I was doing lots of partials I just used a couple of ice cream containers of ice, all too easy

You don't need to get hung up on all the fancy gear , that'll come later  

Just get out and brew :chug: :chug:


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## Bobby (24/6/04)

> Just get out and brew


 =====> 'Just _Brew_ It'

would do alright on the AHB gear.


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## deebee (24/6/04)

POMO's technique works for me too. Always make sure I have plenty of ice in the freezer before brew day. 

I do wonder about the effect if has on the pots. I bought a big cheap one from KMart for $15 or something and don't care about that but more often use our largest good quality thick bottomed pot. 

Do you reckon that placing the pot at boiling temp into cold water so that one side of the S/S is hot and the other side cold has any impact that, over time, will cause problems? I'm thinking about the seam where the thick bottom meets the side of the pot and possibly where the handles are spot welded on.


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## RobW (24/6/04)

PostModern said:


> KenEasy, be careful adding ice to wort. Make sure it's made from boiled water and preferably frozen in a sealed environment. There are a surprising number of bacterial spores in the freezer. You don't want to add them to your wort. However, that's just extreme paranoia.


 Point taken PoMo but in practice it doesn't seem to matter because you drop the ice into the just boiled wort which knocks of any surface bugs, plus the ice is made with the same tap water you use to top up the fermenter. Having a big active yeast starter seems to be the most important thing - get the yeast going before anything else has a chance.


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## sintax69 (24/6/04)

Thanks Guys thats ice idea sounds like a easy as method

cheers big ears
sintax


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## PostModern (25/6/04)

deebee said:


> Do you reckon that placing the pot at boiling temp into cold water so that one side of the S/S is hot and the other side cold has any impact that, over time, will cause problems? I'm thinking about the seam where the thick bottom meets the side of the pot and possibly where the handles are spot welded on.


I don't think it'd be a problem. I understand your concern, as I use our Baccarat pots, but I think they'd suffer just as much stress going from room temp onto a hot range - which is what they're designed to do.


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## SJW (5/7/04)

There u go PM, i hope there is no copyright on yours, but that was the best i could do. Next is the chiller.


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## SJW (5/7/04)

and again


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## PostModern (6/7/04)

Ouch. It looks like you soldered the long straight slotted pieces to the rest of the manifold! Have fun cleaning it  Otherwise it looks great, the gap and sizes look right .

And if there is a copyright, I don't own it. My friend made it and passed it on to me when he upscaled. Not to mention John Palmer's articles describing their construction...


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