Biab Fly Sparge

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Truman42

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Apologies if this has been mentioned before, but I did do a search.
I don't do BIAB anymore but am helping a mate start out. One of the things I hated with BIAB was all the lifting and dunking of the bag to sparge.
So I was thinking that one of those watering cans with the showerhead might be useful to do a sort of fly sparge.
So you pull your bag out at mash out and sit it into a bucket with holes drilled in the bottom. Then sit the bucket on top of your kettle, using rods, a stand, mesh screen, whatever works.

Fill up the watering can with water from a kettle, (I suppose you could insulate the can to keep the water hot)
Then slowly pour your sparge water from the watering can onto the grain and let it trickle down through and drip into the kettle. You could keep doing this until you've reached your pre boil volume. Even just let it sit there draining slowly while your boiling
Ive read similar methods on here of sparging while the bag/bucket sits on top of the kettle but just using a jug to pour the water, or gravity fed from another bucket full of water through the grain and into the kettle.
The showerhead wouldn't disturb the grain bed as much so you would get a sort of vorlauf happening and clearer wort I assume?

So has anyone tried this and did it work no problems? Any suggestions, criticisms??

Thanks in advance..
 
It works a treat, it's called a lauter tun and you get good results. However it's a pain in the arse and you end up with masses of vessels, tubes and stuff to clean up at the end without any improvement in the finished beers, I found.

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If lifting the bag is a pain, a skyhook fitted with an effective pulley makes it a breeze, otherwise you can use the Bribie Pressinator which is also less stuffing around than lifting. B)

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All been done, all been tried. :)
 
Apologies if this has been mentioned before, but I did do a search.
I don't do BIAB anymore but am helping a mate start out. One of the things I hated with BIAB was all the lifting and dunking of the bag to sparge.
So I was thinking that one of those watering cans with the showerhead might be useful to do a sort of fly sparge.
So you pull your bag out at mash out and sit it into a bucket with holes drilled in the bottom. Then sit the bucket on top of your kettle, using rods, a stand, mesh screen, whatever works.

Fill up the watering can with water from a kettle, (I suppose you could insulate the can to keep the water hot)
Then slowly pour your sparge water from the watering can onto the grain and let it trickle down through and drip into the kettle. You could keep doing this until you've reached your pre boil volume. Even just let it sit there draining slowly while your boiling
Ive read similar methods on here of sparging while the bag/bucket sits on top of the kettle but just using a jug to pour the water, or gravity fed from another bucket full of water through the grain and into the kettle.
The showerhead wouldn't disturb the grain bed as much so you would get a sort of vorlauf happening and clearer wort I assume?

So has anyone tried this and did it work no problems? Any suggestions, criticisms??

Thanks in advance..

I do exactly what you have described but use a jug. Now you've got me thinking. Might take a trip to Bunnings tomorrow before I brew.
 
Takes bugger all time to knock up a manifold. Do it in a bucket in bucket thingy if an esky is an expense/space consuming.
Use kettle to heat strike water and sparge water. Drain post mash liquor into another bucket. Back in kettle to boil.

Or just biab full volume so you don't have to sparge! I never did, with biab. That also meant my batch sizes were very limited.
 
Apologies if this has been mentioned before, but I did do a search.
I don't do BIAB anymore but am helping a mate start out. One of the things I hated with BIAB was all the lifting and dunking of the bag to sparge.
So I was thinking that one of those watering cans with the showerhead might be useful to do a sort of fly sparge.
So you pull your bag out at mash out and sit it into a bucket with holes drilled in the bottom. Then sit the bucket on top of your kettle, using rods, a stand, mesh screen, whatever works.

Fill up the watering can with water from a kettle, (I suppose you could insulate the can to keep the water hot)
Then slowly pour your sparge water from the watering can onto the grain and let it trickle down through and drip into the kettle. You could keep doing this until you've reached your pre boil volume. Even just let it sit there draining slowly while your boiling
Ive read similar methods on here of sparging while the bag/bucket sits on top of the kettle but just using a jug to pour the water, or gravity fed from another bucket full of water through the grain and into the kettle.
The showerhead wouldn't disturb the grain bed as much so you would get a sort of vorlauf happening and clearer wort I assume?

So has anyone tried this and did it work no problems? Any suggestions, criticisms??

Thanks in advance..

If you are helping him out, why not just show him how to BIAB in it's true form, full volume, no sparge, no extra equipment than necessary & no hassles. Keep it simple, that's what BIAB is supposed to be. If somebody showed me that BIAB involved extra vessels for sparging, dunking, rinsing etc, he may not get the chance to experience the simplicity of the process & miss out on the benefit of next to no clean up.
 
BIAB is about simplicity, IMHO don't mix it up with other brewing methods. My KISS method was have a second decent size pot next to the main one, lift the bag out and drop it into the second vessel. The I used to pour water from a bucket through the grain and pour it into the main vessel. I did have a secondary vessel with a ball valve etc ready for my 3v thou.


QldKev
 
I have to agree with the above.
Having done the simple original BIAB and many variations and now moved onto using a copper manifold if i was going to show anyone BIAB to start out AG it would be in it simplest form.
Heat all required water with bag - add grain - mash - lift bag and let drain - boil
 
I have to agree with the above.
Having done the simple original BIAB and many variations and now moved onto using a copper manifold if i was going to show anyone BIAB to start out AG it would be in it simplest form.
Heat all required water with bag - add grain - mash - lift bag and let drain - boil - add hops - cube

corrected.. sorry..

:rolleyes:
 
As mentioned in many posts above BIAB is simple. Is it really worth the extra cleaning and stuffing around or would you rather sacrifice the extra few hunderd grams of grain which is very cheap. With a fine crush, salt additions and no sparge it is very simple to achieve 80%+ efficiency.
 
As mentioned in many posts above BIAB is simple. Is it really worth the extra cleaning and stuffing around or would you rather sacrifice the extra few hunderd grams of grain which is very cheap. With a fine crush, salt additions and no sparge it is very simple to achieve 80%+ efficiency.

Not wishing to be a serial pest on this thread but when we did a systems war last September for the Brisbane Home Brew conference, all four methods 3v, ghetto, Braumeister and BIAB came out with efficiencies within a percent of each other, officially refractometered (is that a word?) by independent monitor.

So no extra few hundred grams required.
 
He only has a 20 litre pot so cant do full volume. (Unless he mashes in a bucket, but is tight on room also so wants to try and do it as single vessel for now)
Im trying to convince him that AG can be done cheap without the need to purchase much.. (Luckily he already had the pot)

He therefore has to sparge anyway to make up his volumes.
So instead of lifting the bag into a bucket, doing a dunk sparge then often repeating this, my idea was to lift the bag into a bucket with holes. Sit this on top of the pot and sprinkle the sparge water through the grain as much as is needed to get the pot up to full volume again.

I know when I did BIAB I had to dunk sparge twice to get my full volume of close to 18 litres at SOB. And often I had to really squeeze the bag to get as much wort out as possible. (Ive read here that this "DOESN'T" extract tannins from the grain, but from tests I did it certainly changed the flavour of my beers when I did this, for the worse.)
During a 90 min boil I would add extra runnings just before 60 mins to make up for evap loss in an effort to get as large a volume as possible.

It was just an idea, if you give it a go Rowy I would be interested to hear how it goes.

Thanks for the feedback.
 
Boom! That's a good result. I have been refractometerised!

Not wishing to be a serial pest on this thread but when we did a systems war last September for the Brisbane Home Brew conference, all four methods 3v, ghetto, Braumeister and BIAB came out with efficiencies within a percent of each other, officially refractometered (is that a word?) by independent monitor.

So no extra few hundred grams required.
 
fine crush and rough cold water 'sparge' of ~5l gives me 85% efficiency consistently

craftbrewer bags are a good shape but too much of a pain in the ass to drain since the mesh is so fine, i think my other bag was from 'esbrewing' and drains really quick making it easy to lift out and 'sparge' through
 
If its actually easy you want - just top up with water to your volume. It wont be very efficienct, but it will certainly be the easiest way to manage the smaller pot.

Your idea will certainly work though - why on earth wouldn't it? But is it actually easier than heaving the bag into a nearby bucket of water for a dunk sparge?? I wouldn't have thought so, but you've done it and you dont like it, so its your call.

The "best" advice you could actually give him? Buy a decent sized pot or "acquire" a keg. Dont be such a cheap ******* - go on ebay, pay $101 for a 40L stockpot and you're done.

You've moved on from BIAB and i read your posts about how you were doing it.... I'd have moved away from it too if i had to stuff around like that. Dont put your mate through all that malarky.

Tell him to Use the 20L pot.. and just make half size batches for a while, do a lot of brews, get some experience, learn a lot. He'll still be brewing a slab or more per batch. Then when he decides he loves brewing and wants to up the volumes - theres a decent chance he'll love it enough to spend a little money on an appropriately sized pot.
 
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