BIAB question. Sparging

[Nick667]

Does anyone sparge with BIAB?
I know you can run off from the tap and add to top but if you dont have a tap?
I have been hoisting the bag after mashing, resting it on an oven rack and trickling 76C water through the bag. Lately I have been trickling enough water to bring the volume up to boil level.
I may be picking up some astringency by doing it.
Does anyone else do this or use any other method or do most just not bother and hoist the bag only?

 

[manticle]

Look up dunk sparging

 

[danestead]

Does anyone sparge with BIAB?
I know you can run off from the tap and add to top but if you dont have a tap?
I have been hoisting the bag after mashing, resting it on an oven rack and trickling 76C water through the bag. Lately I have been trickling enough water to bring the volume up to boil level.
I may be picking up some astringency by doing it.
Does anyone else do this or use any other method or do most just not bother and hoist the bag only?

Why
Why are you picking up astringency?

 

[indica86]

Does anyone sparge with BIAB?

I do. I sit mine in a bucket in a bucket with holes and a tap above the urn.
I then pour water - hot from the tap but have also used boiling water - over the bag and have not picked up any astringency.

 

[wereprawn]

My urns a bit on the small side so I sparge by necessity . I put the bag and grain in a large pot and dump 7 odd litres of freshly boiled water over the top. Wait for 5,lift, drain...done. Astringency ? Nope.

 

[Nick667]

Thanks guys that's really interesting.
Some of you even worse than me and no prob.
So by me trickling 76C water through the bag slowly there should be no astringency bitterness.
I have a larger pot now and will soon put a tap in it but I just cant get my head around dunk sparging.
I tried it once using a chilly bin/esky and I had trouble seeing the benefits for all the extra work.
Don't get me wrong, I am happy to do it, I just cant understand the basics of it.
I am a basic sort of person!

 

[RdeVjun]

IMO if your kettle is of sufficient size to do full volume BIAB then just do that, there is not much to be gained faffing around with a dunk sparge or other rinsing of the mash.
OTOH, if your kettle doesn't quite have the capacity to achieve full volume BIAB then a sparge may help you to achieve the greater volume, but some folks just settle on the reduced brewlength.
A kettle volume of around 40L is the threshold for a 23L brewlength, depending on how you determine brewlength and how efficiently the mash performs.

 

[S.E]

Does anyone sparge with BIAB?
I know you can run off from the tap and add to top but if you dont have a tap?
I have been hoisting the bag after mashing, resting it on an oven rack and trickling 76C water through the bag. Lately I have been trickling enough water to bring the volume up to boil level.
I may be picking up some astringency by doing it.
Does anyone else do this or use any other method or do most just not bother and hoist the bag only?

If you get hold of an old all grain homebrew book from the sixties and seventies you’ll see that most recommended lifting the bag and suspending it, usually rather precariously with a broom handle across the back of two kitchen chairs and giving a cursory sparge to rinse the grain and top up the kettle. That’s what I did without any problems.

 

[Bribie G]

In a full volume BIAB brew you mash at a much higher liquor/grain ratio than a 3 vessel setup.
So you can think of it as the mash containing its own sparge liquor.

I've done a couple of dunk sparges but don't note much difference with regular strength brews. Could help with higher gravity beers but then you have to boil for longer to get the volume back to where it should be.

Personally I don't bother and, knowing my average efficiency, usually hit my numbers ok without sparging.

 

[manticle]

Mostly 3 v here but done a couple of full volune biab and found just letting the bag sit on a suitable colander over the kettle was enough.

 

[stewy]

I don't sparge or mash out due to the fact that I get 72% eff just from the mash. I hit it bang on every time, consistency is what I want.
I don't find the extra time for sparge or mash out to be worth extra points. For me the benefit of BIAB is a fast brew day.

Edit - I do sit the bag in a colander on an oven rack over the urn to drain & then I squeeze the life out of it; all while waiting for the wort to come to a boil.

 

[stm]

Just lift the bag with no sparge also helps with less trub in the kettle (so less kettle to fermenter loss).

 

[Bribie G]

Just lift the bag with no sparge also helps with less trub in the kettle (so less kettle to fermenter loss).

That's why a skyhook and pulley system is a must. If I couldn't have a skyhook I think I'd just buy a Braumeister as the big scaldingly hot wet bag thing is, really, the only downside of BIAB but easily fixed for a very few bucks with some Bunnings bits. I'll be in the big shed in the next few days, I'm thinking of checking out the bits, do up a list and post a thread on how to build a skyhook hoist system.

So often I hear of colanders, racks on top of the kettle etc with visions of the poor bastards grimacing as their nether regions are getting cooked by hot steaming bag and their biceps are being pulled off their tendons. Oh the humanity.

Also as stm says, a straight lift - and a gentle lift - cuts out a lot of trub problems.

 

[manticle]

Tough biabers use colanders.
Skyhooks are for those livin' in the 70s*


*whose nether regions are cooked by encapsulation in permanent spandex

 

[Wardcliff]

*Kudos to a previous OP on another thread, which I cannot locate right now*

but when I saw this, I thought it looked great. I have not used it, nor do I have any BIAB experience, but I plan to move into BIAB as soon as I can. This is part of my plan so far. (It looks great for many other uses at home too).

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=RcVP0FcKCiA

 

[wynnum1]

When bag drains do the dunk sparg in another pot water temperature does not have to be high to get more sugars without astringency .

 

[Bribie G]

Astringency has nothing to do with temperature, its a pH thingy, which is why 3V brewers have to be careful not to oversparge.

 

[Nick667]

Tough biabers use colanders.
Skyhooks are for those livin' in the 70s*


*whose nether regions are cooked by encapsulation in permanent spandex

Colanders are for sissies!
I use a naked oven rack.... Yes naked...
Not only that.
I use a ratchet tie down to hoist the bag using only my fingers.
That's tough.
What is spandex?

 

[TimT]

I hoist my bag above the pot, place a wire rack on top of the pot and the cylindrical mesh part from a cider press above the wire rack. Plonk the bag in the cylinder, and I just let the wort drain out into the pot. It will drain by itself but I usually plonk a brick on top of the bag to encourage the wort to run out.

I could run water through it at this stage and do a proper sparge, but I prefer to do a second mini-mash.

Works pretty well, and there is negligible mess.

 

[Rocker1986]

I don't sparge myself although I have thought about giving it a go. My normal process is to raise the bag, stick an old wire shelf from my brew fridge ontop of the urn, put the bag on it for a bit of support, untie the rope from all the bag loops, then remove the pulley from the hook, and stick the bag up on it. I just let it sit there for 20 minutes or so, then give it a little squeeze before removing it and hanging it on another hook above a 20L pail. About 20-30 mins from end of boil I squeeze the shit out of the bag and tip this wort into the urn as well.

I could just squeeze it all out above the urn but that'd require re-calculating pre-boil volume and I just can't be bothered when my current process works well.