BIAB sparge methods

[Doctormcbrewdle]

I'm not gonna lie here, I fail to see any point in using hot water to sparge my grain bag and have always just used cold tap water. Am I missing anything?

Obviously I do ultimately aim for the best possible product possible, just don't see a point in temp controlling this point. What say you?

Ps, I'm a bag squeezer (should I be ashamed I was ever born?)

 

[captain crumpet]

There is no problem squeezing the bag. Thats false crap spread by 3v brewers, but because their filter is the grain bed this is true for them. Your bag is your filter. It prevents any grain from entering your kettle. Plus in 3v you get sparging issues if you compress you grain bed too much.

I went down the avenue of sparging with BIAB but its a waste of time. Remember BIAB is meant to be simple. If you have capacity for full boil mash, stick to it. If you want the extra few gravity points, heat to mash out temps. Warmer temperatures allow more sugars to be suspended in your liquid. Warmer temp = greater solubility.

 

[Hez]

I do BIAB and I do sparge. I improved from 68% to 78% my efficiency and it's very simple to do. It's not about the number or the 3$ you save in grain, it's about the hobby and doing things right... Well.. for me, I mean...

After the mash out or the final step of the mash, I take the bag out of the kettle and I pass it to another pot with a strainer (I use one of those pots with an accessory for steaming veggies) . I place that pot into the sink and I put another third pot with the sparge water with its salts and acid on top (my kitchen bench has two levels) then, with a hose I drain slowly the sparge water over the bag turning it around from time to time.
Don't suck from the hose, dip it into the kettle, fold the tip and take it out. Philo of Byzantium, that guy...

If you cannot use gravity/communicating vessels you can use your pond pump from the chiller recirculating... 30$ at bunnings.

While you do the sparge you can start to heat up your wort to boiling temp. Once the sparge is done and the wort is boiling you have plenty of time to clean the sparging pot and let dry the sparging water pot.
Those other two pots are regular pots I use for cooking, not dedicated brewing pots.

For getting the water to 76℃ I use a tea-water-electric-kettle for adding boiling water and with the thermometer and hot/cold water from the tap I finish to adjust temp. Those things are really fast and even more when you fill them with hot-from-the-tap water.
If you don't have big pots at home, you can do it in several goes, easy...

I think I could train a monkey with a gillet and a Fez to do it.

People are always trying to diminish other people with their expensive and big equipment, with a little ingenuity you can do the same or even better than them with their herms stainless steel electric automated systems in dedicated rooms.
Making beer is just about being thorough, and getting experience, it's not rocket science.

Most of the experts who use an Esky instead of the bag into the kettle will be against multi step mash because they think they can't do it but they're just too lazy to do the calculations, good enough for ales but there's hundreds of different beers and some of them won't be good without multi step. With BIAB you can turn on the burner a while and there you go.. or if it fits, put the whole kettle inside the oven.

P.s. About the temperature of the water, if you sparge with hot water from the kettle or the tap, it will be faster to reach to the boil!
I think you get more efficiency with hot water, but not too hot or you'll extract things you don't want to.

 

[MHB]

There is no problem squeezing the bag. Thats false crap spread by 3v brewers, but because their filter is the grain bed this is true for them. Your bag is your filter. It prevents any grain from entering your kettle. Plus in 3v you get sparging issues if you compress you grain bed too much.

I went down the avenue of sparging with BIAB but its a waste of time. Remember BIAB is meant to be simple. If you have capacity for full boil mash, stick to it. If you want the extra few gravity points, heat to mash out temps. Warmer temperatures allow more sugars to be suspended in your liquid. Warmer temp = greater solubility.

If you were right I would agree with you, sadly a fair fraction of the above is codswallop.
At present I am BIAB brewing and don't squeeze the bag for a couple of very good reasons
- A lot of the highest molecular weight proteins that are soluble condense at mashing temperatures, squeeze the bag and some of that white goo that comes out is high MW protein, it can react with hops products in the kettle, we want this to happen but the Highest MW protein will combine with polyphenols first and this can result in removal of the less small protein that we do want removed.
- Part of the extra stuff that comes out when you squeeze is flour, as is in fine grain, this does nothing good in the kettle, it will easily char on heating surfaces, causing flavour problems as well as reducing heat transfer.
- You can also increase the elution of Glucan gels into the wort.

The clearer the wort going to the kettle/boil the better.

Sparging particularly batch sparging the malt has its advantages, both in terms of getting the wort temperature up to around 80oC to maximise sugar solubility, and also increases efficiency. It isn't required and for simplicity sake can be omitted, provided you equipment is big enough for your batch size.
Just because a method suits your needs, that doesn't mean its the only way or that suggesting alternatives is a conspiracy by 3V brewers, or that there are other approaches that will serve someone else better.

Hez
You will probably get better results by batch sparging with 80oC water (salts and acid included), with a bag rather than a fully established filter bed (i.e. 3V system) most of the sparge water will travel around the outside rather than through the grist where it is needed. I would reserve about 2 X the grain weight for sparging, heat it to 80oC, fully cover the malt and let it steep for at least 15 minutes (30 would be better so try 20 - go on) before pulling the bag for the second time and adding the batch sparge to the kettle.

Mark

 

[captain crumpet]

If you were right I would agree with you, sadly a fair fraction of the above is codswallop.
At present I am BIAB brewing and don't squeeze the bag for a couple of very good reasons
- A lot of the highest molecular weight proteins that are soluble condense at mashing temperatures, squeeze the bag and some of that white goo that comes out is high MW protein, it can react with hops products in the kettle, we want this to happen but the Highest MW protein will combine with polyphenols first and this can result in removal of the less small protein that we do want removed.
- Part of the extra stuff that comes out when you squeeze is flour, as is in fine grain, this does nothing good in the kettle, it will easily char on heating surfaces, causing flavour problems as well as reducing heat transfer.
- You can also increase the elution of Glucan gels into the wort.

The clearer the wort going to the kettle/boil the better.

Sparging particularly batch sparging the malt has its advantages, both in terms of getting the wort temperature up to around 80oC to maximise sugar solubility, and also increases efficiency. It isn't required and for simplicity sake can be omitted, provided you equipment is big enough for your batch size.
Just because a method suits your needs, that doesn't mean its the only way or that suggesting alternatives is a conspiracy by 3V brewers, or that there are other approaches that will serve someone else better.

Hez
You will probably get better results by batch sparging with 80oC water (salts and acid included), with a bag rather than a fully established filter bed (i.e. 3V system) most of the sparge water will travel around the outside rather than through the grist where it is needed. I would reserve about 2 X the grain weight for sparging, heat it to 80oC, fully cover the malt and let it steep for at least 15 minutes (30 would be better so try 20 - go on) before pulling the bag for the second time and adding the batch sparge to the kettle.

Mark

Ok thanks for explaining that. I had to dig around to find your more in depth explanations and links but its there, im going to habe to wrap my head around it better.

Your first point for not squeezing reads like squeezing is exactly what you want to do. It is confussing to read. We want the HW molecules to react with the hops, and we want to the HW molecules to combine with polyphenols to remove the less small proteins. This is done by squeezing the white goo into the kettle?

As for the method, im sorry it seemed like i was disregarding the sparge altogether. I should have said 'it was a waste of time' instead of 'its a waste of time' i will keep my phrasing in check next time.