Grain/wort filtration question

[DirtyCaner]

Hi guys,

I'm pretty keen to try an AG brew using the gear I've got in the house. Can someone tell me the reason u need to filter through the grain bed once you've mashed. What's to stop me mashing in a stock pot then pouring it through a jam bag strainer thing into another stock pot? Is it that something else comes through from grain?

Cheers,

DirtyC

 

[Kev888]

hi,

fly sparging (or continuous sparging) is basically a rinse through with warmer water. This does two things, firstly the fresh water washes more of the sugars out of the grain than simply draining alone would do, and secondly its warm enough to kill off the enzymes, which stops the sugar profile changing whilst yoiu wait for the boiler to heat (but not so hot as to wash out tannin etc). There's a variation on this where the fresh water is added in batches (batch sparging) and stirred before draining each batch.

There is also a method called 'no sparge' which may be more what you were looking for, which doesn't involve rinsing through. But this needs a bigger pot as it employs all the liquid in one go for the mash - the mash is therefore much more loose and the more dilute water is more able to rinse out the sugars than a stiff mash. In my limited experience of this its not quite as effective as a true sparge but you can make up the difference in extraction efficiency by using a bit more grain.

Cheers
kev

 

[DirtyCaner]

Cheers Kev. The no-sparge is probably not ideal for me as my pots are only 9l. Still, the batch sparge sounds perfect. I've been looking at some recipes using 3-4kg grain so could maybe achieve this in the stock pot with initial mash, then maybe a couple of washes warm water with stirring. All poured through jam bag into fermentor then back into pots for boil.

Assuming that I use the right temp water then I wont get anything adverse in the brew. Will post how I get on.