How do you sparge?

[Slid]

Very interesting question, actually. On an ideal brew-day, a GF brewer just jugs his 15L or so slowly and gradually so as to fill in the time it takes the system to get up to boiling.

So rarely is reality like this. For the last n number of brews, I have ended up with cut-out issues related to fine grain crushes.

Yesterdays sparge was so sticky. that when the GF cut-out at 90C, I just took the top plate off and stirred up the grain, with the remaining sparge water dumped in in 2 or 3 goes. Pushing the whole wort through a BIAB bag and boiling the grain-free wort up in two boilers - GF and Peco finally worked.

I do think that grain is now crushed for the BIAB / microbreweries preferences - very fine for efficiency.

 

[Brewed_Force]

I BIAB and dunk the bag in cold water.

 

[The Baron]

I do as you Slid in my Ace leave top plate on which has fine holes and jug water through this. I too have got a bag from my usual place and having major stuck mash issues having to stir the mash some times( the crush is much finer than I have had from them before and did send a email which they said no change in their crush so ordered a 25kg of lager malt and that crush is back to how it should be?). I have tried oat husks but did not seem to help at all still stuck even with a 4.5kg grain bill and 300g of oat husks

 

[Alfie]

I don't have any way to fly sparge ~ no sparge arm, standard Burco tap that I can't attach any type of hose to, etc, so I batch sparge.

If you look close at this tap on the Grainfather Sparge Water Heater you’ll see I manage (with some effort) to get silicone pipe to stretch over the tap. Is the Burco much bigger? I’ve also been able to heat garden hose with a hot air blower to get a ‘flared’ end for a pond pump. Might be worth a go. I use a standard plastic tap to slow the output to get the Sparge at the right speed.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk Pro

 

[marshbrewer]

I'm away at the moment, but when I get back I'll have a look to see if I could do something similar.

 

[ElvisIsBeer]

Last time out I slowly drizzled my water via a jug into a double decker device (steamer pan inside a colander) sat on top of the tun. I returned to the boiler tap, refilled the jug and drizzled again (and repeat) until I had 24 or 25 L in the FV.

What do you call that, so I can vote for an option?

 

[Duxuk]

I pour 6 litres of warm water onto the grain after a first drain. I don't find the temperature to be critical and I haven't found a second sparge to give statistically significant results. ie. it made no difference! After the sparge I give the bag a bit of a squeeze.

 

[Covrich]

I BIAB or single vessel system with no sparge

No sparge for me, my efficiency stays around 75%, I do get better efficiency if I sparge when doing smaller batches but I find this method is consistent and very easy / quick to exclude it.

 

[Metacomet]

I BIAB and sparge. This is because I only have a 20L kettle, and sparging gives me the extra wort I need to fill my kettle up.

I used to dunk sparge in a FV, but since I got a tap on my kettle, I've been experimenting with fly sparging albeit not very successfully.
I'll probably do a batch sparge next time to see if I can get my efficiency back up.