Mashing and Sparging

(That's water to the rest of us!) Beer is about 95% water, so if you want to discuss water treatment, filtering etc this is the place to do it!
Post Reply
User avatar
Meatymc
Drunk as a Skunk
Posts: 836
Joined: Mon Sep 01, 2014 8:36 pm
Location: Northallerton, North Yorkshire

Mashing and Sparging

Post by Meatymc » Tue Mar 13, 2018 6:13 pm

Following on from my Splitting the Treatments post....

I'm now ready to bottle my 1st treated brew and have the 2nd - a Porter, sat in the cube, ready to go in the fermenter tomorrow night. Could be coincidence but the Pale Ale fermented out to 1006 where previous brews have not got below 1010. As recommended I treated the mash and sparge water differently on the Porter to obtain the target alkalinity for each side of the process - the Pale ale was the same (proportionate to volume) treatment in both.

This might seem a bit of a strange introduction to my query but please bear with me.

I'm a BIABer using a 30L pot and having to cart water out ot a garage. It's a pain particularly when the grain bill is 5KG and over and I'm lumping the grain bag from one vessel to another. As things stand I'm going to have to get something bigger than what I have to do the sparge or go for a 50l pot instead so I could mash at full volume. However, what I've read suggests the sparge - after a mash, is a necessary/advisable/benficial step in the process plus working with a full volume mash will make a nonsense of any potential split treatments - as with my Porter?

Thoughts?

PS One of the days I'm going to post a query with no more than 20 words instead of wittering on forever......

Fil
Telling imaginary friend stories
Posts: 5229
Joined: Sun Oct 16, 2011 1:49 pm
Location: Cowley, Oxford

Re: Mashing and Sparging

Post by Fil » Tue Mar 13, 2018 8:26 pm

check out Aussie brew sites for info on full volume mash/brewing, its something i looked into briefly when considering a 2 vessel brewery build, i was pointed in the same direction and it revealed a number of happy full volume brewers.

tho when it comes to shifting water a distance could i suggest drinking water hose pipe? the blue stuff as sold by ebay caravan equipment suppliers.
ist update for months n months..
Fermnting: not a lot..
Conditioning: nowt
Maturing: Challenger smash, and a kit lager
Drinking: dry one minikeg left in the store
Coming Soon Lots planned for the near future nowt for the immediate :(

User avatar
Meatymc
Drunk as a Skunk
Posts: 836
Joined: Mon Sep 01, 2014 8:36 pm
Location: Northallerton, North Yorkshire

Re: Mashing and Sparging

Post by Meatymc » Tue Mar 13, 2018 10:01 pm

Cheers Fil - will do.

As regards humping water, as I use bottle gas I start with hot water through the house boiler - can get it around 50C which saves a lot on gas rather than heating from cold.

wolfenrook
Piss Artist
Posts: 246
Joined: Thu Sep 07, 2017 1:00 am

Re: Mashing and Sparging

Post by wolfenrook » Wed Mar 14, 2018 7:03 pm

The main BIAB forum will insist that true BIAB is always full volume, with no sparge, so yes you can do it without sparging. You might find you need to use a bit more grain though, as I found that not sparging reduces efficiency.

Sounds like you could do with a HLT (hot liquor tank) to heat your sparge water in the same place as you brew in perhaps? If you end up using a recirculation pump, you can just attach this to the HLT and use it to pump the water into your main vessel when you come to sparge.

How I sparge, I drain the BIAB kettle, and sparge in the kettle itself. I do this as I move the boiler between mashing and boiling so it needs to be empty.

Oh, some folks cold sparge by the way, I don't though as sugars are harder to rinse out with cold water than with warm.

User avatar
Meatymc
Drunk as a Skunk
Posts: 836
Joined: Mon Sep 01, 2014 8:36 pm
Location: Northallerton, North Yorkshire

Re: Mashing and Sparging

Post by Meatymc » Thu Mar 15, 2018 11:12 am

Cheers Wolf'

I'm all over the place with brewing at the moment to be totally honest and should really concentrate on nailing down (as best I can!) one aspect of the process at a time.

The current 'hot topic' is water treatment as previously posted. 1st such brew (IPA) bottled on Tuesday with the 2nd (Porter) into the fermenter last night. Next up will be a Vienna smash and then a another IPA with a different hop profile. I'm not looking for miraculous results from this exercise - just want to feel I'm giving the grain the best 'conditions' I can with what I've got.

I think then will be the time to look again at my kit and process. This will also give me time to make the wife realise how wonderful I am and how beneficial it will be for everyone by me splashing out on 'yet more!' kit :wink:

Post Reply