AG brewers, how do you do sparge?

[denny]

Here's what I do. www.dennybrew.com. I've found reduced efficiency while batch sparging to be a myth. I get as least as good efficiency as my friends who fly sparge. Often better.

[ScrewyBrewer]

Lots of times my BIAB kettle won't hold enough grain and mash water at the same time. So I lift the grains above the kettle and sparge until I have my pre-boil volume. The sparge takes about 10-15 minutes including time to let most of the grains to drip-dry.

[mashani]

Here's what I do. http://www.dennybrew.com. I've found reduced efficiency while batch sparging to be a myth. I get as least as good efficiency as my friends who fly sparge. Often better.

That article says this:

"No Sparge Brewing - This method is the easiest way to mash, but at the expense of poor extraction, typically 50%."

I am getting 80% mash efficiency pretty consistently right now doing full volume no-sparge brewing with a mash out step added, and stirring the mash 4 times or so, and stirring also a couple of times during the mashout step. At least as long as I am hitting 5.2-5.4 mash PH right away by pre-adjusting my water. I think nailing the mash PH might be the real issue for this process to get up there, since you have a lot more water to buffer, IE when I have not figured out the pre-adjusted water properly a few times and ended up with a higher mash PH 10 minutes in, I've only gotten in the 70s with the stirring and mashout, and 60s if I didn't stir or do a mashout.

[ScrewyBrewer]

At least as long as I am hitting 5.2-5.4 mash PH right away by pre-adjusting my water. I think nailing the mash PH might be the real issue for this process to get up there, since you have a lot more water to buffer, IE when I have not figured out the pre-adjusted water properly a few times and ended up with a higher mash PH 10 minutes in, I've only gotten in the 70s with the stirring and mashout, and 60s if I didn't stir or do a mashout.

I always stir the mash and expect to get ~78% mash efficiency when the pH is in range too. I've gotten into the habit of taking a pH sample 20 minutes into the mash. I believe that taking mash pH measurements at the same times tends to give more consistent results.

[Beer-lord]

I stir my BIAB every 10-12 minutes and routinely get 78%-84% efficiency up to about 1.070. It's the bigger beers that BIAB is not as efficient with for me.

[Kealia]

Here's what I do. http://www.dennybrew.com. I've found reduced efficiency while batch sparging to be a myth. I get as least as good efficiency as my friends who fly sparge. Often better.

Interesting - you mentioned draining the mash tun as quickly as possible when batch sparging. Is this something that you have tested (versus draining slowly)?
When I switched over from BIAB I read, and was told if I'm not mistaken, that slow was the way to go for better sparging efficiency.

Anybody know the guys at Brulosophy so we can request this as a test?

[mashani]

I stir my BIAB every 10-12 minutes and routinely get 78%-84% efficiency up to about 1.070. It's the bigger beers that BIAB is not as efficient with for me.

90% of what little I brew about 1.070 is a Belgian beer and it will have sugar in it if it's that high of a gravity, and so would any IPA I make above 1.070 so I think I'm good pretty much no matter what then. I guess I'd only run into trouble with a wee heavy or an imperial stout, but I brew those rarely, and wouldn't care if I had to throw 1# of extract into them.