Sparging with cold water

[Ozarks Mountain Brewery]

here's what Ive been doing with very good success and don't see any difference with flavor or body.
on my small set up that includes a 10 gallon pot using brew in a bag method.

I will explain in more detail, I have a 5500 watt electric element in my aluminum pot, a pizza screen with 3 inch stainless bolts holding it up from the bottom roughly an inch off the element. The bag lays on the pizza screen.

I mash with a chugger pump recirculating from the bottom ball valve back over the top of the mash at 3/4 valve open. After mash is complete I raise the temperature in the pot to 170 then raise the bag with a winch hooked to the ceiling. I then draining until no liquid comes out, I use my filtered water from the tap to wet the grain pushing it into the grain all around in several spots while up in the air until my water level in my pot reaches 7.5 gallons roughly, that would be my sparge, you know the rest

for a year now I have not seen any change in flavor, off flavors or weak batches, as a matter of fact they seem to be darker in color and have more flavor than before.

anyone else tried this? it seems to make the brew day easier :roll:

 

[Smitty27]

Might have to try this on my smaller BIAB batches to see what kind of efficiency I can get. Do you think the re-circulation has something to do with it though? If you are constantly re-circulating the wort through the grain, most of the sugars are probably extracted that way and the cold rinse is just getting the rest of the liquid out.

I would think this would be just fine for BIAB setup but I'd be worried about a stuck sparge if you are rinsing with cold water through the cooler. Thoughts? At least you won't have to worry about extracting tannins with the cold water.

Yep, going to try this the next time a do a BIAB!

 

[Ozarks Mountain Brewery]

I don't use a cooler just the same pot and yes the recirculation makes a huge difference. I agree on the rinsing, thats my point, doing it this way no longer needs a second pot of heated water

I have a coarse grain bag as my filter and no screen for the mash if doing it in a cooler just remove everything but the ball valve going out

 

[Head First]

What is your "into fermenter" efficiency doing it this way?

 

[Ozarks Mountain Brewery]

right on with the recipe sometimes even better, I set the recipe at 75 to 80% never gotten below

 

[Alexv]

Might try this in my next batch, never thought of that before. Thanks for the idea.

 

[craigmw]

I have a similar approach, but use a Blichmann burner for heating purposes. I just built a temp probe setup that connects on to the outlet manifold of my 20g kettle, and that really does seem to help for hitting my proper temps. Overall, BIAB with recirculation gives me better temp control, better extraction, and much improved wort clarity going into the boil. After mashing, I either pull the bag out manually or using a pulley setup (for 5 or 10 gallon batches, respectively) and set it in a Papazian Homer Bucket rig to drain for about 20 minutes, with moderate squeezing, then add this to the boil. My mash efficiencies have been in the high 80s, and my brewhouse efficiencies are in the mid 70s (I lose some of the wort on the way to the fermenter). Not too bad in my estimation. Also, my brew sessions have been hitting the nail on the head based on my recipes that I throw together here on BF. I couldn't be happier.