Brew-In-A-Bag Sparge Tip

Hearing about this tip on a podcast on TheBrewingNetwork I decided to give it a try.  One of the big hassles of the BIAB method is the difficulty of lifting out the bag of grain and letting it drain into another vessel and then trying to pour hot water over the bag to rinse out the remaining sugars without making a big mess.

With this method, you simply lift the bag, set a grate over the pot and a bucket with holes in the bottom on top of that and then simply set your bag of grain in the bucket to drain directly into the kettle!  When you sparge, it's much easier and cleaner to simply pour the water over the grains in the bucket and let it all drain for as long as you want -- no liquid loss, no messy spills, no additional vessel to clean and more efficient sparging.

To make this you simply drill a bunch of ¼" holes in the bottom of a bucket and use a practical grate (could even be a barbecue grate) to support the bucket on top of your brew kettle.  I used hardware cloth and it was plenty strong enough to support the weight.

We tried this method the last time I brewed with Cody up in Tacoma in January for his Double Mocha Porter and he and I both agreed it was much better.