I just got a dusty old homebrew kit from a friend and brewed my first beer yesterday, a German alt bier from Brewer's Best. The kit advised to drain the grain bag into the brewpot without squeezing. Ok, no problem. So, I bought an all grain recipe today from Barley Haven which I will be brewing tomorrow. The guy that helped me mentioned sparging, which I took to mean some sort of rinsing to extract more from the grains. But now I'm a little unclear (unfiltered haha). The 5 or so sites I Googled to clear this up are fairly annoying in that no one really talks in simple terms for a Neandertal like me to understand. Is it simply a matter of heating up an amount of water, pouring that over the grain bag and then adding that water to the wort just before boiling?
Are you doing brew in a bag? If so then remove the bag from your mash, let it drain well, then place it into a scond pot containing 170 degree water. Stir the grain well, let it soak for a few min, and again pull it out and let it drain. That's it, you just mashed and sparged, now add the sparge liquid to your mash liquid and begin your boil.
I think that it would help if you gave a detailed list of what you have on hand. You might add in youtube to your searches.
I'll add that if you are indeed using the brew in a bag method, hop (hehe) over to Northern Brewers website and click on the Brewing TV link. Scroll through the archived episodes and find the one titled "Jakes Got a Brand New Bag". It outlines the brew in a bag method pretty well and should help you.
I don't know the brew in a bag method but I am a neanderthal as well and this helped me. http://brewing.lustreking.com/articles/batchsparging.html Hope this helps.
That's pretty much what I was thinking I had to do. Just wasn't sure of a few simple details. Thank you kind sir
