Has anyone tried to distribute sparge water with screen or something in bottom and sparge from bottom up and collect wort from the top?
Never heard of it. What would the benefits be? How would you prevent channeling?
I love outside the box thinking…but, you would certainly be leaving a lot of liquor behind unless you compressed the grain bed somehow.
Explain what you feel you would accomplish by this.
You could do this for rims or HERMS but this would not work for sparging.
From pro sides you would never have stuck sparge.
Interesting concept. Like everyone else said I’m sure you would leave a lot behind.
Just a wacky idea here, but you could draw half (+/-) off the top and then reverse and drain off the bottom. It’d be like fly sparging up and batch sparging down. Call it Upsidedown batch sparging 
Certainly something to think about… since the SG of the sparge water increases as it picks up sugar you certainly would want to finish sparging from the top down to rinse the most sugar from the bed.
I just can’t see any reason this would be a good thing. What benefits could there be to the standard method?
Not sure about the benefits but I’m pretty sure that is how the Speidel Braumeister does it.
I toyed with this ideal a decade ago. It fits my profession since I’m also a geotechnical engineer and groundwater flow through soil is similar to wort flow through a grain bed.
Sure, this option reduces the potential to hydraulically compact the grain bed. However, the intake for the wort discharge at the top of the bed is not easy to accomplish. In addition, you would eventually have to drain the bed from the bottom or you would not be able to get the final runnings out of the bed.
With proper control and monitoring of the flow rate through the bed, you can easily avoid compacting the grain bed. My bottom line was that the upflow design was not worth the effort.
Not sure it relates to sparging exactly, but a friend of mine has a Speidel Braumeister. In watching him brew, the entire mash cycle is an upflow. A filter screen on top keeps the grain in the basket as the wort is pumped up from below. At the end the whole grain basket is lifted out of the kettle/wort to drain completely. (I know most of you will know the specifics of the process, but I add it for those who may not.)
so it’s more of a brew in a bag sort of thing? underlet the grain to mashin/step and then pull the whole grain mass to ‘sparge’?
Exactly.
so it’s a 3000$ BIAB system. hmm.
Yes. Though only $2000 for the 20 liter model. On top of that the heating elements are underpowered, and the grain capacity limits the brewer to non-imperial beers unless malt extract is added. It is kind of cool though.
no doubt, it’s super shiny and fancy looking. And for folks with a strong desire to make their own beer from grain and more money than time, why not.
That doesn’t sound pragmatic
You are learning, Grasshopper!
I disagree, I think it is completely pragmatic given money>>time. Pragmatism is situational. 
Thanks Guys - am redoing my sparge tank (a new version of top 1/2 section smaller dia electric hot water tank)- I work in the water and wastewater industry and there are a number of variations on upflow filters which I thought might be beneficial to have less recirculation and take advantage of gravity to clear wort by leaving 3 or 4 " on top of bed, only need to regulate water to bottom to regulate velocity in the bed. Am thinking if Martin gave it a go and gave up, continuation of the idea is probably not good use of my time!
Maybe farther north of here…