No-Sparge Brewing and BYO

tlazaroff · 10-20-2011, 02:35 AM

In the latest BYO, there is an article on page 60 about No-Sparge brewing. The article is pretty good, and as I have been thinking about trying this technique, I have now decided to actually try it.

The article states that all you have to do is add enough water to your mash tun so when you collect your first runnings, you have your entire pre-boil volume. This makes sense to me.

What the article doesn't state is whether or not you need to increase the amount of grain used in said recipe to match extract rates of batch/continuous sparge techniques. I know other sources have said that no-sparge brewing requires more grain, even an on-line article in BYO by John Palmer mentions that you have to increase grain ratio if using this technique.

So, what is the real deal? Do I need to increase my grain, or don't I? If so, will Palmer's formula in the online BYO article be sufficient?

lumpher · 10-20-2011, 02:39 AM

that's the idea of no-sparge is to add enough grain to compensate for the lack of sparge. the article's amount of grain should cover it

**weirdboy** · 10-20-2011, 02:40 AM

Right...the no-sparge is going to have lower efficiency, so you will need to compensate for that by adding more grain.

cyberwollf · 10-20-2011, 02:54 AM

Pretty much like the full boil volume mashes BIAB folks do

tlazaroff · 10-20-2011, 03:14 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by weirdboy

Right...the no-sparge is going to have lower efficiency, so you will need to compensate for that by adding more grain.

Okay, I use Beer Alchemy (Mac) for my brewing software. I created a new profile and set the water/grain ratio to .62 gallons/pound (2.5 quarts/pound). This should give me a full boil volume of first runnings.

I then decreased efficiency from 75% to 56% to make up for the loss in efficiency. This scales my grain accordingly (2.5 gallon batch [these are my test batches])

Recipe as written:
Marris Otter: 4lb 12oz
Pale Chocolate: 8oz
Roasted Barley: 7oz
Crystal 80L: 3.5oz

Recipe as changed for no-sparge:
Marris Otter: 6lb 6oz
Pale Chocolate: 10.71oz
Roasted Barley: 9.37oz
Crystal 80L: 4.69oz

Does this look right?

**Demon** · 10-20-2011, 04:04 AM

You shouldn't lose 20 percentage points. I have a Brutus 20 system and only lost about 6 points versus my three vessel system. Each system will be different. Your first batch should give you a good baseline though.

tlazaroff · 10-20-2011, 12:56 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Demon

You shouldn't lose 20 percentage points. I have a Brutus 20 system and only lost about 6 points versus my three vessel system. Each system will be different. Your first batch should give you a good baseline though.

Thanks for the tip. Do you suggest that I just go with the recipe as I wrote it originally and see what happens, then go from there on the next batch?

**Demon** · 10-20-2011, 01:27 PM

That's what I did when I finished this system and glad I did because the results surprised me.

TheMan · 10-20-2011, 01:40 PM

I lose about 10% efficiency when I no-sparge. Like Demon said, everyone's system is different.

I would plan your first batch for 10% loss of efficiency, this way even if you are off you are still closer to the intended recipe than you would if you aimed for your normal 75%.

**JeepDiver** · 10-20-2011, 01:43 PM

Doing BIAB I usually end up with about 74% for smaller beers (10lbs or grain or so) from there it starts dropping as I add more grain. This weekend I did a beer with ~20 lbs of grain and had ~66% but did a simple Batch Sparge (using a 2nd kettle) and went back up to 72, but had to add an hour onto the boil.