1.25 quarts per pound of grain is the average water/grain ratio. However, some people around here have experimented with a higher ratio and have reported much success.
With batch sparging, if you are doing two just do them in equal batches. Divide your water in half and use each one for the sparge.
Shoot for 1.5 quarts per pound of grain on the mash ratio. The sparge is more of a fixed volume thing rather than a ratio. After you collect first runnings, just figure out how much more wort you need for your preboil volume and use that amount. Of course, how much preboil volume you need is tied to how much boiloff you get and you have to guess that for the first few batches. It's somewhere between 1-2 gallons per hour. I start with 7.25 gallons to get 5.75 gallons into the fermenter.
It comes down to what you're doing in each step. This is a pretty rudimentary way of looking at it, but this is how I see it.
Mashing is to activate the enzymes and convert starches to sugar. The water to grist ratio is important. 1.75 to 1.25 qt H20/ lb grain is enough that you can get everything wet and the enzymes are in high enough concentration that conversion doesn't take all day.
Sparging is to rinse the wort from the grains. The volume here is related to your pre-boil volume. You want to use as much water in your sparge as you can. This is to get as much wort out of your grains as you can. I single batch sparge and sometimes double batch sparge with a lower volume if my grain bill is big.
Mash water/sparge water ratio
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