mash and sparge methods

Usually i use the brewpal software on my iphone to give me my strike water volume and temp and then my sparge water volume and temp. i sold my phone so i have been playing with beersmith.
What i have been doing was adding my calculated amount of strike water at whatever temp, adding my grain, mixing, verifiying the temp and then screwing on the lid of my home depot cooler and then coming back an hour later. empty that into my keggle. i would then sparge with the calculated amount of water at around 185Fish. let that sit for 10 minutes, then empty all of that into my keggle. my beers have been turning out fantastic.
now i'm playing with beersmith, and i see it has all of these options, for doing 2 sparges... no sparges.
first question in regards to sparge water vs strike water. lately i've been using my 5 gallon kettle as my HLT. after i figured out how to configure my method into beersmith, i notice for my last beer it wants me to use 13.83qt for mash and 5.3 gallons of sparge. would it be wrong to even those numbers out so the volumes both fit in my kettle?
i would also like to know what batch sparging methods you guys are using. am i the only one doing this way? should i be doing 2 sparges?
thanks
Joe

The only time I've done double spathes is when my grist volume is huge for a big beer, and I can't fit all the water into the mash tun. Otherwise I always do a mash and single sparge

I usually do a double batch sparge figuring a better rinsing and higher efficiency...I doubt reducing your sparge volume to 4.8 from 5.3 would make much, if any difference.

eppo said:

Usually i use the brewpal software on my iphone to give me my strike water volume and temp and then my sparge water volume and temp. i sold my phone so i have been playing with beersmith.
What i have been doing was adding my calculated amount of strike water at whatever temp, adding my grain, mixing, verifiying the temp and then screwing on the lid of my home depot cooler and then coming back an hour later. empty that into my keggle. i would then sparge with the calculated amount of water at around 185Fish. let that sit for 10 minutes, then empty all of that into my keggle. my beers have been turning out fantastic.
now i'm playing with beersmith, and i see it has all of these options, for doing 2 sparges... no sparges.
first question in regards to sparge water vs strike water. lately i've been using my 5 gallon kettle as my HLT. after i figured out how to configure my method into beersmith, i notice for my last beer it wants me to use 13.83qt for mash and 5.3 gallons of sparge. would it be wrong to even those numbers out so the volumes both fit in my kettle?
i would also like to know what batch sparging methods you guys are using. am i the only one doing this way? should i be doing 2 sparges?
thanks
Joe

Click to expand...

First thing get the iPhone back along with the BrewPal! WTH man ;-) I would assume you would need the required amount of water in your mash to get the required sugars out of your grain in the hour rest! The Sparge is only there to clean and rinse the grain not convert grain sugars:-/
For 10 gallons I always mash with roughly 6 gallons! Then double batch sparge with 4.6 ish gallons each! Works good for me, but it's probably because I have the iPhone with BrewPal just kidding, NOT !!