No Sparge Question...

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Beerens

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When using the no sparge method do you increase only the base grains or increase every grain on your bill?

Thanks!
 
if your going to do no sparge you might as well batch sparge. Just a suggestion.. it realy does not take any longer. Happy brewing.
 
if your going to do no sparge you might as well batch sparge. Just a suggestion.. it realy does not take any longer. Happy brewing.

actually, it does take longer. it takes the length of the sparge longer. if you sparge for 30 minutes, it takes 30 minutes longer.
 
well I run three burners and I dump in sparge water and mix it in the grains and wait ten mins.. thats about how long it takes me .. Only ten mins extra.. so your right it does take longer.. my bad
 
Also, "no sparge" has been noted by many brewers to provide a more pronounced malt flavor. So there is that.

Eric
 
fishnuttoo said:
always done batch sparge, i thunk i;am going to try no sparge also. I want to see if it makes the malt more pronounced. how much should i up the %

Increasing the grain bill by 1/3 is a good place to start. Also, 50% efficiency is fairly common in a no sparge setup. If you want an exact number, use the efficiency that you get from your first runnings during a recent batch.

Eric

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Most people find no sparge yields them 60-70% efficiency. Enter that into your brewing software and adjust grains accordingly. Generally speaking, you should only adjust your base malts. Efficiency isn't going to change significantly on crystal malts, etc.
 
jkarp that makes the most sense... My thought was that if you added more chocolate malt it would add more flavor. In my head, the no sparge method only effects the efficiency of the conversion in the base malts not the flavor contributions of the other malts.
 
First let me preface my comments by saying that I have no experience with no-sparge - I batch sparge.

With that disclaimer - I would not expect that the lower efficiency of no-sparge has anything to do with conversion. My understanding is that conversion takes place over the course of the rest, e.g. the 1 hour that your grains and water sit at say 152.

I expect that the inefficiency is a result of not getting that good second and third 'rinse' of the sugars (and flavors) which have already been converted during the rest.

If this is the case, then it would seem that one would be failing to rinse & collect the sugars and flavors from the specialty malts to the same degree that one was leaving behind the sugars from the base malt.

If this is correct then one should increase all the grains in proportion.
 
I have done both, and I defenitly take an efficiency hit with no sparge, down from the low 80s to upper 60s. Have you tried batch sparging with the valve on your MLT almost wide open? I do this now and batch sparging only takes 10-15 minutes and I get great (78-86%) efficiency.
 
actually, it does take longer. it takes the length of the sparge longer. if you sparge for 30 minutes, it takes 30 minutes longer.

Batch sparging generally takes about 10 minutes more than no sparge assuming you've got the water at temp when you're running off.

Also, it would take longer to heat up a full volume of strike water than it would to heat up a partial volume (like you would if you're going to sparge). Therefore you start the mash that much sooner. It's probably a wash.
 
I may be wrong but I recall that a thicker mash will improve the conversion of your starches. I believe that it has to do with the proximity of the enzymes to the starch. With a thinner mass the enzymes are spread out over a wider area so conversion does not happen as quickly. Someone please correct me if I am wrong...
 
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