No sparge extraction

I have done two batches as a no sparge brew. I increased my grain bill by 30% on each of them and used 1.25 qts lb in one and 1.5 qts lb in the other. When I drained the mash tun completely and took a gravity reading I got over 1.090 on both. In fact 1.097 on the last batch done with 1.5 qts lb. Everything I have read says I should not get this type of efficiency. I am using a refractometer (yes I calibrated it). What gives here?

I'm not sure I understand your question. Are you mashing at that water/grist ratio and then topping off in your boil kettle to get your pre boil volume? Your first runnings will be the same gravity regardless if you sparge or not, all things being equal. Typically, no sparge involves mashing with the entire volume of water and recirculating the mash. The sweet wort reaches an equilibrium where no more extraction occurs. The remaing sugars, which would otherwise require a sparge to extract from the mash, remain locked in the mash after the first and only runnings. This is where the reduced efficiency comes from. A 30% increase in grain bill is quite a bit. I typically only need to bump up the grain bill by 10% or so to hit my intended gravities.

OK, maybe I am mixing things up. I have been topping my boil volume to meet the amount needed. Is this a "wrong" way of doing it or should I put the total volume of water needed in the mash and go that route? Obvious noob to the no sparge thing, sorry.

I guess I should ask is there a benefit/cost to doing it either way?

I have not looked into no sparge, but, right in your description of your process is a cost factor. You are using 30% more grain! So a 30% increase in grain cost.

If recirculating the wort through the mash I don't see any point in it. It doesn't seem to save any time or labor. And it seems the result is the same.

dwtalley said:

I guess I should ask is there a benefit/cost to doing it either way?

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That's a good question. IMO, rather than just topping off, I would at least run the remaining water through the grain with your process. I think it was Kai on here that experimentally proved a cold sparge works. You would most probably get better efficiency than a traditional no sparge.

I've been mashing with nearly the entire volume needed, save about a gallon in my brew kettle to keep the pump primed. I bump my recipe grain bill up about 10% and that's it. It's simple, and it works for me. I figure a couple of pounds of grain per batch is a small price for a two-vessel system and a little time saving from not sparging.

Actually there is about an hour of time savings as I do not fly sparge in this scenario. There is a cost increase for the grain (my base malts are purchased by the bag so cost increase is very minimal). What I am trying to figure out is should I mash with the typical 1.25 to 1.5 qts lb grain or mash with total water needed for the end result and is there a benefit of either way?

It usually doesn't take 30% more grain. I brew no-sparge, no mash out and and 10% is more accurate on the average as Reelale says. As for me, I don't recirculate, don't heat sparge water, and don't have to take extra measures (pH, gravity), etc. So, I personally save a good bit of time doing no-sparge. Finally, I think no-sparge lends a tad extra maltiness to my beers over conventional batch-sparging. This may not be important for most beers, but I brew mostly German styles where that matters.

Using the whole volume in the mash will be more efficient than a reduced volume with kettle water top up. The reason is that the overall gravity is lower and therefore the fixed volume of liquid that stays absorbed in the grain will be a lower gravity. This matters more when you're not using a grain bag. Grain bags tend to drain more fully when lifted out in a BIAB type brew.

Bobby,
Thank you for that input. I will try doing it that way today. We shall see...lol

Bobby_M said:

Using the whole volume in the mash will be more efficient than a reduced volume with kettle water top up. The reason is that the overall gravity is lower and therefore the fixed volume of liquid that stays absorbed in the grain will be a lower gravity. This matters more when you're not using a grain bag. Grain bags tend to drain more fully when lifted out in a BIAB type brew.

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This doesn't make sense to me.Is this some sort of "math"?

+1 on using the total batch volume of water when doing a no sparge. A no sparge is really no different than doing a no sparge BIAB. The only difference is you can squeeze the grain bag to get better efficiency with BIAB. I got 80% efficiency on a no sparge BIAB today FWIW.. On said batch my water ratio was like 3.36qt/lb (if I remember right). If you're using a MLT, you can still do a cold batch sparge (with room temp water). It only adds about 10-15 minutes to the process. I've done cold sparging with great success. Otherwise, if you intend on sticking with no sparge, I would definitely use all of the water during the mash, as mentioned previously..

You're local surplus store (ocean state job lot, big lots, etc probably) has a cheap 5 gallon stock pot that you can use for heating sparge water if you want to try batch sparging. it will limit how thick you can go with the mash unless you use some cold water but I had good results with this pot and a 5 gallOn round cooler with kettle screen for about a year

I personally think the better way to no-sparge is to do your main mash around the 1.5 qt/lb range and then do a large mash-out infusion to meet your boil volume before you lauter.


to quote Denny:

No Sparge Brewing​

As described by John Palmer in his BYO article “Skip the Sparge” (May-June 2003), a no sparge brew has the entire volume of “sparge” water added to the mash and stirred in before any runoff has taken place. Even though additional water has been added, since it’s been added to the mash before runoff has begun, we can more properly think of it as a mash infusion, rather than a sparge addition...hence the name “no-sparge”. This method is the easiest way to mash, but at the expense of poor extraction, typically 50%. The advantage, though, is that because all the sugar from the mash is in solution from the agitation of adding the water, lauter design has minimal effect.

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edit to say:
Not sure about the 50% extraction part unless it's a big beer.
. . . but Denny does say, "Life begins at 60....1.060, that is!"
:cross:

BigSally said:

This doesn't make sense to me.Is this some sort of "math"?

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It's both intuitive and illustrated with math. The gravity of the mash can be easily calculated by the sugar potential figures of the grain, the amount of grain, and the dilution (how many gallons of water is the sugar dissolved in).

Case Study:

10lbs of 30PPG malt in 5 gallons of strike liquor is (10 x 30)/5 = 1.060
Typically you'll only be able to derive 4 gallons from this because the grain keeps about .1g per pound. This 4 gallons will carry 240 gravity units so topping up with another gallon will leave you with 5 gallons of 1.048 wort.

Now try the same thing with 7 gallons of strike liquor.
(10 x 30) / 7 = mash gravity of 1.042. Draining off 6 gallons gives you 257 GU and then you boil that down to 5 gallons to get a post boil OG of 1.051.

Of course, there really isn't much difference between the two gravities but that's the difference between 80% and 86% efficiency. As you get into higher OGs, the difference is more pronounced.

If you repeat the exercise with 20lbs of malt (twice as much lost to absorption)
(20 x 30) / 5 = 1.120 drain 3gal = 360 GU out of 600 GU possible topped up to 5 gallons is 1.072 OG. (60% efficiency)

(20 x 30) / 7 = 1.086 drain 5 gal = 430 GU out of 600, boil down to 5 = 1.086 (71% efficiency).

So, the moral of the story is that the higher levels of dilution in a no sparge mash will be more efficient than a higher concentration that is later diluted post mash.

AnoldUR is correct thought that there are practical limits on how dilute you can run a mash. For folks that aren't ready to understand buffering and mash pH, suffice to say it's safer to run a mash at less than 3qt per pound. In any case, you can still consider it a no sparge brew if you top up the mash at the end such that the runoff is the desired preboil volume.