Batch sparge - high gravity beers

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phidelt844

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Well I have collected all my equipment for full boil AG sans an MLT, which I am looking at piecing together this coming weekend. I've done a few PM recipes, but I have a question regarding bigger AG beers with batch sparging. From what I've read, double batch sparging offers better efficiency than a single sparge, so run by my math on a hypothetical 15lb, 5g batch...

Assuming no dead space, 15lb grain bill, 6.5g pre-boil volume, .11g per lb grain absorbtion:

15lb @ 1.25 quarts = 4.69g strike water
15lb * .11g = 1.65g loss
Total wort collected from the mash: 3.04g

6.5g goal - 3.04g mash = 3.46g remaining. So here is where I am confused. A double sparge would land me at 1.73g per sparge. This seems way low to me... would this even cover the grain bed? Is it best to do a single sparge with bigger beers like this? I have very little desire to sit around watching my pot boil for hours on end, so starting with more than 6.5g - 7g of wort is just not something I want to do unless it's absolutely necessary. What would my options be? Thanks!
 
I set myself a minimum sparge infusion rate of .4qts/lb. If double sparging gets me lower than that per infusion, I'll cut it to one but in that case, I try to get the two runnings equal volume.

Per your example though, 7 quarts in 15 lbs is .46qts/lb which you should still be able to stir well enough.

However, you might as well collect at least 7 gallons for bigger beers. It should only take you 75-80 minutes to boil off 2 gallons with a nice rolling boil.

Denny, what would you call significant? All things equal, two distinct sparges gets me +5%. In the grand scheme, it's not that big of a deal.
 
Per your example though, 7 quarts in 15 lbs is .46qts/lb which you should still be able to stir well enough.

However, you might as well collect at least 7 gallons for bigger beers. It should only take you 75-80 minutes to boil off 2 gallons with a nice rolling boil.

That should work. But even collecting 7g from 15lb of grains will leave you with very low efficiency of 30-40%.

How about brewing two beers instead of one? Let me explain. You can increase a bit your grain bill and brew your big beer from first runnings. Then use normal amount of sparge water and brew something lighter from second runnings. This assumes you MLT allows you to mash 20-23lb of grains.
 

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