I love no sparge brewing...

[Baron ken]

I threw together this spreadsheet to help me decide on how I want to split up my MLT water and BK water during recirc.

Areas in blue are changeable values.

There are 3 different 'sections':

• a percentage split between mash water and BK water
• a specific water/grain ratio in qts/lb
• a specific amount of water in BK (useful as described below)

The color key is across the top for the conditional formatting of the columns. Note that I set the conditional formatting using my vessel sizes, i.e.:

• MLT: 16 gal (it's actually a 17.5 gal cooler, but I left room)
• Total water: 14 gal (yes, my BK will hold 15.5, but again, I left room)
• BK water volume: I set it to warn me (yellow background) for less than my desired 4 gal (this is the volume I need to use my BK thermometer to monitor mash temp) and warn me (red background) for less than 0.3 (below this and it's getting close to empty and the pump would suck air and lose prime), also warn (red) when above 14 gal
• Water/grain ratio: warn (yellow) when between 1 to 1.25 qts/lb and warn (red) when less than 1 qt/lb

Now, for my brewday coming up next week, I'm doing a Hobgoblin clone. 10.25 lbs grain. From the spreadsheet, I can see that a 50% split will put 4.43 gal in my BK (and I can use it's thermo), and give me a water/grain ratio of 1.73...sounds good. If I were wanting a water grain ratio of 2.0 (see the next section), it would put 3.74 gal in the BK and though that would work just fine, I wouldn't be able to use my BK thermo to monitor the mash temp.
The spreadsheet is just a guideline to help me get started. I'm sure it'll get tweaked some when I actually brew something.

View attachment Mash ratio.zip

 

[Baron ken]

Wow. I guess I'll be doing 5 gallon batches forever. This is not a cheap hobby!

Not necessarily. You can split the water between the MLT and the BK to get the job done.

It looks like I could max out around 50 lbs of grain for a 10 gallon batch with a water/grain ratio of approx 1 qt/lb and a MLT/BK split of around 62% (meaning 12.3 gal water in MLT (with total including grains at around 16.3 gal) and 7.5 gal in BK, recirculating)! I would add rice hulls at that water/grain ratio though.

 

[Saccharomyces]

You can certainly mashin with some of the water, and recirculate when the rest of the water gets up to temp, that way you can have more water than your kettle can hold. That said, if you are using that much grain, unless you are partigyling you might want to consider sparging

 

[Baron ken]

You can certainly mashin with some of the water, and recirculate when the rest of the water gets up to temp, that way you can have more water than your kettle can hold. That said, if you are using that much grain, unless you are partigyling you might want to consider sparging

Good advice!

 

[Reelale]

You can certainly mashin with some of the water, and recirculate when the rest of the water gets up to temp, that way you can have more water than your kettle can hold. That said, if you are using that much grain, unless you are partigyling you might want to consider sparging

I'm missing something important here. Are you going to lose that much water to grain absorption and dead space? I thought you were recirculating just enough water to achieve your boil volume minus of course the grain absorption. I guess my question is, after combining mashing in water and boil kettle water, what do you do with what's left? Sorry, I'm just strating AG.

 

[Saccharomyces]

The discussion was around trying to mash with more water than your kettle can hold. Unless your kettle is really small, that would only happen for a ginormous beer, which would be better served by sparging IMO. The no-sparge method is a great shortcut for producing house beers, but I don't think it's very applicable to an imperial-strength beer unless you are planning on partigyling it to make some other beer out of the second runnings.

I have a 5 gal MLT which doubles as a HLT to convert my system into a three tier for really big beers. The nice thing about the pump is I don't have to lift the sparge water, or even use a second burner or kettle -- I can heat it in the BK and pump it up to the HLT through the HLT valve and then runoff to the BK fly sparging from the HLT. I have yet to do this, but I will be doing it for the Cuvee de Tomme clone so I'll post pics of it. The trick will be to choose a mash thickness which is thin enough that my sparge volume comes in right around 5 gallons, since obviously I have a problem if I need more than 5 gallons .

 

[Reelale]

Ok. Thanks for the explanation. I just couldn't connect with the idea of mashing with more volume than the kettle. But I'm still unclear about what happens to all of that water if you do. Beersmith shows that for 10 gallons final volume with 30 lbs of grain you would need just a little over 15 gals.of water (assuming no dead space). Couldn't you heat that much in the BK and recirculate that for a 10 gallon batch?

 

[Saccharomyces]

Ok. Thanks for the explanation. I just couldn't connect with the idea of mashing with more volume than the kettle. But I'm still unclear about what happens to all of that water if you do. Beersmith shows that for 10 gallons final volume with 30 lbs of grain you would need just a little over 15 gals.of water (assuming no dead space). Couldn't you heat that much in the BK and recirculate that for a 10 gallon batch?

Right, assuming you can heat 15 gal of water in your kettle. If you were using, say, a 50 quart kettle (eek!), you would need to split the volume.

 

[Baron ken]

The discussion was around trying to mash with more water than your kettle can hold. Unless your kettle is really small, that would only happen for a ginormous beer, which would be better served by sparging IMO. The no-sparge method is a great shortcut for producing house beers, but I don't think it's very applicable to an imperial-strength beer unless you are planning on partigyling it to make some other beer out of the second runnings.

RE: mash with more water than kettle will hold, I was also talking about a 10 gallon batch. Even a mid-size beer (20-25 lbs of grain) would require 15ish gallons of water total. That's pushing the limit on my keggle (due to expansion from heating the water). That's where heating a portion of the mash water first, then pumping it over to the MLT to start the mash, then heating more water comes in. This is not a concern with a 5 gallon batch of low-mid strength.

 

[Baron ken]

Ok. Thanks for the explanation. I just couldn't connect with the idea of mashing with more volume than the kettle. But I'm still unclear about what happens to all of that water if you do. Beersmith shows that for 10 gallons final volume with 30 lbs of grain you would need just a little over 15 gals.of water (assuming no dead space). Couldn't you heat that much in the BK and recirculate that for a 10 gallon batch?

Depending on your grain absorption value and boil-off rate.
30 lbs @ 0.15 gal/lb = 4.5 gal + 11.5 gal pre-boil (to leave 10 gal post-boil with 1.5 gal/hr boil-off for 1 hr) = 16 gal of water needed in total

If you know your absorption value and boil-off, you can get a better figure (mine are estimated).

 

[Reelale]

Right, assuming you can heat 15 gal of water in your kettle. If you were using, say, a 50 quart kettle (eek!), you would need to split the volume.

Well I'm trying right now to build a keggle which should hold 15.5 gallons. Am I just wishful thinking that I can heat this volume up to temperature in a reasonable time? Right now all I have is a 32 qt. stainless steel pot. I'm pretty sure I can't use this for your system, or could I? Could I heat up enough strike water, pump to the MLT then heat up the additional and recirulate with this size (8 gallons) kettle? I'm seeking advice. I wanted to go with the keggle in case I wanted to start brewing in 10 gallon batches.

RE: mash with more water than kettle will hold, I was also talking about a 10 gallon batch. Even a mid-size beer (20-25 lbs of grain) would require 15ish gallons of water total. That's pushing the limit on my keggle (due to expansion from heating the water). That's where heating a portion of the mash water first, then pumping it over to the MLT to start the mash, then heating more water comes in. This is not a concern with a 5 gallon batch of low-mid strength.

You guys' collective knowledge so far exceeds mine, I don't even know the right questions to ask! I'm trying to figure out with all that water, you are still only getting enough wort for your expected boil volume, right? Or are you getting more and boiling it off?

 

[Reelale]

Depending on your grain absorption value and boil-off rate.
30 lbs @ 0.15 gal/lb = 4.5 gal + 11.5 gal pre-boil (to leave 10 gal post-boil with 1.5 gal/hr boil-off for 1 hr) = 16 gal of water needed in total

If you know your absorption value and boil-off, you can get a better figure (mine are estimated).

The default values in Beersmith are pretty close to my boil-off values. I guess I'll have to wait until I actually brew an AG batch before I know my grain absorption rate? I'm assuming this will change with grains, moisture in grains, etc?

 

[Baron ken]

Well I'm trying right now to build a keggle which should hold 15.5 gallons. Am I just wishful thinking that I can heat this volume up to temperature in a reasonable time? Right now all I have is a 32 qt. stainless steel pot. I'm pretty sure I can't use this for your system, or could I? Could I heat up enough strike water, pump to the MLT then heat up the additional and recirulate with this size (8 gallons) kettle? I'm seeking advice. I wanted to go with the keggle in case I wanted to start brewing in 10 gallon batches.

You could use it for a 5 gallon batch depending on how much grain you use. Not for a 10 gal batch obviously since you cannot boil 10 + gallons in it. You could do the procedure you described. You would then end up with your pre-boil volume in the kettle when done.

You guys' collective knowledge so far exceeds mine, I don't even know the right questions to ask! I'm trying to figure out with all that water, you are still only getting enough wort for your expected boil volume, right? Or are you getting more and boiling it off?

Yes, after the grain absorbs some water, the amount you are left with after mashing is your pre-boil volume (e.g. 7 gal for a 5-gal batch, 12 gal for a 10-gal batch, which would leave 5.5 and 10.5 gal post-boil, respectively (with 1.5 gal/hr boil-off)...you may want different post-boil amounts though).

 

[Baron ken]

The default values in Beersmith are pretty close to my boil-off values. I guess I'll have to wait until I actually brew an AG batch before I know my grain absorption rate? I'm assuming this will change with grains, moisture in grains, etc?

Yea, it seems most software puts grain absorption as a system parameter, but I haven't seen consistent absorption. I think it needs to be a per-recipe value.

 

[Reelale]

Thanks everyone. I'm gonna do this. After looking at the threads on AG, I think this is a great way to make the jump to AG.

 

[Saccharomyces]

OK let's work the math backwards,

15.5 gallon keggle will hold 14 gallons comfortably
4% expansion to heating = 13.5 gallons max fill

With a 25# grainbill you are looking at about 3 gallons absorbed by the grains so you would collect about 10 gallons after dead loss if you used 13.5 gallons as your strike. You'll want 11 gallons post-boil for trub and dead loss in the kettle, and you will boiloff about 1.5 gallons in an hour so preboil you would want 12.5 gallons, about a deficit of 2.5 gallons.

Easy fix is to just heat 10 gallons, pump it over to the MLT, and then heat the other 6 gallons and start recirculating. That's quite doable, although a bit of a pain.

I had a 15 gallon kettle but I decided not to convert it for this system, and went for a Blichmann 20 instead. 15 gallons is pretty restrictive for any 10 gallon batch, and with no-sparge makes for more work. Ideally I think any system should have 2x the kettle volume of your batch size. It makes life easier, and it minimizes the number of boilovers.

 

[Reelale]

Ok. Now I see. Thank you for taking the time to explain that. I see that it is doable, but could be a little more work. Appreciate it.

 

[explosivebeer]

I haven't followed this thread closely since reading through it awhile back so sorry if I'm rehashing ideas.

It seems if you really want to simplify this concept, maximize the volume you can do in your equipment, and don't mind sacrificing a little more efficiency, you could fit as much mash/sparge water into your mash tun (or kettle if you remove the grains via the brew in a bag method) as possible, then top off your kettle to your desired final volume + boil off + trub/deadspace/etc.

It's not perfect and obviously you'd want to add more grains to account for the dilution after the mash but it seems easier than recirculating with a secondary vessel if you can't quite fit all the grains into a mash tun or boil kettle (with BIAB). If you can't quite get the gravity you want, add DME or LME as necessary to adjust.

But really, I think Saccharomyces is right about ideally having a kettle twice the size of your final volume for this method.

 

[Reelale]

I seem to be grasping this process little by little. I've still got a couple of questions:

After dough-in, and initial stirring, there is no more need to stir the mash, right? I'm guessing that the recirculation does this.

Sacc. Your PVC "sparge arm", is it just sitting on top of the grain bed (or is there any grain bed at all)? I'm trying to figure out how/if the recirulating wort is being filtered and if there is an even distribution of water/grain in the MLT.

Has anybody tried using conditioned malt with this process?

 

[Saccharomyces]

After dough-in, and initial stirring, there is no more need to stir the mash, right? I'm guessing that the recirculation does this.

Right.

Your PVC "sparge arm", is it just sitting on top of the grain bed (or is there any grain bed at all)? I'm trying to figure out how/if the recirulating wort is being filtered and if there is an even distribution of water/grain in the MLT.

Not quite sure what you are getting at with this question. The wort clears up as soon as the starches are converted. There is a little bit of grain that ends up in the kettle but it's a very small amount. Overall there is less hot break with this method, because the proteins coagulate in the MLT during recirculation. And as somebody else already noted you can start recirculating directly back to the MLT if you want to get "clean" wort only in the kettle.

 

[Reelale]

Not quite sure what you are getting at with this question. The wort clears up as soon as the starches are converted. There is a little bit of grain that ends up in the kettle but it's a very small amount. Overall there is less hot break with this method, because the proteins coagulate in the MLT during recirculation.

I guess what I was asking is what is the purpose of the PVC tube with the drilled holes in the MLT. Does this "spread" the recyling wort over the grains (grist)? I guess I'm really confusing sparging with this process. I see it as using the mashed wort being used to continuously "sparge" by recirculation. I can't visualize what the inside of the MLT looks like during this process. Is there an actual grain bed that filters the wort, or is it more like a "grist soup" in there

And as somebody else already noted you can start recirculating directly back to the MLT if you want to get "clean" wort only in the kettle.

That would be sparging though wouldn't it? And I thought that there was a potential to extract tannins by oversparging.
Thanks for putting up with these questions.

 

[Saccharomyces]

I guess what I was asking is what is the purpose of the PVC tube with the drilled holes in the MLT. Does this "spread" the recyling wort over the grains (grist)? I guess I'm really confusing sparging with this process. I see it as using the mashed wort being used to continuously "sparge" by recirculation. I can't visualize what the inside of the MLT looks like during this process. Is there an actual grain bed that filters the wort, or is it more like a "grist soup" in there

The point of the sparge arm is to prevent disturbing the grainbed which settles and becomes compact. If you were to peek into the MLT during recirculation you would see crystal clear wort, a massive crust of break material and under that is the compacted grain bed.

That would be sparging though wouldn't it? And I thought that there was a potential to extract tannins by oversparging.

Mechanical recirculation and/or stirring of the mash is used in commercial breweries to speed up conversion and increase yield. This isn't the same as sparging at all. When you sparge you are rinsing the grainbed with water whereas this is just recirculating the wort back through the same grain bed over and over.

In sparging any astringency comes from overextracting and/or from loss of pH buffering as the grain loses its ability to buffer the pH once the wort is removed from the husk. With a no-sparge process the pH remains at the mash pH throughout the process so the wort quality is as good as you can get.

 

[Reelale]

Thanks again for clearing that up. In your setup the reinforced PVC is just hanging free from the cooler lid? Do you like this set-up or would you recommend some sort of manifold built into the top of the lid? I've got everything but the pump now, and I'm building the keggle, MLT, etc. Just wanted to see if you were to build from scratch what you would do.

 

[Saccharomyces]

Ugh, you you are trying to replicate my setup don't use the PVC hose for the return manifold, use something else... silicone hose or CPVC or whatever. I thought some folks had used this hose OK for brewing but it definitely leached a small amount of chlorophenols into my first couple of brews on the system... blech. The hose is now sitting in my trash can.

 

[Reelale]

I had some left-over 1/2" silicon hose that I used. I'm just curling it to point up while resting on the grain bed, no holes, no plug. Is this ok? Doesn't seem to disturb the grain bed except for one corner. I just used the new set-up yesterday. I only got 60% brewhouse efficiency and missed by post-boil volume by 1/2 gallon. I attribute the volume miscue to the keggle having more surface area for evaporation, and a "little bit of extra 2-row". I overshot my 2-row weight by 2 1/4 pounds due to a major malfunction on a cheap kitchen scale (RIP)! But it's all good, a mistake that turned out for the good. Over shot my OG estimate by .005. A Nut Brown Ale is happily fermenting away.

Had no trouble hitting strike temperature thanks to Beersmith. I did have a little trouble maintaining temperature through the recirculation. It was cold and I think my hoses were losing heat. When I tried to compensate with the burner, it was very hard to judge when to cut the heat. Also took quite a while to hit mashout. I'm sure with a few more sessions, I'll get it dialed in.

Just wanted to thank you for your patience and help with my never-ending questions on your set-up. And you were right, I could read a newspaper through the wort. It was crystal clear. Thanks again.

 

[Saccharomyces]

I had some left-over 1/2" silicon hose that I used. I'm just curling it to point up while resting on the grain bed, no holes, no plug.

That works... I'll be picking up a few feet of 3/8" silicone hose today at Austin Homebrew to replace the PVC that literally hosed my wort.

Yea, this setup will def. have temp swings, but I am not that concerned about it, since the no sparge method is for when I want a really fast AG brew in the time it takes to do a PM. If I want to be precise about the mash temp, I can pump the sparge water up into my 5 gallon cooler and fly sparge by gravity, or recirculate with an electric RIMS heater (which I still want to build).

 

[ibbones]

That works... I'll be picking up a few feet of 3/8" silicone hose today at Austin Homebrew to replace the PVC that literally hosed my wort.

Sacc, will that hose turn nasty because of the time it has the hot wort flowing through it or just a heat in general issue? I have the reinforced plastic hose on my mash tun and it's only used to drain the tun so it does not stay hot for very long.

 

[Saccharomyces]

Sacc, will that hose turn nasty because of the time it has the hot wort flowing through it or just a heat in general issue? I have the reinforced plastic hose on my mash tun and it's only used to drain the tun so it does not stay hot for very long.

I think the problem is it is in contact with hot wort for an hour so it leaches enough chlorine into the wort to give it that yummy band-aid flavor. Blech. Lesson learned....

 

[newrbrewer]

I tried this today on EdWorts Haus Pale Ale. I added 1 extra pound of 2 row so I ended up with with 11.5# grain and 9.5 gal H20. Anyway, I liked the process and hit all my numbers (actually I think I got better efficiency by a couple %). The only hiccup was my first stuck sparge about half way through running off which was wierd. I ended up stirring the mash and recirculating for a little bit and then it drained off normal. I'm using 70 qt coleman with hose braid and my own grind with a factory set barley crusher. Any thoughts on why it stuck? Next time I will stir it up before I run off and see if that makes a difference.
This will be my new norm for most beers. Nice job!

 

[Scooby_Brew]

Today I tried out a new setup with my new pump. RIMS, no sparge, no chill.

I have to say I love this system, it's simple yet ingenious!

What I would be warring about is the large amount of water constantly running through the grains. Wouldn't that somehow "dilute" the enzymes in the large amount of water and therefor make it harder for them to convert starches to sugars?

Another thing: I can see it would be possible with this system to overflow the mash tun by running the pump too fast, or drying out the grain bed if you run it too slow. Is there any way you could set it up in sort of "set it and forget it" way? For example, what if you raised the boiling pot a little bit, so the edge of it would be in-line with the water level in your mash tun. Wouldn't that make the mash tun impossible to overflow?

 

[BargainFittings]

Not to speak for Saccharomyces but my experience with this system is you won't have those issues.

You won't dilute anything. This is a no sparge brewing method. If anything you will get good enzyme conversion due to it keeping the enzymes in the liquid flowing to the starches.

As long as you can contain the entire amount of liquid in the mash tun and or the kettle you won't overflow anything.

Balancing the flow is a matter of watching it a few times. I noticed that with a different mash that my flow rate was different. More grain made run off a little slower.

 

[Scooby_Brew]

What is the average efficiency from the no sparge method? Saccharomyces got 67% from this batch, is it more or less what you get from this method?


I tell you I like this system very much, and if it can save me an hour off my brew day- that would be awesome.

 

[Reelale]

I just brewed my first batch last weekend with this system. The only difference is I use an immersion chiller and recirculate the wort to whirlpool ala Mr. Malty.com. I had 60% brewhouse efficiency, but this was my first AG batch and I know I can tweak my grind a bit. I just upped the grain bill and only missed by OG by .005. The only hiccups I had were maintaining temps during recirculation. Shortening the hoses should help this. The only other thing I might try is to mash "traditionally" (i.e. 2 qts/lbs grain) in the MLT before I start recirculation. But this seems to work really well as is, accounting for the reduced efficiency. And if time is money, additional grain is cheap.

 

[BargainFittings]

I have my efficiency set at 75% in my software and I hit my number consistently on medium and small beers. I crush fairly aggressively like I did when I was doing brew in the bag.

 

[jkarp]

What is the average efficiency from the no sparge method? Saccharomyces got 67% from this batch, is it more or less what you get from this method?

Max efficiency, assuming 100% conversion, looks pretty much like this:

 

[JimE]

Can you no chill with better bottles?

A LHBS has 6 gallon Better Bottle that hot wort was poured into; It is now a 3 gallon carboy!

 

[NicotineRush]

20 pages and no one has mentioned how the beer turned out? Anyone?

 

[The Pol]

Assuming you achieve 100% conversion eff. Wouldnt your eff. to the kettle be determined by how much wort the grain absorbs AND your MLT deadspace volume?

The larger your MLT deadspace, the lower your eff. to the kettle.

So what if you had 26 pounds of malt in your MLT?

With a deadspace of .2 gallons

Grain absorption of 3 gallons

Total mash water of 16.25 gallons.

3.2/16.2 equals about .2, or 20%

You are leaving behind then 20% of your wort, thusly 20% of your sugars, thusly you just got 80% to the kettle, right??

The key to improving your eff is multifaceted...

#1 Strive for excellent CONVERSION eff.
#2 Eliminate MLT deadspace
#3 Use as much water as you can! (this will cause the water (wort) lost to grain absorption and deadspace to be a smaller % of your total mash water volume, thusly increasing your eff.)

Which would then mean that you would NOT have to sacrifice eff. when you increase your grain bill, because you could offset the eff. loss to grain absorption by increasing your mash water volume, right? This could then provide you with the consistency that you would see in a typical sparge system.

 

[jkarp]

You referring to my chart Pol? It takes all that into account. The reason efficiency declines is you can't keep adding water ad infinitum as boil-off rate is fixed and most people don't want to do 2-3 hour boils.

Higher gravity beers are going to have higher pre-boil specific gravity and therefore a larger % of sugar "lost" to absorption. The single biggest factor in no-sparge efficiency is that absorption number.

 

[Reelale]

20 pages and no one has mentioned how the beer turned out? Anyone?

I'd like to report that the Nut Brown Ale I brewed with this process is excellent. My first AG brew, and my best brew by far. I've since used my no-sparge set-up to brew an APA and an Oatmeal Stout, both of which are currently in primaries. I'll report on them when they are ready. I'm gonna continue using this system for awhile, it works for me. Higher gravity beers make take some tweaking I think.