I love no sparge brewing...

[Saccharomyces]

Saccharomyces, I may have missed it in the posts, but what kind of quick-connects are you using on the silicone tubing and where are they located? I think I see one at the pump outlet, but are there more? How much switching the hoses around with this set-up? Thanks for a great write-up.

The silicone tubing attaches to the barbs snugly, no need for any QDs other than at the pump.

After running off I disconnect the pump outlet hose from the MLT and connect it to the kettle lid. This allows for recirculation to sanitize the pump and lines with boiling hot wort for a few minutes before chilling or pumping straight into the fermenter when doing no-chill.

 

[ibbones]

Saccharomyces, I may have missed it in the posts, but what kind of quick-connects are you using on the silicone tubing and where are they located? I think I see one at the pump outlet, but are there more? How much switching the hoses around with this set-up? Thanks for a great write-up.

I got to see his set-up last month. Let me tell you, THAT is what I want. I was IMPRESSED with the ease of use and the whole process.

 

[Reelale]

The silicone tubing attaches to the barbs snugly, no need for any QDs other than at the pump.

After running off I disconnect the pump outlet hose from the MLT and connect it to the kettle lid. This allows for recirculation to sanitize the pump and lines with boiling hot wort for a few minutes before chilling or pumping straight into the fermenter when doing no-chill.

Thanks. I think your set-up is the definition of efficiency. I want to copy your design somewhat and was just wondering where to insert an IC process. I really don't relish the thought of pumping cooled wort into the fermenter due to contamination issues.....this is the part I'm hung-up on. I guess I could go with a CFC, but I want to use what I've got and I don't like the idea of not being able to see (clean) where the wort has been. Or I guess I could just drain into the fermenter, but if I have to buy a pump, I want to use it!

It looks like a brass QD at the pump head, is this what you recommend, and where would I get those? Thanks

 

[Baron ken]

I have mine all tested (with water) and ready to go. Waiting until next week when my father-in-law visits to give it its first brew using the new setup. He's helped me before, but this setup will be new to both of us.

I added a valve, sightglass and thermometer to my keggle. Got a pump, silicone tubing and QDs. Added a PVC manifold to the top of my 70qt coleman extreme. Built a 20' CFC/pump-in-a-bucket ala jkarp. A lot of new stuff.

My recirc flow rate is about 1 gpm. Not great, but faster than the MLT drains into the BK so I'll still have to throttle it back during mash recirculating.
My first brew using this setup will be a 5 gallon batch (I normally do 10 gallon batches unless I'm trying a new recipe) and I'm trying to determine my mash water/BK water ratio for recirc. I need about 4 gallons in the BK to get a good reading from the thermometer. There is approx. 0.33 gal of dead space in the whole setup (1.75 cups in BK, the rest in the CFC/Pump/hoses/MLT).
For 10.25 lbs of grain, I'll need 8.87 gallons water total, so I'm thinking a 50/50 split between MLT and BK. That would be 4.43 gal to the MLT for a water/grain ratio of 1.73 qts/lb.
Lots of new variables to take into account.

For 10 gallons batches using 15 lbs of grain or more, my total water volume required will be greater than the capacity of the keggle and I'll probably have to transfer all mash water to the MLT and mash for a bit without recirc while the additional water is heating in the BK. We'll see how it goes.

I'll take some pics when I brew.

Many thanks to Sacc and jkarp.

 

[claude505]

Thanks. I think your set-up is the definition of efficiency. I want to copy your design somewhat and was just wondering where to insert an IC process. I really don't relish the thought of pumping cooled wort into the fermenter due to contamination issues.....this is the part I'm hung-up on. I guess I could go with a CFC, but I want to use what I've got and I don't like the idea of not being able to see (clean) where the wort has been. Or I guess I could just drain into the fermenter, but if I have to buy a pump, I want to use it!

It looks like a brass QD at the pump head, is this what you recommend, and where would I get those? Thanks

I have been thinking about copying this design also... but, with a chill step. My thought was to use the pump to whirlpool along with my IC. I'm pretty sure that there are a number of threads on it. From what I gather, it's just circulating the wort around the IC.

I'm not sure that I understand your contamination issues, though. If you start the pump before the end of the boil, wouldn't the boiling wort sanitize the pump and tubes?

 

[TeufelBrew]

For 10 gallons batches using 15 lbs of grain or more, my total water volume required will be greater than the capacity of the keggle and I'll probably have to transfer all mash water to the MLT and mash for a bit without recirc while the additional water is heating in the BK. We'll see how it goes.

I'll take some pics when I brew.

Many thanks to Sacc and jkarp.

I still have my original 7.5gal kettle I used when I first started brewing away from the kitchen. I use it to heat the extra volume of water for my no sparge setup. Then I heat another small volume for washing since the no chill leaves me without heated water waste water.

Even on a first run using 3 new techniques or pieces of equipment, it was very efficient and I'll be using this setup regularlly now, especially in the cooler months.

 

[Reelale]

I'm not sure that I understand your contamination issues, though. If you start the pump before the end of the boil, wouldn't the boiling wort sanitize the pump and tubes?

I guess it would, but I was wondering for how long. I understand pumping hot wort through the system, but when you use an IC, the wort is then cooled down. Sometimes this takes me 20 minutes or more. Wouldn't this time frame render the boiling sanitation ineffective? I don't know, I'm a noob!

For 10 gallons batches using 15 lbs of grain or more, my total water volume required will be greater than the capacity of the keggle and I'll probably have to transfer all mash water to the MLT and mash for a bit without recirc while the additional water is heating in the BK. We'll see how it goes.

Are you telling me that a 60 qt. keggle won't hold all the necessary water for a 10 gal batch? I don't have access to beersmith here, but how much water does 15 lbs of grain hold? Now that I think about it, the 5 gal. batch Sac. showed was over 8 gallons. I was thinking that by recirculating the sparge water this way you would need less water overall. I never considered that. now I need an even bigger brew kettle if I plan to do 10 gal. batches with this set-up. Dam., and I just got a lead on a new keg for a keggle!

 

[wildwest450]

Are you telling me that a 60 qt. keggle won't hold all the necessary water for a 10 gal batch? I don't have access to beersmith here, but how much water does 15 lbs of grain hold?

I looked up my last 3 double batches and they were 18 to 19 gallons of water total. Good thing I have a 20 gallon pot.

I'm sticking to 6 gallon batches with this setup for now.

 

[Reelale]

I looked up my last 3 double batches and they were 18 to 19 gallons of water total. Good thing I have a 20 gallon pot.

I'm sticking to 6 gallon batches with this setup for now.

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

 

[Saccharomyces]

I really don't relish the thought of pumping cooled wort into the fermenter due to contamination issues.....this is the part I'm hung-up on. I guess I could go with a CFC, but I want to use what I've got and I don't like the idea of not being able to see (clean) where the wort has been. Or I guess I could just drain into the fermenter, but if I have to buy a pump, I want to use it!

It looks like a brass QD at the pump head, is this what you recommend, and where would I get those? Thanks

Those are brass QDs from McMaster-Carr. Any QDs should work fine, or you could even just go with barbs on the pump.

I have used my 50' IC with this setup -- just setup the tube to return flow from the pump using a clamp to hold it in place, and recirculate the boiling hot wort for about 5 minutes at the end of the boil to sanitize the pump and lines (while the IC is sanitizing as well). Then turn on the hose to the IC at flameout. The recirculating wort chills really fast this way, it's superior to stirring with a spoon. When the wort is chilled, shut off the valve at the pump outlet, spray the hose down with sanitizer, drop it into your fermenter, and open the valve. That's it.

Plate chillers and ICs are superior to a CFC because they are much more easily cleaned and sanitized; every 2-3 batches you can boil a plate chiller for 30 minutes as an extra sanitizing step, with a CFC you can't do that...

 

[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.