No Sparge Efficiency Loss

[flbrewer1]

I am considering no sparging my upcoming English Mild recipe. I have heard mixed opinions on how much efficiency folks are losing when choosing no sparge over batch sparging.

How much have you seen from a loss standpoint?

How much extra grain are you using if any to offset this?

I should mention I'm only trying no sparge because of the apparent increase in perceived maltiness. I'm a bit weary to try it though as hitting my OG may be an educated guess.

 

[wilserbrewer]

Losses will vary depending on how much wort you leave behind in your grain, aka absorption. BIAB fans report good results as absorption can be minimized.

I believe RMMN did some charts and graphs showing anticipated efficiencies, but you could just up the grain bill say 5% as well...RDWHAHB Or make a quart less lol...

Or if you are insistent on hitting the recipe gravity, take a preboil gravity, and boil to a post boil gravity...

 

[doug293cz]

Actually, I'm the one with the charts. They are based on a batch sparge simulation spreadsheet that I wrote. Wilser is correct that grain absorption rate (and MLT dead volume) play a big role in efficiency. Below is the chart which shows no-sparge and equal runnings volume batch sparge lauter efficiency as a function of grain bill weight for a variety of grain absorption rates. This simulation was for BIAB, so MLT dead volume is zero. Pre-boil volume is 6.7 gal in all cases.



Mash efficiency equals conversion efficiency times lauter efficiency. If your conversion efficiency is low, then your mash efficiency will be much lower than the chart indicates.

Brew on

 

[Owly055]

I would suggest going to BIAB is you do no sparge. With BIAB, you can squeeze the bag, and the difference between sparge and no sparge tends to be pretty small for me.


H.W.

 

[user 141939]

What a timely thread. I am doing my first no sparge today.

Typically I do one batch sparge with equal volumes and get about %70-71. Today with no sparge I got %65.

A couple things to note about my brew today that may have affected the efficiency:
I mashed higher than I normally do at 158

Brun' water calculated my pH wrong (usually it's very close). I was aiming for 5.4 and ended up at 5.08. I added baking soda to bring it back up to 5.42, but at this point I was already 30 minutes into the mash and conversion was already done, as evidenced by an iodine test.

I'm not sure if that's common or not for Bru'w water with no sparge. I've started a thread in Brew Science to see if anybody else has encountered this.