to sparge or not to sparge

[wt2]

I have made a few batches of all grain. Each one has some successes and failures. This batch did well with 12 lbs of grain. I added about 2 qts of water for every pound and when I collected the first SG it was 1.052, I was happy. This was great but once I sparged the grain to get the extra sugars out it dropped to 1.020, This almost caused a tear to form. So, as I boiled I added about a pound of corn sugar reaching a value of 1.040 with a good flavor. My question is why sparge and lower the SG, This has happened on other occasions. I could just crank up the amount of grain to get 6 gallons of wort and have a high SG. Any comments

 

[Lucky_Chicken]

1. welcome to hbt

2. Sounds like your efficiency was low did you check for complete conversion? And how fine was the crush?

The sparge is to get all the sugars you can out of your grains. Basically you want to run the sparge off until the runnings are about 1.010 for maximum efficiency. If you just want high gravity wort and dont care to spend extra on grain, skipping the sparge is fine.

 

[Gartywood]

I don't completely understand the situation. My interpretation is that your first runnings were 1.052 and after sparing the total volume of your wort dropped to 1.020 this seems like an extreme drop.

When I brew I use software to predict my results typically after batch sparing with the recommended amount of water I will end up with the predicted gravity or higher. I have a refractometer and sometimes check the gravity comings out of the mash tun. I have had final runnings as low as 1.010.

Some brewers plan for lower efficiency (like 50%) and do no sparge brewing, I prefer to plan for 75% efficiency which is easily attained on my system with a batch sparge and use less grains. In the end it's about whatever works for you and provides the best results. In the future if you have low efficiency I would recommend using malt extract to correct the low gravity instead of corn sugar as it will give you a better match for that you are missing.

 

[shelly_belly]

My last batch had 12 pounds of grain and after sparging I had 7 gals @ 1.060 preboil. Sounds like your temperature might be off (assuming a good crush of the grains).