[trapae]

Dealing with something I haven't come upon yet in Brewing.
I usually batch Sparge with a pre-boil volume of about 8 gallons trying to get about 4 gallons first and second runnings per Denny's advice. The recipe I'm doing tomorrow for my wife calls for 2 pounds of honey in the last five minutes. Therefore I only have about 5.9 pounds of grain for the mash. If I do my typical equal half and half first and second runnings, it seems like the mass will be extremely thin. Is that okay or does it do something funky to the pH? I'm thinking my strike water volume should be way less?
Any advice would help, thanks.

[klickitat jim]

I would no sparge and estimate my grain bill at about 65% brew house efficiency

[denny]

I would no sparge and estimate my grain bill at about 65% brew house efficiency

THIS^^^^^

[trapae]

Crap, all the grain is measured and bought and I don't have time to buy more for a decreased efficiency. Any other suggestions?

[denny]

Crap, all the grain is measured and bought and I don't have time to buy more for a decreased efficiency. Any other suggestions?

Forget the 1/2 and 1/2 thing...it doesn't make all that much difference.  Mash with 1.25 qt./lb., sparge with whatever it takes to hit your boil volume.

[trapae]

Cool, sounds like a plan. Thanks Danny, figured you would have a good idea.

[klickitat jim]

If you're using a cooler mash tun it seems like it will be pretty important to preheat it. Thats less than 2 gallons of mash water... might be a challenge to keep the temp up

[trapae]

Good point, I always preheat, but maybe I'll also start a little higher temp too.

[klickitat jim]

Do you keep a little light DME around? Might come in handy for adjusting preboil gravity. If you have some you might do a no sparge and bump it a bit with DME to account for low efficiency. I'm guessing it would take maybe 10-12 ounces.

[trapae]

Does using large sparge volumes only extract tannins if fly sparging?

[klickitat jim]

Mmmm yes and no. Its a pH issue. If you are keeping your pH in the neighborhood of 5.4 then you'll be fine. If you are not controlling pH then a big gob of 7+ water on a little bit of grain with little buffering... you could extract tannins. Fly or batch.

[euge]

Just figure it via the qt/# as denny stated. You can then correct any gravity issues with extra honey or by reducing the sparge water you'll be adding to make up the rest of the volume.

IMO you'd be fine with the thin mash. I mash upwards if 2qt per sometimes.

[trapae]

I was thinking about doing the mash small volume like I'm doing my normal 50/50 1st and 2nd runnings, then just adding extra water in the kettle to make my preboil volume .

[morticaixavier]

Then you will take a big hit in efficiency. better to do no sparge or two sparge steps.

[erockrph]

Just figure it via the qt/# as denny stated. You can then correct any gravity issues with extra honey or by reducing the sparge water you'll be adding to make up the rest of the volume.

IMO you'd be fine with the thin mash. I mash upwards if 2qt per sometimes.

I no-sparge using my full volume in the mash. I am over 4 qt/lb on some session beers. It's not until you start getting close to 4 qt/lb where you might see your efficiency start to dip. The 2-3 qt/lb range will work perfectly well for a mash thickness. I'd wager to say you may even see a bit of an efficiency boost. Don't be afraid of a thin mash.