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Author Topic: no sparge  (Read 8100 times)

RPIScotty

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Re: no sparge
« Reply #15 on: January 30, 2016, 10:05:48 am »

Malt forward beers are great for No-Sparge but most beers should work fine.

The beers that I was thinking about specifically were wee heavy, dopple bock, and maybe mild.

Thumbs way up on no-sparge

Offline Steve Ruch

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Re: no sparge
« Reply #16 on: January 30, 2016, 10:06:59 am »
Can't help you on the second runnings question (one reason I am 100% no-sparge is so I don't have to, well, sparge) but oatmeal and milk stouts and porters come out very nicely. I also liked how a California Common came out; it was different, but in a nice McCommon sort of way.

I'm not specifically trying to eliminate sparging, but wanting to get a fuller flavor from the main beer I'm brewing.
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Offline charles1968

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Re: no sparge
« Reply #17 on: January 30, 2016, 12:09:27 pm »
I recently put together a larger mashtun out of a Coleman square cooler and now have the capacity to deal with larger amounts of grain than before.
What are the best beers to do a no sparge on?
Is it okay to do a second runnings and put it into the fridge for a week or three and then boil?

Works on all beers. Especially good for lagers and light ales that are prone to being spoilt by over-sparging.

Definitely not OK to keep 2nd runnings without boiling first - malt is full of bacteria and mash temp doesn't kill them.
« Last Edit: January 30, 2016, 12:13:02 pm by charles1968 »

Offline charles1968

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Re: no sparge
« Reply #18 on: January 30, 2016, 12:10:38 pm »
no sparge
I have heard it a few ways:

1.) Expect 50-60% efficiency depending on gravity.

2.) Use 30-40% more grain.

It will vary depending on the setup used.

I'm not sure about BeerSmith or other forms of software, but ProMash has that great feature where you can lock the ingredients in a recipe to the efficiency. Then you scale the efficiency up or down and the grain amounts change. If you average, say 75% efficiency on a normal brew, you could do a no-sparge brew and measure your efficiency. With this in hand you could then input that lowered efficiency next time Into your software and calculate a ballpark percentage for grain scaling.

It's more like 10% less than normal. Smaller than that if you mash overnight.

RPIScotty

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no sparge
« Reply #19 on: January 30, 2016, 12:13:31 pm »
no sparge
I have heard it a few ways:

1.) Expect 50-60% efficiency depending on gravity.

2.) Use 30-40% more grain.

It will vary depending on the setup used.

I'm not sure about BeerSmith or other forms of software, but ProMash has that great feature where you can lock the ingredients in a recipe to the efficiency. Then you scale the efficiency up or down and the grain amounts change. If you average, say 75% efficiency on a normal brew, you could do a no-sparge brew and measure your efficiency. With this in hand you could then input that lowered efficiency next time Into your software and calculate a ballpark percentage for grain scaling.

It's more like 10% less than normal. Smaller than that if you mash overnight.

What's normal? That's the variable really.

What η value are you getting doing no-sparge?

Offline brewinhard

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Re: no sparge
« Reply #20 on: January 30, 2016, 01:15:38 pm »
I have been using a modified no-sparge for several years now with great results for ALL of my beers from Old Ales to Munich Helles to Tripels.  PM me if you are interested in my take on it.

How do you modify "no sparge?"  Don't you either sparge or not sparge?

I mash with my typical 1.5 qt/# grain in my mash tun.  Then use some Palmer calculations to determine the necessary amount of sparge water to add after my conversion rest to reach my pre-boil amount in the kettle that is desired.  This gets added back to the mash tun and heated properly to obtain a 168-170F mash out for 10 minutes or so, prior to recirculating and then draining into the kettle.

Online denny

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Re: no sparge
« Reply #21 on: January 30, 2016, 02:37:21 pm »
For me, no sparge efficiency depends on the OG.  My "normal" is about 83%.  No sparge on a big beer (1.100) I get in the 55-65% range.  No sparge on a small beer (1.045ish) is more like 75-80%.  But I use different no sparge techniques on each of those.   For the big beer, I add no additional water after the mash...simply run it off and that's my boil volume.  For a small beer, I mash at maybe 1.75-2 qt./lb.  After the mash is complete, I add in the amount of water I need to hit my boil volume and run it all off once once.  To me, both of those are ways of doing no sparge.
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Offline charles1968

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Re: no sparge
« Reply #22 on: January 30, 2016, 02:51:21 pm »
no sparge
I have heard it a few ways:

1.) Expect 50-60% efficiency depending on gravity.

2.) Use 30-40% more grain.

It will vary depending on the setup used.

I'm not sure about BeerSmith or other forms of software, but ProMash has that great feature where you can lock the ingredients in a recipe to the efficiency. Then you scale the efficiency up or down and the grain amounts change. If you average, say 75% efficiency on a normal brew, you could do a no-sparge brew and measure your efficiency. With this in hand you could then input that lowered efficiency next time Into your software and calculate a ballpark percentage for grain scaling.

It's more like 10% less than normal. Smaller than that if you mash overnight.

What's normal? That's the variable really.

What η value are you getting doing no-sparge?

I got 69% efficiency on my last no sparge. I normally get around 80%. Not a huge drop. Wouldn't warrant a 30-40% increase in the grain bill.

Offline charles1968

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Re: no sparge
« Reply #23 on: January 30, 2016, 02:53:34 pm »
For a small beer, I mash at maybe 1.75-2 qt./lb.  After the mash is complete, I add in the amount of water I need to hit my boil volume and run it all off once once.  To me, both of those are ways of doing no sparge.

If your tun has room, you could mash with the full liquor volume and the residual water left behind would have less sugar, so you'd get higher efficiency. Might not be possible with a big beer and a small mash tun though.

RPIScotty

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Re: no sparge
« Reply #24 on: January 30, 2016, 02:54:32 pm »

no sparge
I have heard it a few ways:

1.) Expect 50-60% efficiency depending on gravity.

2.) Use 30-40% more grain.

It will vary depending on the setup used.

I'm not sure about BeerSmith or other forms of software, but ProMash has that great feature where you can lock the ingredients in a recipe to the efficiency. Then you scale the efficiency up or down and the grain amounts change. If you average, say 75% efficiency on a normal brew, you could do a no-sparge brew and measure your efficiency. With this in hand you could then input that lowered efficiency next time Into your software and calculate a ballpark percentage for grain scaling.

It's more like 10% less than normal. Smaller than that if you mash overnight.

What's normal? That's the variable really.

What η value are you getting doing no-sparge?

I got 69% efficiency on my last no sparge. I normally get around 80%. Not a huge drop. Wouldn't warrant a 30-40% increase in the grain bill.

Right. I was just speaking generally.

Offline charles1968

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Re: no sparge
« Reply #25 on: January 30, 2016, 04:18:25 pm »
If you want to generalize you can just divide volume of runnings by total mash vol and multiply that by the efficiency you normally get.

Eg, looking at one of my recent recipes:

3kg grain*
24 litres mash liquor
So 3 litres water lost in grain absorption (1 litre per kg)
Therefore runnings = 21 litres

21/24 = 0.875
Expected efficiency = 0.875 normal efficiency. But note that's an underestimate because a normal sparge stops before you get every bit of sugar out.

As Denny points out, not so great for bigger beers (something I don't brew).

* apologies for metric...
« Last Edit: January 30, 2016, 04:21:38 pm by charles1968 »

RPIScotty

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Re: no sparge
« Reply #26 on: January 30, 2016, 07:12:59 pm »

If you want to generalize you can just divide volume of runnings by total mash vol and multiply that by the efficiency you normally get.

Eg, looking at one of my recent recipes:

3kg grain*
24 litres mash liquor
So 3 litres water lost in grain absorption (1 litre per kg)
Therefore runnings = 21 litres

21/24 = 0.875
Expected efficiency = 0.875 normal efficiency. But note that's an underestimate because a normal sparge stops before you get every bit of sugar out.

As Denny points out, not so great for bigger beers (something I don't brew).

* apologies for metric...

Interesting but based essentially on absorption. This would vary wildly across a range of gravities.

Very interesting way of looking at it though. I'm definitely a fan of back of the envelope approximations.

Offline charles1968

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Re: no sparge
« Reply #27 on: January 31, 2016, 01:55:52 am »
Interesting but based essentially on absorption. This would vary wildly across a range of gravities.

I know a lot of homebrewers shoot higher, but the average abv of beer is 4-5%, which is what the recipe above was. So on average, fall in efficiency is around 10%. If you brew stronger beer, no sparge won't work out quite so well. If you mash with less than full liquor volume then that will also reduce efficiency.
« Last Edit: January 31, 2016, 02:10:12 am by charles1968 »

RPIScotty

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Re: no sparge
« Reply #28 on: January 31, 2016, 06:17:43 am »

For the big beer, I add no additional water after the mash...simply run it off and that's my boil volume. 

IIRC, you are just using a larger mash tun for your bigger beers, correct?


Offline kgs

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Re: no sparge
« Reply #29 on: January 31, 2016, 09:35:53 am »
For me, no sparge efficiency depends on the OG.  My "normal" is about 83%.  No sparge on a big beer (1.100) I get in the 55-65% range.  No sparge on a small beer (1.045ish) is more like 75-80%.  But I use different no sparge techniques on each of those.   For the big beer, I add no additional water after the mash...simply run it off and that's my boil volume.  For a small beer, I mash at maybe 1.75-2 qt./lb.  After the mash is complete, I add in the amount of water I need to hit my boil volume and run it all off once once.  To me, both of those are ways of doing no sparge.

Denny, on adding the remaining water after the mash is complete: for my workflow this would work almost as easily as adding all the water at once, which is what I do now, so I'd be curious to know your rationale (efficiency, flavor, etc.). I think someone else in this thread mentioned doing this too.
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