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as homebrewers we sometimes do certain things simply because we read about it in a book somewhere. we have no real opinion about it other than 'because john palmer said so'.
when i first started brewing, i was told by some apparently learned individual on the internet that i need to sparge to 'wash the grains of the last bit of sugars'. so i did it. no questions asked. after the first few dozen brews, after i started getting more aquainted with the process, i started noticing an alarming trend in all my batches. i was getting really crap effeciency. obviously one of the first things one looks at is grain crush but mine was good. after scouring the interwebs i became convinced it was because of my sparging method. at the time i was batch sparging and i read that fly sparging gives better effeciency. so i went on a mission to get set up for fly sparging but a few batches later and my efficiency was still bad. i found that my first runnings were of a decent gravity but the sparge runnings were very weak and diluting everything.
i began to question the logic behind sparging. why do it then? over the next few batches i decided to no sparge at all and i was more than pleased with the results. then one day i discovered that there's actually a sparge method called 'no sparge'. the method is simple. increase the amount of grain slightly to compensate for the fact that you're not sparging and add all your water at once to the mash. easy.
since then i have become a no sparge brewer. it's just much easier; less hassle. plus it shave off a huge chunk of time out of my brew day!
if, like me, you've been having trouble with efficiency or you just want to simplify a little, give no sparging a try. i'll never revert back to sparging, that's for sure.
the trick to no sparge brewing is to get the water to grain ratio just right. through trial and error i've come up with a pretty accurate table. it's been tried and tested and hasn't let me down yet. here it is:
EDIT: the above table is for a 20 liter batch.
when i first started brewing, i was told by some apparently learned individual on the internet that i need to sparge to 'wash the grains of the last bit of sugars'. so i did it. no questions asked. after the first few dozen brews, after i started getting more aquainted with the process, i started noticing an alarming trend in all my batches. i was getting really crap effeciency. obviously one of the first things one looks at is grain crush but mine was good. after scouring the interwebs i became convinced it was because of my sparging method. at the time i was batch sparging and i read that fly sparging gives better effeciency. so i went on a mission to get set up for fly sparging but a few batches later and my efficiency was still bad. i found that my first runnings were of a decent gravity but the sparge runnings were very weak and diluting everything.
i began to question the logic behind sparging. why do it then? over the next few batches i decided to no sparge at all and i was more than pleased with the results. then one day i discovered that there's actually a sparge method called 'no sparge'. the method is simple. increase the amount of grain slightly to compensate for the fact that you're not sparging and add all your water at once to the mash. easy.
since then i have become a no sparge brewer. it's just much easier; less hassle. plus it shave off a huge chunk of time out of my brew day!
if, like me, you've been having trouble with efficiency or you just want to simplify a little, give no sparging a try. i'll never revert back to sparging, that's for sure.
the trick to no sparge brewing is to get the water to grain ratio just right. through trial and error i've come up with a pretty accurate table. it's been tried and tested and hasn't let me down yet. here it is:
| OG | 1.035 | 1.041 | 1.048 | 1.051 | 1.054 | 1.057 | 1.059 | 1.064 | 1.069 | 1.074 | 1.080 |
| KGs Grain | 3.6 | 4.5 | 5.4 | 5.9 | 6.4 | 6.8 | 7.3 | 8.1 | 9 | 10 | 11.3 |
| Liters Water | 28.4 | 29.5 | 30.7 | 31.4 | 31.8 | 32.6 | 33.3 | 34.4 | 35.6 | 36.7 | 38.8 |
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