Brewers love to describe the mundane with esoteric terms. We say we pitch yeast, when pouring is more descriptive. And then there is brewing liquor, which is not what you nip from your flask on a cold brew day, but rather treated water used throughout the brew process.
But the terms lautering and sparging live up to their mystery and can cause confusion, especially for new all-grain brewers. Lautering refers to the process of separating sweet wort from the grain bed. In commercial breweries, the mash is frequently pumped from the mash tun to a dedicated lauter tun, freeing the mash tun for a new brew. If the grain bed is oversparged and the gravity drops below that point, it is likely that harsh tannins and polyphenols will be extracted from the grain husks.
At the end of the continuous sparging process, the mash pH typically rises to around 6 as the sugars are extracted and the buffering effect of the malt and wort is replaced by water. This rise in mash pH tends to extract greater proportions of tannins, polyphenols and silicates into the wort that have a dulling effect on the taste.
Batch sparging in which first, second and even third runnings are combined to produce the wort can exacerbate this effect because all of the wort is drained away, including the majority of the buffering capability, before adding the next sparge volume. No-sparge brewing provides for a stable lautering pH that is not significantly different than the mash pH, due to the large buffering capacity of the malt.
The amount of water used for continuous sparging 3 to 5 gallons is typically 1. When you brew with the no-sparge method, this 3 to 5 gallons is added to the mash tun at the end of the mash, before recirculation, and allows the mash tun to be simply drained to achieve full boil volume. By using more grain and adding all the water during the mash, you can relax and not worry about mash pH, astringency and undershooting your gravity.
Because continuous sparging usually works just fine — and pound for pound, it extracts the highest yield from the grain. No-sparge uses more grain and doubles the size of the mash tun. Grain Bill Standard No-Sparge pale ale malt 7. Total weight 8. Total mash vol. Each recipe produces 6. The obvious difference is the size of the mash: 8. No-Sparge Recipe Calculations These calculations combine the scaling-up of the grain bill with a three-step infusion-mash that makes the whole process more manageable.
Inputs: OG : Standard recipe original gravity just the points, i. Gr : Standard recipe grain bill total pounds. Vr : Standard recipe batch size e. Higher water levels will increase the pressure drop across the bed, which could pack the grains down tightly and slow the process considerably. If the bed dries out at all, it will crack open channels and the sparge water can run right through the bed without picking up any of the retained wort.
Therefore, sparging takes some attention on the part of the brewer, and some extra equipment. A sparge arm consists of a piece of tubing with a second tube at right angles to it; perforations on this latter mean that it swivels about the former when hot water passes through it.
The upper tube is connected to the hot liquor tank; the valve on that is opened as you start run-off and the hot water is sprinkled gently over the bed by the rotating perforated arm. Generally you would use an amount of sparge water up to the volume of the finished beer 5 gallons in this case. Sparging in this way is quite an efficient process, as all the water has to pass from top to bottom of the bed allowing good contact between water and grain. The more slowly sparging is carried out, the better that contact will be, and many believe hours duration to be optimal, though that does depend upon how finely the grain has been ground.
For many of you that extra time on your brew day may be unacceptable, and I must say I usually only sparge for about 30 minutes. There are some other points about sparging, the first being that the sparge water should ideally be treated that is with whatever added salts the same way as the mash water. If it is not, then as the sparge continues, the pH of the liquid in the tun will increase as the gravity drops and unwanted materials such as silica and tannins may be leached out into the wort.
For the same reason, it is normal practice to stop sparging when the liquid from the tun has reached a specific gravity SG of about 1. By that time you should have collected 5. This is an old, traditional procedure that was widely used until the invention of sparging sometime in the early 19th century.
Brewers would run off from the first mash, then re-mash with hot water, collect a second wort, then maybe mash one or two times more, to give a total of up to four worts. Often the first, or the first and second together would go to make a strong beer, while the third might make a table beer, and the fourth a small beer. This is obviously simpler and quicker than sparging, for it requires no extra equipment and the second mash can be run off quickly, with the spigot wide open.
There are some difficulties with this approach, for you have to stir the bed and second mash water very thoroughly, which means you must recycle the first running of the wort to ensure there is no carry-over of grain particles or unconverted starch.
The biggest problem is that this procedure is not as efficient as sparging in removing extract from the spent grain. You may see that intuitively from the fact that, unlike sparging, not all the second mash water travels all the way through the grain bed.
That may mean that you will find it difficult to reach your target OG the first time you adopt this approach. I batch sparge. It is usually between so I never worry about it. Could evaporation during the hot sparge have accounted for at least some of the volume difference?
Ray, have you guys done an xBmt for no sparge versus batch sparge? I saw one for batch sparge versus fly sparge, but nothing regarding no sparge. I was curious whether others have made a similar switch and if consumers could really tell the difference. Marshall has done many batches that way, but no formal xbmt. Very interesting experiment. Interesting that, at least below the halt-enzyme-action threshold, the effect of sparge water appears to be negligible.
Would dropping the temperature with a fold fly sparge stop the enzymatic activity in the same way as raising it to for a mash out?
Sorry I had to repeat that because now it calls in to question my standard BiaB batch sparge method. I typically use my 6 gallon pot for mashing and my 5 gallon pot for steeping.
Usually split in terms of water volumes between the pots. Mash for 45 minutes in the bigger pot, then steep at F in the smaller pot with the rest of the water, then combine. Now I wonder if there would be any noticeable difference going with tap temp water. That there might be something worth while on efficiency, time and well being. Like just yesterday I made a 3. Filled my 6 gallon pot to the brim and my 5 gallon pot to the brim, between those and the grains, I ended up with 3.
I probably also could have squeezed an extra 1 or 2 pounds of grains in to the pots and gone with that 2nd steeping. I just signed up to receive notices from your blog after following it for a while. All recipes talk about grain bills, mash temps, and if you are lucky, efficiencies. Thanks for blowing the lid off on this mass assumption which, on the surface, seems to be like most mass assumptions: rather unfounded. My tap water comes about 50f if that.
Anything above f or so will do. I pondered the cool sparge until you mentioned the heat difference of the wort. If I am correct, this also affects the extraction of tannins if over 6. Since you used the same water at different temps, this variable could not be analyzed, nor was it a factor.
I would like to see a future exbmt highlighting this. I do BIAB and sparge with cold water at the end of the mash. When I started doing it, I saw a 5 point rise in my efficiency. I think an interesting aspect to this is that I could very easily switch to fly sparging from my batch sparge setup and not worry about the increase in time to heat cooler kettle wort. At the end of the mash I could simply rest a bucket of cold water above my MLT and start the flow, opening the flow into my kettle.
Interesting Xbeeriment, as usual.
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