It’s a great article! Lots of numbers! Thanks for the heads up.
I guess my spreadsheet leans a little toward the geek side; although not to the extent of Schwartz’s. I calculated a bunch of options and only posted the results for roughly equal volumes. Small mash volumes and high sparge volumes (and the reverse) show that THEORETICALLY you get more sugar out of the mash if you sparge. I didn’t try to calculate the performance of fly sparging - because I batch sparge, and frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn about fly sparging.
Brew Cat asked what the final gravity would be: I don’t know. I was trying to isolate the sparge process. I completely ignored deadspace in the mash tun and kettle, as well as boil-off and hop absorption. I consider theoretical exercises such as this useful only to the extent that they MAY explain what most of us have seen in the real world and MAY help predict what will happen in the future. In other words, they’re fun for those of us who like to play with numbers.
Years ago I read that no-sparge mash produces a maltier beer. I can’t taste the difference and my numbers aren’t intended to say anything about flavor. Ken Schwartz has some thoughts on that subject. Does anyone else have any insights about no-sparge improving flavor?
It’s a great article! Lots of numbers! Thanks for the heads up.
I guess my spreadsheet leans a little toward the geek side; although not to the extent of Schwartz’s. I calculated a bunch of options and only posted the results for roughly equal volumes. Small mash volumes and high sparge volumes (and the reverse) show that THEORETICALLY you get more sugar out of the mash if you sparge. I didn’t try to calculate the performance of fly sparging - because I batch sparge, and frankly, my dear, I don’t give a damn about fly sparging.
Brew Cat asked what the final gravity would be: I don’t know. I was trying to isolate the sparge process. I completely ignored deadspace in the mash tun and kettle, as well as boil-off and hop absorption. I consider theoretical exercises such as this useful only to the extent that they MAY explain what most of us have seen in the real world and MAY help predict what will happen in the future. In other words, they’re fun for those of us who like to play with numbers.
Years ago I read that no-sparge mash produces a maltier beer. I can’t taste the difference and my numbers aren’t intended to say anything about flavor. Ken Schwartz has some thoughts on that subject. Does anyone else have any insights about no-sparge improving flavor?[/quote]
I think that the less you sparge, the fuller the flavor will be. Kai has referred to the first wort being the best wort. Taste is subjective, so you can’t measure it, but my subjective opinion is that batch sparged beers have the same fullness of flavor as no sparge beers, with the advantage of increased efficiency. I think people should try various methods and decide for themselves.
FWIW, I did no-sparge for a period of time, and then switched to batch. I really did not detect any flavor change.
For my system:
No-sparge = 70-72% eff
Batch sparge = 82-84% eff
When I add the sparge runoff, my first runnings have still yet to come up to a boil, so in my estimation I am really not adding any significant time at all to overall process. I mean, there is a finite amount of heat required to bring the full volume to boil and if first running has not yet boiled then I am not losing any time by adding the batch sparge. Only difference is that there is about 10 minutes more hands-on work, but who cares about that…
