March 1997, Volume 20, Issue 3

All-Grain Techniques

by Bryan Gros

Those of you who read the HomeBrew Digest on the internet will recall that there was quite a discussion late last year about something called the "No Sparge" technique. I want to try to summarize what that was all about, and also describe how it may help make the move from extract to all-grain brewing a little easier.

First, what is sparging? Mashing is the process where the grain is steeped in hot water. The enzymes in the malt break down the starch to smaller sugars, which is what the yeast need to ferment. The sparge, the next step in brewing, is the process to separate the sugars from the malt and collect the liquid for boiling. Sparging involves two things—the filtering of the grains from the liquid, and the rinsing of the grains with hot water to get as much of the sugar as possible. We talk about efficiency of mashing, which means how much of the sugars in the malt we are able to get out and into our boiling kettle. Generally, we want to maximize our efficiency so that we can make a good beer with less malt, and thus save money. A long, slow sparge is one of the best ways to increase mash efficiency.

So why all the talk about "No Sparging"? Dr. George Fix, a noted brewing author and researcher, described the process as a way of increasing malt flavor in your beer. The traditional way to achieve a more malty beer, like a Bock, has been a decoction mash, which is a tedious and time consuming process. The no sparge method is probably suited to ales like Scotch ales and English Brown ales, and it actually shortens the brew day. In fact, many people use this method to produce strong beers like barleywines.

The idea is, like the name implies, to skip the sparge. You do a normal mash, and then simply drain the liquid from the mash and boil it. You add water to bring the volume up to your normal pre-boil volume, and boil as usual. As I mentioned before, though, without the sparge, you will get lousy efficiency. You’ll simply end up with less sugar in the pot, and a smaller beer. To make up for this loss, you need to start with more grain. According to Fix, you need one-third more grain, and of course, one-third more mash water. With this extra grain, you should get the same beer (same OG) as your normal brew, but with more malt flavor. Incidentally, brewers looking to move to all-grain brewing might find this method a good transition method. Without having to do a full sparge, the brew day becomes shorter and easier. You will still need a mash tun with some kind of filter, but you should have everything else already and the process is a little easier.

Some of the debate on the Digest had to do with Fix’s 33% more grain number. George, in his brewing, ends up with 0.25 qts of mash water absorbed by each pound of grain. Others say that absorption is more like 0.55 qts/lb. So next time you mash, you might want to try to figure out what this number is in your system. Or maybe run an experiment and mash a couple pounds of grain in the kitchen to see how much water is absorbed. The more water you lose in the grain, the less you will get in your boiler and consequently, the less sugar you will get. And the more water you need to add to the kettle, diluting your wort even more. The more complicating factor is your mash thickness. George’s mash thickness was 1.25 quarts of mash water for each pound of grain. If your mash is thicker, then you’ll drain less water from the mash, and you’ll end up with less sugar. So you’ll need to start with more than 133% of your normal grain bill. Maybe 150% or more. Consequently, if your mash is thinner (use more than 1.25 quarts of water per pound of grain), you’ll get more sugar from the mash and you’ll need less malt total.

The other point that led to debate was how this method works. Basically, no one could say. Somehow, rinsing the grains of sugar and adding that to the boil results in less malty flavors than just adding plain water to the boil. I would imagine it has to do with the use of more malt to begin with, even though efficiency is less.

Here is Fix’s example to make sure things are clear.

Normal batch:

Brew Size = 13.2 gallons

Grain bill = pale malt (25.35 lb), crystal (2.2 lb)

Mash water = 8.5 gallon

Sparge water = 8.5 gallon

Volume at start of boil = 14.8 gallons

Starting gravity = 1.060 (~28.7 pts/lb/gal)

No Sparge batch:

Brew size = 13.2 gallons

Grain bill = pale malt (33.75 lb), crystal (3 lb)

Mash water = 11.6 gallon

Water Directly Added to Kettle = 5.3 gallon

Volume at start of boil = 14.8 gallons

Starting gravity = 1.060 (~21.6 pts/lb/gal)

So you see, the mash thickness is the same in both cases, and the resulting beer has the same OG. Give this a try next time you want a malty beer.