No Sparge Method

Whenever I make a 5 gallon batch of sub-1.055 OG beer, I use the no-sparge brewing method. The main arguments I’ve heard against this method have to do with the high liquor to grist ratio and the hit to efficiency. I use this method quite a bit and in my experience, the beers come out with great body/mouthfeel and my efficiency is about 3-5% lower than when I batch sparge. One apparent benefit of this method is that the finished beers seem to have better malt character, not to mention it shortens the duration of the brew day. I always mill my grain and collect all my water volumes the night before brewing.

Here’s what a typical no-sparge brew day looks like:

  • Heat full volume of brewing water water to ~7˚F above target strike temp
  • Transfer all water to MLT to pre-heat for 3 minutes
  • Mash-in, stir to reach mash temp, set timer for 60 minutes
  • Once mash is complete, vorlauf, collect 5 gallons of sweet wort in a bucket, and pour into kettle
  • Collect rest of sweet wort and pour it into the kettle (I have a 6 gallon bucket, it takes 2 trips)
  • Start boil and make hop additions as usual
  • Clean MLT and other unneeded equipment while wort is boiling
  • When boil is complete, chill to pitching temp, transfer wort to carboy
  • Place carboy in fermentation chamber, clean kettle, put everything away
  • Pitch yeast and wait…

No-sparge brewing takes me about 30 minutes less than when I batch sparge. Given the slight hit to efficiency, I usually opt for the latter on beers with an OG higher than 1.055. Unless the grain bill is very small, meaning I’m making a Mild or something with a similar OG, my MLTs aren’t voluminous enough to hold the grist and entire liquor volume of a 10 gallon batch.

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38 thoughts on “No Sparge Method”

  1. Does collecting your water the night before de-oxygenate your water at all by the time you use it the next morning? I’ve wanted to do this as well but was unsure of this downside. Right now I’m only an extract brewer so the extra trips up and down my basement stairs don’t add that much to my brew days. Thanks!

      1. It shouldn’t. The solubility of gases in liquids depends on three factors: the liquid, the partial pressure of the gas (how much of the gas, e.g. oxygen, there is in the ambient air) and the temperature. As the liquid (water) and the partial pressure is nearly constant (oxygen is ~21% of the atmosphere and the total pressure is relatively constant unless there is a huge storm moving through) the major factor at play for brewers temperature. When you increase the temperature of the water (or wort if you have mashed out) you are driving gas out of the liquid (you are shifting the equilibrium from the liquid phase to the gas phase). If you are not changing the temperature as your water sits overnight there should be relatively little change in the gas concentrations.

        What is interesting is that there hasn’t been significant results in needing to add oxygen back into the cooled wort in xBmts so far…

  2. Do you have to change your grain bill in order to achieve a similar efficiency? You seem to get very good results (3-5% lower) without changing it, and I would like to try it your way, but, at the same, an article in BYO published in 2002, if I recall correctly, was stating that one would need to add 10-20% more grain if going for a no-sparge method.

    Thanks a lot for all your exbeeriments, I really enjoy reading them! I’ve just finished reading your interview too, and it was inspiring!
    😉

    1. If you’re using a good calculator (I’m a BeerSmith guy), you can very easily scale your recipe down 3-5%, which will change your grist for you. Yeah, If I’m planning to no sparge a beer I’ve made with batch sparge, I’ll scale it and add a bit more grain, just to get to the point where my stats line up. This works well.

      Thanks for the support!

      1. Gotcha, thanks.

        Maybe I’d need to take another look at your photos but couldn’t tell how you move the kettle up/down, or do you use a pump? I’m thinkin of going similar to yours (w/ cooler, though w/out pump) or BIAB. I like the one kettle option.

  3. I sure am asking a lot of questions lately — I blame you though, because you got me off my ass and brewing again 🙂

    Any thoughts on how to calculate how much grain/what gravity this would work for with a 10 gallon cooler mash tun? I’d love to try this, but I’d hate to get my grain halfway poured into the tun when I realize it won’t all fit.

  4. So you your 1.055 OG rule of thumb doesn’t have anything to do with the quality of the finished beer but with the volume limitations of your system?

    1. Not sure I understand the question, so here’s my best attempt at a response:

      The 1.055 rule of thumb has more to do with expected efficiency differences with higher/lower target OG, not quality of the beer. I’ve used batch and no sparge a ton over the years and have never noticed any differences in quality.

  5. I’m thinking maybe I don’t understand so I phrased my question poorly. Does efficiency change significantly when brewing a 1.055 (or above) beer? If the no sparge process is inherently inefficient you would compensate with more grain, yes? So you probably run into a vessel limitation? This is a drawn out and poorly written way of asking, do you personally draw the line at 1.055 OG because your equipment couldn’t handle the full volume mash?

    1. Actually, I recently switched to using BIAB bags in my MLT, which allows for a finer crush and thus increased efficiency. I still expect to get about 5% less on 1.060+ OG beers, but for a typical 5 gal batch, the entire volume fits in my 70 quart cooler.

  6. Thanks for the article. Would love to cut down on time if the net efficiency is negligible, i.e. going with the no-sparge. Question: does mashing as usual, then pouring separately heated sparge water (as per usual batch sparge) into the same mash tun get the same results as no-sparging, or have any other/better/worse effect?

  7. I make primarily 12 Plato beers and less, and have chosen No-Sparge as my mash method of choice due to the improved wort quality. At that graivity, I get mash efficiency of 75%, which makes it hard to justify sparging.

    I don’t make many larger beers, but the drop in efficiency, for No-Sparge, is due entirely to grain absorption. So, you can calculate the expected loss in efficiency by calculating the effect of losing 0.12 gallons of wort for every additional pound of grain you add to increase the gravity.

  8. How do you find this affects your mash pH? Been wanting to switch to this method, but I am worried about a swing in my pH that I am not sure how to calculate or correct with that thin of a mash. Hope that makes sense.

    1. Marshall Schott

      It hasn’t been an issue, really only might if you have high alkalinity water. I say give it a shot and see for yourself!

  9. Zachary Jon Heilman

    I’ve recently switched to no sparge myself using the full volume of water for my 10 gallon batches. I’ve seen roughly a 2-3% efficiency hit. Well worth it in my opinion. My water to grist ratios for the beers I’ve done were:
    2.7L/lb
    2.9
    and
    3.2
    Haven’t seen any sort of difference other than needing more buffering capacity for my highly alkaline water which is a quick solve with some lactic acid. I love it. It works for me.

  10. I do a variation of no sparge for bigger brews. I hit 75% to 78% efficiency with batch sparging, and 73 to 75% with no sparge… so I rarely adjust my grain bill for the record.

    In any case, with big brews, I calculate how much water is needed to fill the tun including grains, then calculate strike temp based on that. I add water to fill, mash for an hour, then verlauf completely. Once it’s finished, I add the remaining water in its entirety, stir, let sit for 10 min, then verlauf completely.

    Used this method for Baltic porter 1.093 expected for 75% and wound up higher at 1.096. Only side note is to check pH of mash after 2nd water addition, but the whole thing took an extra 20 min tops and yielded great results on a big brew. Good luck!

  11. Listened to the podcast on this and want to give it a shot. One question that I did not hear answered was the gap of the mill. I heard that tightening it up a little bit allowed for a better efficiency and wondering what everyone is using.

    Also do you use a bag or just use a false bottom/screen with the gap?

  12. I listened to the podcast as well, and you mention needing a larger mash vessel and no real way around it. I’m making the switch from propane to electric, and right now I’ve only got my Kettle set up with an element, but I still need to brew. My work around for this, and not having a large enough mash tun for full volume mashing is to recirculate into the kettle with a pump. I got the idea from this blog post: http://onbrewing.com/no-sparge-no-problem/. My version was gravity feed from the MLT and pumped the recirculating wort from the BKTL to the top of the mash. It’s my first time brewing on the new system, so I don’t know how my efficiency compares, but I’ve been getting 70-75%.

  13. Hi Marshall,

    Love the site and the new podcasts. I watched the video you produced some time ago on how to set the variables in Beersmith for the no sparge method. I am curious; now that you use the Brew Bag, do you squeeze the bag? If so, have you adjusted BIAB Grain Absorption value in the advanced settings? If I recall correctly, in the Beersmith settings video you had set this to 0.96.

    Cheers,

    Fergus

  14. Earlier in your replies you mentioned “expected efficiency differences with higher/lower target OG.” I understand that phrase to mean-the higher the OG, the more grain you’ll need to compensate the hit on inefficiency. As a hypothetical, if a 70 quart cooler mash tun has the room, what would be the negatives of brewing a 1.066 beer using the no-sparge method. Thanks for your time.

  15. Thanks for bringing this technique to the masses. I used the no sparge technique yesterday with success. So easy.
    I brewed two side by side 5.5 gallon batches using unique water adjustments testing flavor differences. 12.2#’s of grain used just over 9 gal of H2O in twin 15 gal Blichmann kettles with false bottoms on top of gas burners. The gas burners were used to heat the grains above 160* with an occasional stir to avoid burning.
    Earlier you referenced http://www.simplebiabcalculator.com I used it for my calculations. Spot on. When all was said and done Beersmith estimated my efficiency at 72%. Saved an hour and more importantly effort.

  16. Just recently brewed my first No Sparge beer. Did an ipa that hit 1.060 when BeerSmith predicted 1.061. I was cool with my OG consider I thought I would hit a much lower OG. I liked how I didn’t have to heat up sparge water. Saved me a couple steps such as check first runnings as a habit, manually fly sparging or doing a batch sparge which I recirculate twice for clear wort. I believe you can do no sparge for any gravity you are willing to achieve. Just have a big enough mash tun to do so. Thanks and I’ll be doing no sparge for all my 5 gallon batches on my 10 gallon system.

  17. Most brewers, brewing software, and the author of this article, consider no-sparge to be the same as full-volume mash. It doesn’t have to be. My no-sparge process (HERMS) includes mashing at standard liquor/grist ratios (per the old byo article by Palmer linked in an earlier post), then mashing out by topping up with hot water to full volume, then continue circulating for a few minutes before lautering.
    This process avoids the (debatable?) conversion issues of a thin mash, while having the (also debatable?) advantage of a richer, maltier wort (https://www.morebeer.com/articles/No_Sparge_Brewing)
    The slightly lower efficiency vs fly-sparging is totally worth it to me because of the fast lauter , which is the main reason I use no-sparge for most low-med gravity brews.

  18. Any info as to how a no sparge would work for a recirculating mash on a HERMS setup? I currently Batch sparge with great results, but have always wondered if I need to. Would love to save a little time!

  19. Thanks for the article – I am going to try a no sparge low OG 1.040 beer today. I set it up as a BIAB in Beersmith even though I use a bazooka screen in my 10g cooler mash tun. Am I understanding from your steps above that you skip mashout? I’d love to be able to just drain straight from cooler to brew pot post vourloff and start the boil.

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