Mash out and no sparge

[liammiller]

Still pretty new to all grain brewing and I have a question about sparging and mashout.

I intend to:
1. mash with 5L water and 2.5kg grain for an hour at 65C (mash)
2. add 7.6L of water at 87C to mash tun and resting for 10 mins (mashout)
3. vorlauf
4. collect 9L runnings in pot and proceed to boil

Is there a problem with not taking the first runnings before adding mashout water in great enough volume to get the pre-boil volune of wort that I want? If not, this would save me the time and hassle of doing two vorlaufs and collecting two runnings.

 

[Martybhoy]

Afaik, your efficiency would suffer considerably and your OG might be rather low. You may need to use more grain.

However, in the interests of R&D, it would be worth doing to see how it goes.

 

[liammiller]

Why would there be a difference in the gravity of the wort collected all at once compared to collecting it in two runnings?

 

[Simonh82]

If you drain the first running then that wort is concentrated with lots of sugar. When you add the sparge water the sugar left stuck to the grains will be diluted and then you run it off.

If you don't take the first running then the dilution still occurs but as you have more sugar in the mash tun the concentration of sugars in the diluted wort is higher. When you drain off the wort, the water that is retained in the grains will have more sugar in it than if you had taken the first running.

It will effect your efficiency somewhat but it won't make a massive difference. Maybe a few %.

That looks like a fairly hefty grain bill for what I guess will end up as a 6-7L brew after the boil.

 

[liammiller]

Ok that makes sense to me. Water will dissolve more sugars from the grain than the wort will, so get rid of the sugary wort and replace it with water to maximise the extraction of sugars?

My hob is pretty week so I only boil off about 1 litre per hour so this will be an 8 litre batch, hopefully 5.7% ABV if all goes to plan.

 

[Pawlo7671]

Still pretty new to all grain brewing and I have a question about sparging and mashout.

I intend to:
1. mash with 5L water and 2.5kg grain for an hour at 65C (mash)
2. add 7.6L of water at 87C to mash tun and resting for 10 mins (mashout)
3. vorlauf
4. collect 9L runnings in pot and proceed to boil

Is there a problem with not taking the first runnings before adding mashout water in great enough volume to get the pre-boil volune of wort that I want? If not, this would save me the time and hassle of doing two vorlaufs and collecting two runnings.

Instead of mashing out why don't you just batch sparge, it only takes 20 minutes probably a lot less looking at your quantities. You dont have to take the first runnings, its done for clarity, but again it takes all of 2 minutes, if time and hassle is your pet hate then maybe find another hobby because all grain brewing is king when it comes to T&H or there's always kit and kilo:twisted:

 

[liammiller]

I don't mind time and hassle, but I don't like unnecessary work. :lol:

How does batch sparging require less time looking at my quantities? The way I have suggested I heat the required amounts of water to the required temperatures and dump them into my mash tun.

What do you mean by batch sparging being done for clarity?

 

[Pawlo7671]

I don't mind time and hassle, but I don't like unnecessary work. :lol:

How does batch sparging require less time looking at my quantities? The way I have suggested I heat the required amounts of water to the required temperatures and dump them into my mash tun.

What do you mean by batch sparging being done for clarity?

taking the first runnings is done for clarity as it settles the grain bed and clears the wort, nothing to do with the sparge. I meant compared to a full 5G batch your sparge wouldn't take as long, I think you would gain more efficiency if you drained the wort to the boiller and did a batch sparge