John Palmer on grist to water ratio for no sparge method brewing from BYO magazine

[rjb222]

In here John describes a no sparge brew. He give numbers to calculate the brews conclusion by. He also mentions the mash out temperature and why one does not want to be above 170 deg f with the mashout.

http://byo.com/component/resource/article/1407-skip-the-sparge

In my fifteen plus years of beer brewing and my progression as a Brewer I have found the there are certain numbers,practises and falsies that are being used by proponents of newer brewing methods that are still new to brewing. One is the temperature of the mash. I have tried the higher temperature mash out. This temperature should be no higher than 170 deg f if the mashout temperature is higher than that I find the bitter from the grain husk will come through in the final product. I also find that lower temperature mash produces more fermentable sugars to work with. I there for like a step mash to bring out the fermentable properties in my wort and the unfermentable sugars that produce mouth feel and colour are then correct for the style of beer I am trying to brew.I am not saying the other methods do not work. I am aware of most brewing methods I choose to do things that produce the best quality at the right price. When you own a home brewing supply as I do you have to keep abreast of these things if you want your customers to trust you and your opinions and return to by more of your advise and brewing supplies. I study all I can find and learn all I can so as not to steer a new brewer in a direction where they will eventually produce a poor quality product and this can lead then to quit brewing.

[Cellar_Rat]

This strikes me (no pun intended) as a more original way to brew. Was sparging originally invented to get 'more for less' in commercial operations where the £ is king?

Being new to all grain (researching hard at the moment) I am reading a huge amount on the subject. No sparge makes logical sense. Strike temp thus becomes less important (and a bit lower) as there is more water. Mash temp is (still) the big deal - the one to get right.

[rjb222]

Actually until porter was made which was the first commercial beer made and was named after the people that served it,beer was brewed by the women at home in the kitchen. They used a copper kettle shaped some what like a wok. They brought the temperature up and kept it there then they would pour it into a bag and rinse with water. The total brew in the bag method came from extract type of brewing which is an easier way to brew as the extraction process is done for you.
Here is what I see as a problem with this style. When I tried it my pot which is a 35 litre pot would not hold enough volume to do a five gallon brew. By the time the grain bag was added there was not enough room for the water volume necessary for proper grain conversion. My pot is high grade stainless and cost over $200.00 wholesale. It scares me to price out one that would hold 60 litres.I know from experience that when I have used the tea method with extract that some times there is dry grain left in the centre so using a larger volume of grain will defiantly be harder to totally wet the grains throughly. The beer I made using this method was intended to be a copper coloured pale ale. It turned out with a very pale colouring with a touch of red to it so the grains did not wash properly.The SG was 20 points low I had to make a small wort using DME and add it to the wort to bring my SG into line.This is probably because I only tried This method once and there are tricks that would produce better quality but I lost interest on the first brew as I always get exactly what I am shooting for. This was my personal experience I am positive that there are people that would not brew any other way and are very successful. Use this method just be aware of the drawbacks and happy brewing.