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Tips & Tricks

No-Sparge Brewing

The Following Concerns Designing a No-Sparge recipe within ProMash. It is strongly recommended (if you are just beginning with no-sparge batches) that you first read the "Mechanics Of No-Sparge Brewing" article prior, and the following bases grain amounts on the equations presented there.


How To Modify Your Recipe for No Sparge Mashes With ProMash.

Designing a no-sparge brew with ProMash is a simple matter of determining your system's efficiency when no-sparging occurs. Now, the first time you attempt this, I suggest working through all of the equations from the referenced article, and plugging in your numbers. Here's how I worked through the ProMash section for the first time, after going through the above equations by hand:


1) Designed a Scotch Ale at 1.093 SG, 6 gallons in my normal fashion, assuming I would sparge, and at my normal efficiency rating of 70%:
Regular Sparge Recipe


2) Next, by using the equations in the referenced article, I determined I would need the following amount of grain. Note I tried to keep the bill as close to the original as possible, while still having nice even amounts that could be easilly weighed. Note that with all the additional grain, at the original efficiency rating, the predicted SG jumps up to 1.178:
Regular Sparge Recipe


3) Finally, I adjust the efficiency down to a level where my SG is as close to the original recipe's as possible. You can see, for a no sparge batch I am predicting a 37% efficiency from the mash.
Regular Sparge Recipe


Because I hit my target's dead-on in this brew, I can assume the 37% for other no-sparge batches in the future (provided the same equipment is used), and designing up a no-sparge recipe will be a trivial matter.

If you are performing a 'pure no-sparge' batch, make sure the Sparge water setting in the Water Needed calculator is 0.

Use the Hydrometer Correction Calculator to correctly calculate the gravity of the collected runnings at their current temperature. This will give you time to make any additional adjustments using the hand calculations shown above.

Other Tools in ProMash To Help You with No-Sparge Batches

  1. The Pre-Boil calculator, imbedded in a recipe formula section, that when pressed tells you the pre-boil amount and gravity needed for the batch to reach the final desired gravity and volume. This will be based on the system's default evaporation rate and boil time (from the Stand-Alone Water Needed Calculator) but will of course is fully adjustable within the recipe.

  2. The stand-alone Dilution Calculator that automatically calculates all the permeations of the Dilution formula in the traditional ProMash fashion.

  3. The Efficiency Calculator imbedded in a brewing session that will help dramatically in determining your actual mash system efficiency, both on regular sparge and no-sparge sessions.s