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Is sparging necessary?

JohnB

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I have been browsing through the soooo many recipes in BS2 and have been curious about the sparging process for my system (Braumeister 50L).

So here it is: most of the recipes require sparging, for example mash in 25L of water at 70C for 60 min. and then sparge vol. 10L of water at 80 for 10min. (because it is assumed that the temp. will drop to 70). So because my system has a circulating pump would it be OK for the recipe to reach from the beginning a temperature of 70C for the 35L, then pour in the barley and leave it for 70min?

Thanks in advance
 
You are doing a 'full volume' mash and don't need the sparge step.  The recipes only require sparging to get to the volume of wort needed to hit the  pre-boil volume for the equipment and mash profile for the system the recipe was originally made.  When you scale the recipe to your preferred equipment and mash profiles, this should take care of the any issues with any sparge steps.
 
OK, I think I get it now, if you could just confirm. After I feed all the info (in the equipment profile) that prior to a brew I have knowledge and control upon then I have to click on the "mash" tab, in that particular scaled recipe, and choose e.g. "BIAB, full body", by doing that I have scaled the recipe to my specific system and also have adjusted the mash to a full volume, without the need to sparge.

P.S. I also found a video on Youtube that suggests (when doing the above) to uncheck the "adjust temp for Equip", any thoughts on that?
 
If you are heating up the water in the vessel where you are performing the mash, then I would recommend making sure that you uncheck the 'adjust temp for equip.'  The kettle is already at your strike water temperature and you only need to account for the temperature of the grains.

 
Pardon my ignorance here, but if you don't sparge and do a "full volume" mash, isn't the mash rather thin? And does this matter? I thought I remembered reading that a mash too thin doesn't lend to enzymes converting sugars well.
 
I, as well as many others, do a full volume BIAB mash.  Never had a problem with conversion.  My mash/lauter efficiency is around 86% to 88% for most normal grain loadings and just a bit lower for high gravity mashes.

Traditional German brewing techniques often used a fairly thin mash (as compared to today's techniques) and boiled away excess when doing their decoctions.

Many of today's all-in-one units, such as the Blichmann BrewEasy, Grainfather, and Spiedel Braumeister, are all designed around full volume mashing.
 
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