Awesome, I believe im assimilating all this stuff. Im not going to do it cuz I dont see much point but I was curious if I understood what the effects would be.
I had to do that in a very small brewery due to equipment limitations. I’d sprinkle the “sparge” water on top as gently as possible to avoid mixing, then drain the tun. It did buy us roughly a 5-10% efficiency bump depending on gravity. At home? Just no-sparge.
I’m never going to do this but I find the brain floss interesting. If I’m understanding the process right, the mash thickness is for enzyme density. Sparging is to rinse sugars left behind. So, true no sparge costs you points in both enzyme density and rinse. Mashing at about 1.5-2 then adding all of the water seems like middle ground.
I no-sparge and I really only start to see my efficiency drop significantly once I get to 4 qt/lb. It is kind of weird that I get the best efficiency on big beers like Quads and Barleywines, and lower efficiency on my session beers, though.
Since I have a 2 vessel setup, I have played around with no sparge configurations, and see my best efficiency from mashing all the water at once. My old mash went like this:
mash with 1.75qts/lb, mash out, added water to my preboil volume(7.8 gal). Recirc 10 min, pump to kettle. Average 62% eff, malt conditioned crushed with a .22 gap.
New mash goes like this:
mash with full water volume(we’ll say 9 gallons with grain loss), mash out, pump to bk
Average 70% eff, exact same procedure/crush