One reason to sparge is to overcome MLT volume limitations. Another is to gain otherwise lost sugars.
Don’t discount this event as a failure. To the contrary, it sounds like you may have run into both issues and gained valuable knowledge concerning the advantages/disadvantages of your system.
Some folks brew without sparging because they want to eliminate the potential for O2 intake during the sparge process. To address this on my system Sparge Water from the HLT is added to the MLT by draining it into the MLT (without opening it) thru the recirculating return hose positioned under the grain level in an attempt to underlet the mash bed.
One of the great things about batch sparging (of which no-sparge is a subset) is that once the variables are known, your lauter efficiency can be calculated ahead of time. Unless one of the usual suspects (time, temperature, crush, pH) is reducing conversion efficiency, there’s no reason you shouldn’t hit your boil gravity and volume spot-on.
Thank you for the encouragement! I do not see it as a failure, just another lesson learned. I’ll just rename this beer to include “Session”. Time to study up on Denny’s method!
I do somehthing very similar as Brewbama. My RIMS system is based on the original SABCO system. I position the return hose just under the top of the grain bed and it works well for me.
In order to get a consistent mix of sparge liquor and wort to rinse out as much of the sugars as I can during the runoff, I also knife my grain bed during the sparge (no more than a couple inches deep for a 10 gallon mash). As I have mentioned before, it seems to help my efficiency, IMHO.
To the OP - also, it is not a sin to add DME to the boil, if you undershoot your intended gravity for the runoff. I have a friend who is a significant award winner and when he makes his RIS, he can’t fit all the necessary grains into his mash tun, so he goes with what fits and adds DME to the end of the boil to get his starting gravity at the point he seeks. He says he has never been “dinged” in competitions for that!
This - adding DME - is totally legit, both for raising gravity to hit target if one’s mash efficiency doesn’t quite land where expected, and to boost gravity where one doesn’t have the mash tun capacity for grain to do a higher gravity beer. I routinely add DME to my Old Ale recipe because my 5 gallon mash cooler just can’t carry enough grain.
That’s good advice, will keep it in mind. My goal is to brew consistent 10 gallon batches with my setup (15 gallon kettle, 15 gallon MT and a 7 gallon kettle). No sparge was a bit of a miss, DME would have helped. I am going to try batch sparging next and see how that goes. The journey continues!
I have a eHERMs system and I fly sparge. I will usually stir the very top of the grain bed, maybe 1-2 inches of a 8-12 inch grain bed. I heard/read that this breaks up any channeling that may occur during the sparge process thus it increases your efficiency. I make sure to leave most of the grain bed alone so I don’t screw up the filtering capability. I would take it this is similar to the knifing others have described. I might have to try that on the next batch. I am usually around 88% mash efficiency.
I’ve considered brewing a full volume batch with no sparge recirculating the wort through the boil kettle and mash tun similar to a Blichmann EasyBrew setup when I have the need to shorten my brew day.