Help with brewing bigger beers?

[Kingy]

As I've moved from biab to 3 vessell I've been doing double batch sparging.
My usual water:grist is around 3:1 this gives me 3 equal volumes when I drain.
So usually if I use 10kgs of grain for a double batch my 1st drain is 20litres followed by 2x 20litre batch sparge. To end up with a pre boil of around 60litres.

Now I've only ever done one ipa and this was with biab. My efficiency was 60% so I add a kilo of DME to bump it up a bit.

While playing around with software If I was to mash in at 3:1 with a grain bill for a 7.2% beer there's not much sparge water left.

So I was wondering what other people are doing.

I could lower the grist ratio to 2.5:1 or lower? and extend the boil to 2 hours. But not sure there would still be enough liquid to double batch sparge. Maybe I could just do 1 batch sparge.

I've also dropped my efficiency for this beer to 62% at a guess.

I'm sure if I ventured into bigger stouts and the like it would get harder again to have enough sparge water to rinse.

My 3 vessel has a herms but only one pump atm to fill and drain the mash tun and recirculate so fly sparging is not an option.

 

[Kingy]

Seems I was doing something wrong with my calcs last night. If I mash with a 2.4:1 with a double batch sparge my 3 drains from the mash tun would be all equal. I think my efficiency would be higher than anticipated. Anyways the ingredients are on the way. Whatever happens I'm gunna have beer anyway lol.

I suppose with the really big beers a single batch sparge and or partigyle would be a whole other ballgame.

 

[Fourstar]

i found this very useful when i was batch sparging.

http://braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php?title=Batch_Sparging_Analysis

Now i pseudo fly-sparge by lading water via a 2L saucepan over the mash keeping the tun constantly full double batch brewing in a 50l vessel. I find the result much more repeatable for my setup.

The short of it all, the larger the grist size in your tun, the worse efficiency you're going to have with batch sparing and diminishing returns as you continue to batch sparge. i shoot for around 70% efficiency with my method and seem to hit it quite consistently regardless of my grist size. 1.060 is usually as high as i take it in the tun for 45L into the kettle and thats very little headspace in the mash (10L max.) (usually 1.065~ post boil)

Cheers.

 

[manticle]

All the things suggested will work. Reduce liquor (2.5 is about the lowest I would go), increase grist, extend boil beyound 120 mins (this increases colour and melanoiden development too). For belgians and some other styles, sugar additions also (I add most at the end of fermentation).