Is Sparging necessary?

I fly sparge very slowly, this last 11 gallon batch (14 gallons of wort) took about 2.5 hours of sparge time and I exceeded my preboil numbers. It also gives me time to clean and sanitize all my equipment without being rushed.
 
Thank you for the replies guys, always help to get some advice from more experienced brewers. So, in theory, I could just squeeze the grain bag to get extra sugars off the grains? If thats the case, I might try doing that for an extra ABV boost for my upcoming IPA today. Wish me luck, and I may post my progress on it.


I hope you're not putting me in the experienced brewer category. ;) But yeah that's what I do with a lot of my beers and they come out fine.
 
I hope you're not putting me in the experienced brewer category. ;) But yeah that's what I do with a lot of my beers and they come out fine.
What method would you use for a small 2 gallon batch? That's the size I normally brew.
 
Personally? I'd absolutely no sparge, just keep track and note what efficiency hit you take and compensate for it. I no sparge my 5 gallon batches and batch sparge my 10 gallon batches due to volume limitations in my mash tun.

You could run a test with both methods and see what the difference is, decide if the extra work of heating a second batch of water, etc.. is worth it to you. I just prefer to save myself the half hour.

It's a time vs efficiency thing really, my time to me is worth more than a 2% efficiency difference.
 
Personally? I'd absolutely no sparge, just keep track and note what efficiency hit you take and compensate for it. I no sparge my 5 gallon batches and batch sparge my 10 gallon batches due to volume limitations in my mash tun.

You could run a test with both methods and see what the difference is, decide if the extra work of heating a second batch of water, etc.. is worth it to you. I just prefer to save myself the half hour.

It's a time vs efficiency thing really, my time to me is worth more than a 2% efficiency difference.
Well, lucky for me, I've got time on my hands since summer break is coming up for me.
 
Sparging takes no extra time for me really i start heating my sparge volume when im on my last mash rest then whilst the wort is heating to boil i sparge. The boil never beats me.
 

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