Strike, Sparge and Grain Absorption

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Apologies, I'm getting ready for a brew day.

I've done two brews using my coolbox mash tun and I'm trying to get my head round strike volume and sparge volume.

Should the strike volume be increased to account for absorption or should it be made up in the sparge?

I've done it both ways and got slightly better results by increasing the strike volume to cover the absorption before sparging.

So I did a 14 litre strike an 20 litre sparge first time, and the 2nd time I did a 20 litre strike and a 15 litre sparge, I was in the right ball park both times in terms of S.G. I'm just wondering if there is a "correct" way.

(Those numbers were based on the instructions in the book + 1l for my mashtun deadspace.)
 
All things being equal I'd always tend to have more strike, so you have a thinner mash and also better heat retention as your MT will be more full
 
So you have a appr. 3:1 and 4:1 ratio for your strike water, which in both cases, after absorption, leads to a mash which is pretty well the same. I think that above a certain strike ratio it does not matter much.
 
So you have a appr. 3:1 and 4:1 ratio for your strike water, which in both cases, after absorption, leads to a mash which is pretty well the same. I think that above a certain strike ratio it does not matter much.

It all feels quite consistent I'm just trying to find, well if not best practice then the practice with the least downsides.

All things being equal I'd always tend to have more strike, so you have a thinner mash and also better heat retention as your MT will be more full

The temperature on the larger strike volume remained stable through out, the mash. However I did prepare better as I'd made sure I warmed the mash tun before hand and once I'd mashed in and broken the lumps up I got the lid on pretty quick.

The smaller one the temp dropped off a bit towards end, down to 64 from 67 so not the end of the world but I did note it down, so it was significant enough at the time.
 
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