Clifton

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I've done a double batch with different yeasts. But had an idea of taking two beers with identical hop rates and steeping/mashing some grains to use as my top up water for one batch. Anyone done this. Here's my plan.

6gal water
15lbs. Wheat LME
2 oz Willamette hops for 60min.
cooled and split into two fermenters.

I will top one up to 5.25gal yeilding a Hefe with OG of 1.049

The other will be topped up with
3.5 gallons giving me a NutBrownWeizen OG 1.054

Steeping a 4oz. each of in my top up mash
chocolate malt
special b
special roast
biscuit malt
as well as 1lb of Munich

I'll probably dough in and let it sit while I boil.

Both will be pitched with wy3068

Any thoughts?

Clifton

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jitteringjr

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Confused about how you're doing this. Are you going to boil the specialty grains for the nut brown wiezen or just add them to the fermenter?

I would mash the combined grist and separate into 2 different brew pots. Boil the Hefe and then steep the specialty grains in the other pot while the first boils. Just make sure you don't raise the temp above 70C for mash out on the initial mash or you'll shut your enzymes off when you strike the specialty grains on the second.

Clifton

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I was just planning on mashing the Munich and specialty grains while boiling the extract and hops. I'd use the Munich mash to top up one fermenter making it a different beer.

Clifton

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I find it hard to believe that no one has done something similar to this before.

kwhyte

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I think adding the mash run off directly to the fermenter without boiling is asking for an infection - there are a lot of things living in/on the grain. Maybe steeping temps are high enough to take care of them, but I'd be worried.

kanzimonson

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I think it's a great idea overall but I do see some problems.

1) I worry about the Munich converting during the mash. Comparatively, that's a lot of grain for a mash with so few enzymes. I realize that the other grains don't need to be mashed, but the small amount of enzymes provided by the Munich are quickly going to be diluted. Will the enzymes be able to "find" the starches that are floating around in the rest of the sugars?

2) Are you sure that's bitter enough? Just vaguely estimating in my head, I'm thinking you're only going to get 10-15 IBUs in each beer.

I think it's a great experiment and I'd love to hear how it turns out. Remember, so long as you take supreme care of your yeast it's hard to make bad beer.

jitteringjr

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There is a lot more going on during the boil than just biological stabilization, but if that were the only thing going on, it would still be enough for me to always boil everything that went into the fermenter.

Other things going on:
1. Denaturing enzymes.
2. Driving off volatile gases. DMS
3. making brew acidic
4. Flavor and color development
5. Concentrating wort sugars
6. Hop utilization
7.Precipitating proteins -trub

I like your idea of splitting these up, just make sure you boil everything.

Clifton

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Jitteringjr,
So if I omit the munich I'm left with steeping grains. I can steep them for 20-30 min. and boil for 15 min. on the stove while I boil the rest on the turkey fryer outside. Do you think that would satisfy enough of the seven "things going on" to make a good beer?
Thanks for the info.

TerryM

Recipes 

I make different beers from the same 10-gal mash/boil using additions made on the stove top. Last time, I started with a pale ale recipe with the bitterness near the lowest target IBU of the beers I was making, then (a) made a hop tea with a bunch of Cascades to make a California Pale in one fermentor (pitched with Safale 05), and (b) steeped some dark grains in a quart or so of water, brought it to a boil and added Northern Brewer to make a Cal Common (pitched with Wyeast 2112).

I used Beersmith to tweak the recipes. Both came out quite tasty.