Parti Gyle with only one brew pot.

I know this can be done, but was wondering if it makes more sense to leave the grain bed dry between boils or if I should leave it resting at about 170 F.

I'm also interested in whether or not anyone has had success with mashing just the base grains and then steeping the specialty grains in both the big and small brews in more of an extract brew fashion. I want to brew an imperial stout next week but I don't really want another stout as my small beer.

And I guess I have one more question while I'm at it. If I'm going for a 50/50 volume split between the two brews, do I do my first sparge with just enough water to get up to my pre-boil volume or should I go ahead and refill the mash tun and just draw out what I need and leave the rest for later?

Thanks for any help.

I don't think it's possible to derive anything but a smaller stout from an imperial stout.

I just did this with a barlywine and a mild.

At the end of the mash, I removed about 3 gallons of wort, heated up to 180, and dumped it back in. 10 minutes later I got about 5 gallons. I then sparged 3 more gallons and that made up my barleywine.

Once I got that in the pot and over a flame, I continued sparging until I had 7 more gallons of wort.

I ended up (after boil) with a 1.120 batch and a 1.055 batch. I added 2# maple syrup to the barleywine, so of course that pushed the SG up.

I did a lot of reading and searching for technique. The best reference for parti-gyle brewing was an article by Randy Mosher, with associated tables. It was on the BrewingTechniques Online website. Do a search here at HBT and you should find a link.

+1 on bobby's thoughts. Try your best, but that next smaller beer is also going to be a stout.

Steeping some grains after you've mashed base grains will work though, but you won't likely make a great imperial stout doing that. It will be hard to get a lot of deep flavours I'd think. Never tried it though.

As long as you mash with enough water, at least 1-1.2 qts per pound you'll be fine - whether you drain it all to collect your first boil volume, or if you leave some in there.

noeldundas said:

Steeping some grains after you've mashed base grains will work though, but you won't likely make a great imperial stout doing that. It will be hard to get a lot of deep flavors I'd think.

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Wouldn't this be the same as brewing an extract imperial stout? Or is the issue that the higher gravity is not as good a medium for steeping specialty grains as water is?

I suppose if there is risk involved I may just end up going with the two stouts, perhaps bolstering the second with some dme or perhaps the last pound or so of honey I have on hand.

Maybe you can go at it this way. Hold back on the roasted barley in the main mash, derive your high gravity wort first into a bucket and steep the roasted barley there. Sparge the rest of the mash for your small beer. I suppose you could call that a Brown since they mostly have chocolate and crystal anyway.

Bobby_M said:

Maybe you can go at it this way. Hold back on the roasted barley in the main mash, derive your high gravity wort first into a bucket and steep the roasted barley there. Sparge the rest of the mash for your small beer. I suppose you could call that a Brown since they mostly have chocolate and crystal anyway.

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That sounds like a good plan, I think I'll go with it. Would anything unpleasant happen to the second wort if it was left sitting for about 2 hours?

Also, do I need to account for the effect of the roasted grains when I build my water profile if I'm only steeping them?

danielinva said:

Wouldn't this be the same as brewing an extract imperial stout?

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Yes, I suppose it would. Which begs the question though....why not make these with extract!? The upside would be that you could make two beers, like you wish to, in less time, with less mess.

It's totally worth the experiment though. I've just never really heard of anyone doing that - but that doesn't make it wrong

danielinva said:

That sounds like a good plan, I think I'll go with it. Would anything unpleasant happen to the second wort if it was left sitting for about 2 hours?

Also, do I need to account for the effect of the roasted grains when I build my water profile if I'm only steeping them?

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Cover the wort as best you can. The worst that could happen is wild yeast could start fermenting it. That's very unlikely though in 2 hours.

Yeah, I don't imagine any little critters will be able to do much in two hours especially if the wort starts out around 170 degrees. And if anything does inhabit the wort it will be boiled shortly thereafter.

Totally. You'll be fine. Just let us know how it turns out!

Will do. I'll probably end up doing the brown ale as my small beer with maybe 1-2 pounds of honey added to the primary.