First Partigyle - IIPA and Porter

I've been reading about Partigyle brewing and I want to give it a shot. After reading a number of threads, consulting Randy Mosher's Radical Brewing, and reviewing these resources:

http://morebeer.com/brewingtechniques/library/backissues/issue2.2/mosher.html

http://www.brewboard.com/index.php?showtopic=62046&pid=718622&st=0&#entry718622

I think I'm ready to give it a shot. I'm going to brew 2.5 gallons of an Imperial IPA, then 5 gallons of a Porter. I planned the grain bill for a 7.5 gallon, 1.060 FG beer, with the understanding that this would give me a <strong OG> 2.5 gallon first running, and a <smaller, more sessionable OG> 5 gallon second and third runnings (broken into two 2.5 gallon batch sparges). I am thinking I will likely have to top off each wort with spring water before boiling instead of sparging with enough water to account for ~1 gallon boil off in each beer, any thoughts on this? I could also augment the porter with some maple syrup, brown sugar, or another sugar. Here's my recipe and plan:

---Initial mash
8# 2-row
7# Marris Otter
2# Victory

Mash with 5.5 gallons at 152* for 60 minutes

draw 2.5 gallons (first wort, for IIPA), boil with the following hop schedule:

1 oz Magnum (14.7%), FWH
0.5 oz Cascade (5%), 30 min
0.5 oz Cascade (5%), 10 min
0.5 oz Cascade (5%), flameout
0.5 oz Cascade (5%), dry hop
1 oz Challenger (7.2%), dry hop
(1 Whirlfloc, 10 min)

Yeast: 1.5qt starter of WLP001

---Second mash

After pulling the 2.5 gallons off for the IIPA, I will cap the mash with the following grains and let this all mash at 152* for at least another hour:

8oz Chocolate Malt
4oz Black Patent
4oz Special B
4oz Munich
4oz White Wheat

This is a modified version of the steeping grain bill for my LHBS's house extract porter recipe. After the previous beer is done boiling and I transfer it to the fermenter, I will pull 6.5 gallons (in two steps) into the boil kettle. I have the following hops in the fridge, so this was my hop schedule for the porter:

1.5oz Tettnang (4.8%), 60 min
0.5oz Saaz (8.1%), 10 min
(1 Whirlfloc, 10 min)

Yeast: .75qt starter of WLP002

I'm also considering putting a vanilla bean, possibly one that was soaked in bourbon, in the secondary, to make a bourbon vanilla porter.

Thoughts?

I like the idea.

My partigyle experience has shown me that until you do your first one with your system, you can only estimate your grain bill and make any adjustments that you prefer, along the way. Record your pre-boil gravities as well as how close you hit your mark with your run-offs. Keeping good records will help you hit your numbers next time as well as help design your grain bills for future batches.

Since no system is alike, you can only base your expected results with your own process consistency and your brewery efficiency.

Good luck....and enjoy the process.

I've done a few partigyle brews and I'm always disappointed with the second runnings. I fly sparge, btw. When I partigyle, I usually make two 5gal batches. I always have to add some extra DME to the second beer to bring it up to my target. Just make sure you prepare for this as a possibility.

Another note: how dead set are you on the munich and wheat in the porter? Because if you take out the grains that must be mashed, then you could just steep the rest.

The reason you might consider doing this is so you can get a better idea of how your system performs a partigyle. You'll be able to run the full sparge through, collect all your runnings, and measure your gravity. Sometimes when you partigyle you end up having to dump some liquid back and forth to even out the sugars.

Then you can steep the specialty grains in one batch and turn it from an orangey-colored beer to a porter (and add DME if it comes up short). You'll save some time doing this as well, since you can probably just steep for 30min.

Thanks, old_tx_kbb and kanzimonson, for the input I got pretty close to my targets. The target for the first run-off was a bit north of 1.09, and I hit 1.084. Close enough for me to start. I ended up adding a significant amount of water to the first runnings, both topping-up during boil (3/4 gallon) and then adding in the carboy (1 gallon), so I hit a final OG of 1.056 for the IPA (notice: no longer an IIPA, but that's OK by me).

The target for the second and third runnings combined (after adding the additional few pounds of capping grain) was around 1.05 and I hit 1.04. I also added moe more water (7.5 gallons total instead of 6.5) to the second and third runnings than I had planned to make sure I hit my temps, but I boiled this down to ~5.5 gallons with a more-vigorous-than-usual-and-slightly-longer-than-usual boil.

This partigyle was a bit less controlled than it should have been, and I am going to do a more controlled parti-gyle next time to make sure I can tune-in future batches.

kanzimonson, in terms of two 5 gallon batches with a partigyle, your experience matches what I was expecting given what I've read. The rule I've encountered most often is that the first third of your runnings will generally contain half of the extract, and the second two thirds will contain the other half; put another way (and more in terms of fly sparging), if you plan a 10 gallon batch and pull two 5-gallon worts off of the grain, the second wort will be definitely less than half of the strength of the first wort, possibly much lower. Reading a number of partigyle recipes, it looks like people do often mix worts or add extra [sugar | dme] to the second wort to boost the gravity.

My LHBS guru also recommended that I steep instead of mash, but I could only attend to one burner and brew kettle at once, so after taking the first wort off, I added the capping grains and let it all mash further as I boiled the first wort. What you suggest would definitely have given me a better idea of how my system performs, and I will try this next time, thanks for the suggestion I had asked my wife to boil the first batch on the stove (we can get our smaller 3.5 gallon canning pot to a good boil on our stove: this is how I did my extract batches) while I was pulling and boiling the second batch (which I was planning to do in my 10gal pot on the propane burner) but she was feeling sick yesterday, so I had to do them one at a time.

Thanks again for the input, I'll let you know how the beer tastes!!

I bottled this last night, and it was fantastic. The IPA ended at 1.008 FG, and it tasted a little thin, but still delightful with the Cascade and Challenger hops shining through. The Porter ended at 1.007 FG, but the complexity retained in the profile of the dark malts carries the beer. The IPA, though a little thin, definitely had some malty character to it, and I am eager to see how the hops develop. The Porter was roasty and a little chocolatey. Both were very enjoyable to drink uncarbed, and I feel they will bottle condition well. Next step: let's see if I can replicate this experiment.

Congrats on the successful brew. I have done one parti-gyle on my system and it turned out perfectly. I did a double esb and a special bitter with the second runnings. I used these two charts and hit my numbers with only a .001 deviation. I had to tweak it a bit due to the fact that I do no sparge full volume BIAB. But it worked out great and my D.E.S.B. one of the best two beers I made.

http://morebeer.com/brewingtechniques/library/backissues/issue2.2/moshertable.html

http://morebeer.com/brewingtechniques/library/backissues/issue2.2/mosher.html#3

Glad you were able to turn out something you're excited about. Again, I love doing partigyles but you kinda need to lower your expectations, especially for the second beer.

But it's still more satisfying than brewing a giant barleywine and then feeling like you're throwing away a bunch of sugars in the kettle. I just made a 1.085 Wee Heavy, which I also sorta partigyled to make a few gallons of wort that I then pressure cooked for starters. But even with all my planning, after reaching my target preboil volume and target starter-wort volume, I was still pulling wort out of the kettle around 8*P.

In a way, I'm almost happier if I feel like I can suck all the sugars out of a mash and then add just a little DME (and other steeping grains) to the second beer to bulk it up.