Re-sparging grain to make 2nd beer?

Hi,

A friend told me that he has heard of doing a second sparge with your mash when brewing a high gravity beer. Say you brew a beer with a gravity of 1.080, could you get another weaker 5 gallons of wort from it? I could double my batch size on brew day if so!

Thanks,

Shawn

I have also heard of this and plan to try it!

Yeah, its called a partigyle. 1.080 might be a little low still but as long as you are watching the gravity of the wort as its coming out of your mash tun and make sure it doesn't go below 1.015-1.010 you will be good

If its a little light you could just add some DME or LME to kick it up a bit. I will attempt it next time I brew. I fly sparge and I am thinking I would just add more hot water, mix it up, and re-drain.

Yea... did a 1.084 Belgian and ended up getting a small beer of 1.056 @ 2G on a whim... wasn't prepared for the additional hop bill...

Has anyone tried to save the second runnings to boil another day? Not sure why anyone would do such a thing but just a thought.

Partigyle is an tried and true method form the old days when drinking the water was unsafe. The British batch sparged, and would collect the second (or more likely third, or fourth) runnings and make "small Beer". Low in alcohol, but safe to drink as it had been boiled, and contained enough alcohol to kill the "critters". Of course they didn't know that, all they knew was if you drank beer you didn't get sick. Small beer could be consumed all day long, even for breakfast, with children drinking it as well. The "Big Beer" was saved for later in the day, and evening. Interesting time to live.

bennie1986 said:

Has anyone tried to save the second runnings to boil another day? Not sure why anyone would do such a thing but just a thought.

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I wouldn't unless I refrigerated or at least boiled it and capped it off. Wort sours. Ever leave your grains out and get that old Chinese food smell?

I did. about one and a hlf gallons from my latest stout. They are in ziplock bags in the freezer. With an OG of 1020,I am thinking of boiling down to 1 gallon and then using the wort to ferment with wild yeast.If it stops raining long enough for me to leave some wort uncovered un the bloody garden overnight.

I parti-gyled the last few brews I did. I always came up over my OG on the first runnings, but was spot on my estimated OG for the secong runnings. This is an excellent article with tables for estimated gravities of your different runnings based on your "whole" mash.

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

gotsumbeers said:

I parti-gyled the last few brews I did. I always came up over my OG on the first runnings, but was spot on my estimated OG for the secong runnings. This is an excellent article with tables for estimated gravities of your different runnings based on your "whole" mash.

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

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Exactly what I was looking for, Thanks!

You are welcome. The Brewing Techniques Archives has some pretty cool stuff in them. Enjoy your parti-gyle! I love it. In two brew sessions I have made a Belgian Dark Strong and Saison, and then an Old Ale and Pale Ale. It's fun.