My first parti-gyle proposition

So i've done a bit of research, and I think Monday I'll do my first parti-gyle! I understand the basic principal: Do a large (16+#?) mash with little to no sparge for a big beer, and drain completely. Re-mash/batch sparge original grain to yeild a second wort that is lighter in color and sugar.

right?...

For two five(ish) gallon beers, I'm thinking of doing a chocolate malt-heavy doppel bock first. I'd like the second small beer to be an ale, as the pipeline will be a bit low after the holidays and i'm looking for a quick turnaround on the small beer. I have a 52qt cooler, so I can mash pretty big. Here's my idea for the first mash:

18# US 2-row
4# munich
8 oz 80L
1# Chocolate Malt
8oz carafa

Hops will be up to whatever the LHBS has on hand, but mostly bittering with perhaps a small 30 minute addition.

This poses the problem: my small beer will have all that dark malt in it as well! Perhaps I can keep the carafa and chocolate out of the mash, and steep seperately after the mash?

Without the super dark malts, that would leave basically a nice pale ale for the small beer. I'll be checking gravities through the process, and have no problem with the small beer being less than five gallons


Should I up the base malt? Does this even make sense? I'm open to any and all suggestions, even if it's in a completely different style of beer. I have searched the site and found some info on parti-gyle's and it has helped me get an idea of what it's all about. But i'm the kind of person who has to do it wrong the first time to understand how to do it right the next time. I'm not looking for perfection, just some good beer.

Go for it. My friends and I did one on Labor day, and it turned out great.

You can steep any or all of your grains for either step just as you would have when doing extract + steeping grains recipes. In our case we went with straight base malt for the big, first runnings beer and topped the mash tun with some crystal 120 when we sparged for the second runnings beer.

We did 40 lbs in a 70 qt Coleman eXtreme, which was the absolute limit to what that cooler would hold at 0.31 gal/lb. This gave us 5 gals of high grav (1.132 OG!) and 10 gal of session (1.046 OG) ESB.

We were a bit surprised by the gravity of the big beer and didn't have enough hops on hand, and we ended up with more of an extreme Old Ale rather than the less extreme Barleywine we'd been planning. Be prepared to adjust hopping based on what you actually get. This is the biggest piece of advice I learned from our experience.

The way I crafted my partigyle was to mash at a thickness that would get me my desired preboil volume on the big beer with just the first runnings. I got 7.5 gallons of runoff that was equivelent of 60% efficiency. Knowing that my normal efficiency is near 90%, I figured the second runnings small beer would be about 30% of the total grain bill.

Now, you many never get 90% efficiency, but the idea here is that the big beer will be about 2/3rds your normal effeciency and the small beer will be 1/3rd.

Thanks for the replies! Moonpile, I'll be ready with some extra hops for sure! I'll make sure to take gravity readings before steeping the dark malts, just in case some wort needs to go in the other kettle.
Bobby, thanks for the math! I'm shooting for the first runnings to be the entire big beer without sparging. And if I have to boil down to hit six gallons before adding the first hops, so be it.

I'm off to the homebrew shop, I'll post some details tomorrow after it's all done. I have a funny feeling this won't be as difficult as many people might think. And i'll have ten gallons fermenting instead of just five

portlandbeergeek said:

I'm off to the homebrew shop, I'll post some details tomorrow after it's all done. I have a funny feeling this won't be as difficult as many people might think. And i'll have ten gallons fermenting instead of just five .

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It's definitely not as hard as you'd think. My motivation was to have 15 gal instead of 10, but next time I think we'll do 20 gal instead of 10!

well things are going great so far! I've got 24 quarts at 1.077 just up to a boil now for the bock with 1.5oz Magnum, and one ounce of Perle to come at the 30 minute mark. Starter is clearing and should be ready to pitch as soon as the wort cools!

While I was mashing, I bottled a California Common and threw together my first ever batch of mead! Things are looking good, and I'm stoked!! Now, it's about time to RDWHAHB if 'ya ask me

portlandbeergeek said:

I have a funny feeling this won't be as difficult as many people might think. And i'll have ten gallons fermenting instead of just five

Click to expand...

That was my experience. I did a 24# mash for a porter/brown and I am drinking the brown now...well, not now since I am at work, but it is on tap now. The porter tasted great at racking, but I wanted it to have more time to condition since it is pushing 9 percent for abv.

I hit 1.096 on the bock!! Is that stronger than a doppelbock?
Yeilded close to 7.5 gallons of wort for the small beer, so it should boil down with my new 165,000BTU burner. Ended up with less than five gallons on the bock. Those burners are serious business, especially compared to the electric range i've been working on in the past.

This is so much easier than two separate brew days!!! Anyone got other good suggestions for other parti-gyle combos? And where the heck did the term 'parti-gyle' come from anyways?

Barley wine can make a good pale. I did a barley wine that I threw some extra malt in to make a brown as well. Golden strong --> belgian pale or saison. RIS --> brown beer of some sort? Who cares about style. It might just be an awesome small beer with no perceivable style. Just guess what it might taste like, take your preboil gravity and bitter accordingly.

My all Maris Otter barleywine made a great ESB. I added a pound of crystal 80 to the mash just before my sparge. It basically turned it into a steep rather than mash but it worked.