Lots of grain, two mashes? Partiyle?

I only have one 5 gallon cooler MLT and have generally only done 12 lbs. of grain in it at the most before. Would there be any way possible for me to get enough grain or a process together with just this MLT that would let me do a strong beer and a sesion beer in one day to get two 5 gallon batches? Two seperate mashes and lots of seperate pots to keep the other wort warm?
Start mashing in another vessel and pour it into the cooler to wash/sparge? Any great ideas here?

You could but a large cooler is not a lot of money and all the beer would be the same strength and taste. The time it takes is the other factor. You are having to do everything 2 or 3 times with smaller equipment.

You can always do a two, 2.5 gallon small batch partigyle recipe like I did, in a five gallon cooler...

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f36/lets-partyyyy-gyle-pumpkin-porter-ale-one-mash-74927/

Well I like LOTS of beer for my money. I now think I will be adding in a bit of DME to the runnings of both beers. I will mash around 13 lbs. of grain in the cooler, I know it can do that much at least. Then the first runnings and about two pounds of DME will be my strong ale and the rest plus about a pound of DME will be me session ale. Different hops, and likely a dry hop on the larger of the two also. What say you about this here plan?

What's up double thread starter

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f36/lots-grain-two-mashes-partigyle-80107/

I know, I suck.

It happens...We'll forgive you, just this once. Are you going to try to Parti-Gyle it?

I am now. The addiction, it took hold, and made me go to the LHBS and get a cooler conversion kit complete with bazooka screen manifold to convert my big Rubbermaid cooler into a MLT. I won't be doing it this weekend but I plan on doing a big mean partigyle soon. Something like a crazy 20-25 lb. grain bill.:rockin:

Well I tried this on a 10 gallon rubbermaid but the cooler wall was too thick, so I had to go to the larger 15 gallon rubbermaid "Marine" cooler. Dad has a thing for coolers and had kept around 10 in his garage for a while and then I went over one day about two years ago and he asked me if I needed a cooler. He had a pile of about 15 different coolers since he collected all the coolers from Grandfather's estate also. I took the two sizes I knew I could use at the time, so free cooler = low cost MLT in this case. I now have something I could seriously wreck a weekend with.

I will do a stout with it this weekend and then a partigyle deeper into the winter when I have more free time during a day, high gravity here I come!

I can only temp control 1 batch of beer in the Summer. As we head towards fall, I'm going to parti-gyle a couple as well. I'm glad everything worked out with the cooler.

Well I did a semi parti-gyle today. Brewed the stout that I had planned on but took the first and second runnings of around 6 gallons from a 12 lb grain bill for that and then used the third sparge to do a partial mash brown ale as well. Added two lbs. of light DME to the brown ale and did it with less AA hops than the higher gravity stout. Used Nottingham on the stout and then Windsor on the brown ale, both are already forming krausen and happily bubbling away in the utility room.

Cool, let us know how it works out for you (the taste).

Well I posted the recipe for the stout in the recipe forum but I got many responses saying I used too much roasted malt in it. I was really just trying to keep it from tasting burnt, I like roasty. The blunted down roast taste of the brown might be more to my liking, but we will see. The stout is going through a rather violent ferment at the moment, lot of heavy bubbling in the lock. The brew day went alright, the brown got finished before the stout due to the partial boil instead of full volume. The stout was the color and almost consistency of crude oil, and the brown was a nice chocolate color. I will post updates as I have them for taste.

BrewFrick said:

I only have one 5 gallon cooler MLT and have generally only done 12 lbs. of grain in it at the most before. Would there be any way possible for me to get enough grain or a process together with just this MLT that would let me do a strong beer and a sesion beer in one day to get two 5 gallon batches? Two seperate mashes and lots of seperate pots to keep the other wort warm?
Start mashing in another vessel and pour it into the cooler to wash/sparge? Any great ideas here?

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Hi, I'm kind of in the same situation because due to a lack of foresight I made a 5 gallon cooler MLT instead of a 10 gallon. So I can't really do more than 11-12 pounds of grain at once.

I've been studying the idea of doing 2 mashes and combining them to make a really big beer, but a few things I've read have me thinking thats probably not a great idea. I haven't tried it yet though to know for sure.

But one thing I have been doing that I think works out real well, is make one batch of beer and then sparge the leftovers and add some extract to make a second beer with the same grain. Thats working really well for me because I don't like the larger beers near as much as the ones that start out about .045 or smaller.