Triple brew day

Final stats from my brew day:

Efficiency: 80% (highest ever, previous best was 68%)
Time: about 7.5 hours
In the carboys: 2 gallons of barley wine, 5 gallons of high-grav Hob Goblin clone, 5 gallons of low-grav chocolate porter


Well, I'd been staring at my brew sculpture long enough. It has a 4-port water manifold hooked up to the garden hose. I built it so I can turn the CFC, sprayer, and hose on and off from a single point on the brew stand. It's got a dumper system for the MLT. Just hold a trash bag over the MLT, pull the handle, and it dumps all the spent grains almost effortlessly- and you can then use the manifold to turn on the sprayer attachment and remove the rest of the debris. The CFC is largely built in. It's got a cooler high up for an MLT and two burners, either of which can be used as a hot liquor tank or brew kettle as the moment requires.

I'd been hesitant to use it, unsure of how well it would work. Well, last night, I took the leap. I had it set up and started to brew around 9:30pm and finished, with three batches completed, partigyle style, by 0500. Three batches in 7.5 hours? Not bad. And I could've shaved some time off if I had had my sculpture all set up to begin with. I realized I could've done a batch continuously every 75 minutes without any problem from there forward.

For the efficiency, I cranked down my mill. I mean, cranked it down until I could barely see any light through the rollers. And my efficiency gained about 15 points as a result. I came out at about 80% for my grain bill, so thanks for all the help you guys gave me on that a few months ago.

So here's my brew day....

16 lbs 2-row
2 lbs Munich
1 lb aroma malt

Pulled 2 gallons out of the first runnings at an OG of 1.088. Cut it down with water to 1.070 and used it as the basis for my barleywine, anticipating one or two later additions of higher-gravity brew down the line to boost the ABV.

Then I added 2 more lbs of 2-row
1/2 lb crystal 60
1/3 lb chocolate malt

and pulled out 6.5 gallons of Hob Goblin Clone. I added the 2-row only because I was afraid my gravity would be a little low. Turns out, I over compensated. After boiling down to 5 gallons, it came out to a starting gravity of 1.070. Wow! Then I added...

1/2 lb carapils
1/4 lb black patent
1 lb munich
3/4 lb chocolate

and ran some more water through. I came out with 7 gallons of wort at 1.024. I boiled it down to 1.032


For those of you who get lousy efficiency, I had an epiphany. Partigyle brewing, or Party-guile brewing (my term where you add more grains as you go) definitely boosts efficiency. By anticipating the use of lower-grav runnings to make a small beer, you can squeeze more out of the grains. I mean, really, who wants to spend all day taking their runnings down to 1.008 and then wasting propane to boil that down to a meaningful starting gravity? On the other hand, if you plan on a brew with an OG of 1.030, suddenly those runnings have some use.

So far, the low-grav chocolate porter and hob goblin are bubbling away. No signs of life from the barley-wine-to-be.

Cheers!

Well done, I did my first brew last Sunday and it took me about 7.5 hours, from cleaning to pitching the yeast. haha....guess I have a lot of learning to do.

I saw you are planning a Gumballhead clone. I am assuming that it will be an AG, but do you know if you could make that from an extract? I had that beer last weekend and my gf and I loved it...thanks!

I want to see picts of your system
sounds like you had a fun day

Cheers
JJ

Yeah, that system sounds sweet. I always thought of doing 3 ag batches in one day, but 2 seems to be the limit for me. I haven't thought of adding more grain to the existing one to get another batch, like you did. I'll keep that in mind.

Sounds like a very good day to me.

Yeah, having two burners really makes a difference when doing multiple batches.

One little thing, note the bungee cord in the second picture... it holds the lid up as I add grains. Works very well, even if it does look ghetto...

And yes it has handles and wheels.. goes just like a wheelbarrow except with worse visibility.

And yes, that is a MoreBeer kettle... 15 gallons for $100. Man was that a great buy!!!!

And notice in the back, that's a FULL 5 gallon bucket of grain. Definitely my biggest grain bill ever...


Pictures...

Help me understand how this works. Did you mash the barlywine for an hour then add grains and mash for another hour? Boil Barlywine while other is mashing? Sounds cool.

Matt Foley said:

Help me understand how this works. Did you mash the barlywine for an hour then add grains and mash for another hour? Boil Barlywine while other is mashing? Sounds cool.

Click to expand...

I added the hot liquor to the MLT, stabilized the temp at 160-something. Then I added the grains and immediately started heating more water. After 30 minutes, the water was up to temp so I drew the full 2.5 gallons of wort that came out and that was the basis for my barley wine. I then added more water for the sparge.

While sparging, I started boiling the barleywine and added more water for heating. After some time, I drew out the runnings into a bucket, added more water for a second sparge.

Around the time the second sparge was done, I dumped the water I was heating and added the second set of runnings. Then the barleywine was done, so I ran that through the CFC, dumped the remaining stuff in the kettle. I then used that kettle to to heat more water as the first kettle boiled the second batch of beer.

When the water in the second kettle was heated, I used that for the next sparge. I then finished the second batch and drained the third runnings into the second kettle.

All in all, there was definitely a good amount of planning going around, but it all kind of seemed to fall together. It really is nice to have a pair of burners.