Parti-gyle technique question

Greets all. I'm planning a Russian Imperial Stout with a 1.108 OG, so I thought I'd make a second beer with the second runnings. I'm not sure I'm going about this correctly, so I'm hoping for a little direction.

Here's the original 5.5 gallon recipe:


What I wanted was for the first beer to be the full 1.108 OG, so I increased the water/grain ratio in the mash to 1.75 qt/lb, which eliminates the sparge and keeps the anticipated OG the same.

So I had planned on just sparging the grains after that and using those runnings for the second beer. I don't really care how big or small it is, just want it to be beer. From the table at brewing techniques, it looks like my second batch should be about 1.054 if I'm reading that table correctly.

What I haven't been able to find is how to get the second runnings - I'm assuming I'll use 170F water just like a big honkin' sparge? So for a 7 gallon pre-boil I'll sparge the 23# of grain with 10 gallons of water? Or will it be less since the grain is already wet?

Thanks!

-Joe

Upon further thought, I can't just do it this way because my efficiency will suffer due to lack of sparging, correct? Is there a guideline to how much it will suffer so I can increase the grains to compensate?

Thanks again,

-Joe

Yup, I just did this very thing. I made my mash thickness such that I'd derive all my RIS preboil volume from a straight draining of the mash. For me it was 1.65qt/lb. This is essentially a no sparge and in my two partigyles so far, 59/60% efficiency is the number. To figure the small beer, change the same recipe to 25% efficiency which gave me 1.041.

[size=+2]Overbrook RIS Partigyle[/size]
[size=+1]13-F Russian Imperial Stout[/size]
Author: Bobby
Date: 9/26/2009



Size: 6 gal
Efficiency: 59.0%
Attenuation: 73.4%
Calories: 329.76 kcal per 12.0 fl oz

Original Gravity: 1.098 (1.075 - 1.115)
|=================#==============|
Terminal Gravity: 1.026 (1.018 - 1.030)
|==================#=============|
Color: 39.33 (30.0 - 40.0)
|======================#=========|
Alcohol: 9.53% (8.0% - 12.0%)
|==============#=================|
Bitterness: 71.4 (50.0 - 90.0)
|================#===============|

[size=+1]Ingredients:[/size]
25.0 lb Maris Otter Pale Ale Malt
1.25 lb Roasted Barley
1 lb Belgian Special B
.75 lb Chocolate Malt
.5 lb Crystal Malt 76L (150 EBC)
3.5 oz East Kent Goldings (6.0%) - added during boil, boiled 60 min
2 oz East Kent Goldings (6.0%) - added during boil, boiled 10 min
1.5 oz East Kent Goldings (6.0%) - added during boil, boiled 0 min

[size=+1]Schedule:[/size]
Ambient Air: 70.0 °F
Source Water: 60.0 °F
Elevation: 0.0 m

00:50:16 Mash In - Liquor: 11.75 gal; Strike: 163.62 °F; Target: 154 °F
01:50:16 Sac Rest - Rest: 60 min; Final: 153.1 °F
01:57:51 Heat Mash Out - Heat: 7.6 min; Target: 168.0 °F
01:57:51 Batch Sparge - First Runnings: 0.0 gal sparge @ 168.0 °F, 0.0 min; Sparge #1: 7.0 gal sparge @ 170.0 °F, 0.0 min; Total Runoff: 15.54 gal

[size=+1]Notes[/size]
Partigyle Yeah!

Water salts: 10grams CaCO3 (chalk), 10grams NaHCO3, 4 grams MgSO4

Profile:
Calcium Magnesium Sodium Chloride Sulfate Alkalinity
(Ca ppm) (Mg ppm) (Na ppm) (Cl ppm) (SO4 ppm) (CaCO3 ppm)
118 18 88 53 49 299

Residual Best for Chloride to Best for
Alkalinity this color Sulfate Ratio this style
204 22 to 27 SRM 1.07 Balanced

Measured high PH at first but just didn't mix salts into mash well enough. After mixing, tested 5.2-5.5 on colorpHast strips.
Mash temp ended up at 152.5F after a long dough ball stirring battle. Fell to about 149 at 60 min.
Collected about 8.5 gallons at 19 brix preboil.


[size=-1]Results generated by BeerTools Pro 1.5.3[/size]

Here is a great table from a great old magazine

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

Used to wait anxiously for my copies of Brewing Techniques to arrive.

Bobby_M said:

Yup, I just did this very thing. I made my mash thickness such that I'd derive all my RIS preboil volume from a straight draining of the mash. For me it was 1.65qt/lb. This is essentially a no sparge and in my two partigyles so far, 59/60% efficiency is the number. To figure the small beer, change the same recipe to 25% efficiency which gave me 1.041.

Click to expand...

Thanks Bobby! Don't you know, just before I read your numbers I found:

Randy Mosher said:

Batches split into two equal volumes have a different ratio: ~58% of the extract will be in the first half of the runoff and ~42% in the second half.

Click to expand...

What about the water for the second batch? Just like a giant sparge at 170F?

Thanks again,

-Joe

Ok, adjusting to 58% efficiency (I just learned Beersmith scales the recipe automatically, nice) we get:

I had to muck about with the specialty grains to keep the SRM close, which brings me to yet another question: only taking the first runnings will change the SRM of the final beer to be darker than the recipe anticipates, correct?

It may all be a moot point for this recipe however, because at 1.65 qt/lb...

-- WARNING: Estimated mash size: 14.47 gal greater than mash tun volume of 12.50 gal

Poop.

edit: I guess I could just do a small sparge to make up the extra couple of gallons I'd need for the boil. Would that really be different from starting with the whole volume in the mash?

-Joe

Yes, it will be a bit darker. (as if you could tell with a RIS)

A small sparge to make up the volume will work just fine.

Make the mash as thin as you can get it in your tun, then use a portion of the first sparge in your RIS. You might have to add a second sparge to make up the volume. One other thought is to back off the Roasted Barley to 1lb for the primary mash, then cap the mash with another 1/2 pound before adding the sparge. I noticed that my second runnings stout actually comes off a lot more like a Porter because it's not as roasty.

Sounds good guys. I'll let you know how it goes. Brewdate should be the middle of November.

Back to my last question: you don't need to do a second mash, since extraction and conversion took place already, right? Just sparge away for the second batch?

-Joe

Yes exactly. There's so much sugar left in the large grainbed that a sparge is enough for the small beer. Essentially you get a whole 1.040 batch for only adding like 5 extra pounds of malt than you normally would. Not only that, but you reduce the overall boil time by not having sparged for the big beer.

Awesome, looking forward to trying it.

Thanks again,

-Joe

Bobby is right on.... Your efficiency will be about 60% for the first beer and 25-30% for the second beer for 85-90% total efficiency. You can enter the big beer recipe in your software, duplicate the recipe, and then adjust the efficiency down to 25% to figure out the right hop additions in the partigyle to get the IBU:SG you want. Think of the batch as a batch sparged 10 gallon batch, where you split the first runnings into one kettle and then batch sparge into the second kettle.

Aside from capping the mash, you can also do a minimash with specialty grains, and use the partigyle runnings to sparge the minimash grains. I did this on a IIPA and created a 5 gallon smoked porter partigyle beer using ~3# of additional grains.

Saccharomyces said:

You can enter the big beer recipe in your software, duplicate the recipe, and then adjust the efficiency down to 25% to figure out the right hop additions in the partigyle to get the IBU:SG you want. Think of the batch as a batch sparged 10 gallon batch, where you split the first runnings into one kettle and then batch sparge into the second kettle.

Click to expand...

This is precisely what I did in Beersmith. Seems to have worked out properly. Besides my first parti-gyle, this will be far and away the biggest beer I've attempted. Should be a good time

-Joe

And if you don't quite get the OG you were hoping for on either batch, don't forget that you can dump a pound of table sugar in at the end of the boil with no real problem.

I'm planning something similar for my Thanksgiving day brew (Belgian Dark Strong and a Belgian Amber/Light). Never done a P.G. before, so I'm also trying to figure out the logistics. I've used the 58% efficiency for the first runnings, so seeing you guys discuss that here makes me feel good. What I've decided to do was to use one or two lbs. of DME to bump the numbers up for the second runnings. I found a site that has a good discussion, and also contains a spreadsheet here that helps with the calculations (note that they assume 60% eff. off the first runnings): http://www.antiochsudsuckers.com/tom/parti-gyle.htm

Saccharomyces said:

Bobby is right on.... Your efficiency will be about 60% for the first beer and 25-30% for the second beer for 85-90% total efficiency. You can enter the big beer recipe in your software, duplicate the recipe, and then adjust the efficiency down to 25% to figure out the right hop additions in the partigyle to get the IBU:SG you want. Think of the batch as a batch sparged 10 gallon batch, where you split the first runnings into one kettle and then batch sparge into the second kettle.

Aside from capping the mash, you can also do a minimash with specialty grains, and use the partigyle runnings to sparge the minimash grains. I did this on a IIPA and created a 5 gallon smoked porter partigyle beer using ~3# of additional grains.

Click to expand...

Assuming I'm normally getting a 70-75% eff on my regular brews with batch sparging, can I really expect to get up to 85% doing a partigyle? Is the extra efficiency coming from the large amount of water in the second sparge? I was thinking that I should assume a 55%/20% efficiency split for my system.

The reason why you get an efficiency boost is because the total wort derived to total grain bill is pretty high. Figure 28lbs in my case, then two 7 gallon runoff for each batch respectively. That's 2 lbs of grain for each gallon of preboil which is like a typical low gravity batch. If you normally get 70, I think 75% or 55/20 split is reasonable.