Trying an English Sparge

Finally getting my AG setup put together and for the first brew we are going to try making two beers, one being a small beer. My brewing partner has done some PMs before but never a full AG. We thought about just making 10 gallons to split between us but then decided that we actually wanted two different beers. Kind of like what Anchor does, they use their mash from their Barleywine to make Anchor Small Beer.

My understanding is that English sparging is a lot like doing a batch sparge but the second runnings become your second beer. We don't really want to do a barleywine (I don't want to have to wait a year to drink, already have a strong Belgian that will not be ready for some time).

The plan we are thinking of is to have enough grains in the mash to use 7.5 gallons of water, then drain it off completely into Kettle 1 and then do the second "batch" sparge with 7.5 gallons and drain into kettle 2 for the small beer. Is this feasible, will we extract enough sugars in the first mash to make a legit beer and will we get enough in the 2nd sparge to make a light bodied small beer?

Has anyone tried this and is it even feasible? Any information would be greatly appreciated.

I think what you are referring to is also known as a Parti-gyle. One of the members of my club does this and has some good information here.

Your first beer has to be big as your second runnings will be about half the gravity of your first runnings. Your other option is to add DME to the second beer to bring the gravity up.
Otherwise if you can boil 2 worts at the same time it sounds good.
Craig

Another alternative is to mash/sparge per your plan, then mix back and forth until you have the gravities where you want them. I typically shoot for three equal runnings and the sugars work out 50%, 33%, 16%.

I used the information that jdoiv provided for my last batch which was a parti-gyle.

I was going with the author's notion that you would normally get a 60/40% split (meaning 60% of the sugars will wind up in the first runnings and 40% in the second) but I found it more along the lines of 70/30.

A tip that another club member gave me is similar to david_42's in that he would take the first runnings and second runnings, then swap a gallon between the two to even the gravities out more. I wish I had thought to do this, but my strong dark ended up at 1.114 while the Belgian Pale was at 1.045.

Will this be the first AG for the both of you?

My friends and I just did our second AG last weekend and we're set up for batch sparging. Given my experience, if this is your first AG, I think you might be best to do a few "normal" batch sparges first just to keep it simple and to dial in your system (evaporation, mash water temp, etc).

Do you have two burners so you can do both boils at the same time? If not that's going to add a lot of time to your brew day. I know that we're going to get more effecient with our time, and won't have to do some of the one-time gear prep that we ended up doing on brew day, but our first two AG sessions were long enough as it was without having to do two consecutive boils.

That said, we definitely intend on doing partigyles once we have everything running smoothly.

Another way to get two "different" beers would be to do a 10 gal batch and ferment in two 6.5 carboys or buckets. Then you could experiment with one, say by adding fruit or something, and leave the other "normal". This should add appreciably to your brew day, since you'd likely add the fruit in secondary.

Wow , thanks jdoiv. That link has tons of information regarding this style of brewing.

PseudoChef said:

A tip that another club member gave me is similar to david_42's in that he would take the first runnings and second runnings, then swap a gallon between the two to even the gravities out more. I wish I had thought to do this, but my strong dark ended up at 1.114 while the Belgian Pale was at 1.045.

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PseudoChef Thanks, that is a great tip and we will probably do this.

Moonpile, yes this is both of ours first AG, I realize that it is better to take a safer or more normal route for our first few batches, but as with everything I do I would rather just dive right in. And yes I have dual burners, they put out 30,000 btu’s each. Since this is my first AG I have never done a full boil (just 2-4 gallons for extract brewing) on the burners, not sure how long it will take to get 7 gallons to boil. I did see a banjo burner at a friend’s house that I may have to use.

My first AG was a PG and it was wonderful.

Even though you have 2 burners, I would suggest staggering your boils by 30 minutes or so. It'll keep things from getting too hectic. I would probably agree with the above comment that it is a lot to do for your first AG, but since your doing this with a brew buddy, I think it will be fine. Just make a solid plan and discuss it with your partner before getting started. Good luck!