2 Beers from one mash

I have read that historically there have been systems that will collect roughly the first runoff for a stronger brew, and then sparge for another quaffable brew. I may try this soon but am wondering what the opinions around here are at to what stle(s) lend them selves to that. Imperial Stout and a light porter/brown ale?
Has here anyone done this before?

I do batch sparging by the same method but I mix the wort in one brew.

It'd be interesting to see how they turn out.

Very classic would be a barleywine or strong ale and then a bitter.

Try to find some anchor beers to get an idea, they make their Small Beer from the second runnings of their Old Foghorn barleywine.

The reason that this was done. Is that the water supply wasn't good for your health to drink. When they boiled the beer it would kill all the bad things in the water that would kill you. They did a second run off of the beer and it was less potint and after boiling and fermentaion was safe to drink. The second run off was given to children usally. This goes back to collenal times as well as midevil times.

Happy brewing!

I sometimes brew an imperial IPA and an english bitter.

The original batch sparging. Three runnings were also common; yielding a barleywine, a porter or brown and a small beer. I've done a barleywine and a Brown. Might do another in 2007 or 2008, whenever the 2003 Old Bog Water blows.

Was the colonial 'small beer' fermented at all, or just a sweet soft drink?

casebrew said:

Was the colonial 'small beer' fermented at all, or just a sweet soft drink?

Click to expand...

It was fermented like a normal beer.
Fermenting the first and second runoff separately is called party-gyle.

I'm thinking about doing a Poor Richard's and a small beer, but it will have to wait until the Schwarzbier is done. I am not going to buy a fourth fermenter.

I've been thinking about this, once I get the IPA brewed. I wouldn't mind trying a barleywine, and I could use something small around (like a bitter). Think this is a plan for when it's freezing and I want to brew inside. Have a couple small fermenters that do me no good empty, I'll make something that can age for a while and something that doesn't need to secondary.

Good info here:

http://brewingtechniques.com/library/backissues/issue2.2/mosher.html
http://brewingtechniques.com/library/backissues/issue2.2/moshertable.html
http://www.picobrewery.com/askarchive/parti-gyle.htm

Here is a good link to what you are looking for it is called the SWIG method.
http://www.strangebrew.ca/swig/