2 beers out of 1 mash/boil

[bobeer]

My wife's bday is coming up in early Nov and she's requested a batch of homebrew as one of her gifts. She likes IPAs and Pale ales but she's nursing so these beers can only have a max abv of 5.5% or so. She only requested a half batch, 2.5-3.5 gallons, since it will take her a long time to drink them all since she can only have 1 beer when she can drink.

So, I'm thinking what if I do a regular size, 5-6 gallon, and make 2 beers out of the boil- one for her and one for me. What if I did a regular 60 min boil then racked and cooled half of it and treated it like a pale ale then continued to boil and add hops to the other half and make an IPA? I'm not sure how the bittering addition would work since an APA is less bitter than an IPA. Could I just hop it like an APA and then add more hops at the 60 min mark and boil for 90 minutes? I'm wondering if it would add enough bitterness to make it a more IPA feel. I could always boil it longer than 90 minutes too. I'm sure it's possible to do something like this I just wanted to bring it up and see what ideas you all come up with.

 

[bobeer]

Bump. Anyone??

 

[wobrien]

I was just thinking about this same thing because I want to try making my first sour.

What I'm considering is doing one big mash, then splitting the mash into two smaller pots to do two separate boils. That way I can use one grain bill/mash schedule but two different hop schedules.

 

[BigPerm]

I've done exactly what you describe several times. I usually do it with 10 gallons, but that's just my set up. As an example, in a recent batch, we made one batch of wort (Brown ale), drained off half for the Oud Bruin, brought the rest back up to a boil, added late hops and fermented as an american brown.

Absolutely no harm to what you're describing, and variety is the spice of life. Brew on!

 

[NTXBrauer]

What you want to do is a parti-gyle. This way, you can have a heavier beer for your #1, and the #2 for your wife will be lower in ABV. This is done with separating the mash out into 2 separate boil kettles, which allows you to manage different hop additions for both. Cheers!

Here is some good information on the process:

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/wiki/index.php/Parti-gyle

 

[NTexBrewer]

It should work.

Here are a couple calculators you can use to help get an idea of your IBU's and the boil off of the IPA to get the ABV you are looking for.


http://www.brewersfriend.com/ibu-calculator/

http://www.brewersfriend.com/dilution-and-boiloff-gravity-calculator/

 

[wobrien]

I just realized that we are assuming he is brewing all-grain. If he is, partigyle is a great suggestion, but if brewing extract, he'll have to do two separate boils, obviously.

Edit: nevermind, it says mash right in the title. I second the vote for partigyle.

Carry on.

 

[bobeer]

Thanks folks!

I've done a partygyle before and the 2nd runnings was very low in gravity. I was making an american strong ale so there was plenty of grain to go around. The strong ale came out great so I don't believe it was an efficiency issue but you never know. I can mill my own grains at home now so maybe I should make the crush a little finer?
I sort of dig the 2 pot idea after collecting all the wort. Seems like a more sure-fire way to get 2 good beers out of the 1 mash. I'll have to decide what I want to do... :cross:

 

[Joe9216]

you can always just do about a 4gal boil, hop and make the gravity to your liking, then split off her batch and add top off water to dilute both the ibu's and gravity down to her level and keep your high gravity high hop beer. of course i am an extract brewer atm so this is how ive split 2 beers per batch and have had good results.

 

[Krid]

I love doing partiglyes and split mashes. My excuse was always to make 2.5 gallons (1 case) of something strong enough that I don't necessarily want to have on tap which I can bottle and age, and then get 5 gallons of more reasonable ABV keg bait.

I don't know if you keg or not, but it sounds like you could do kind of an opposite partigyle. Plan for 7.5 gallons of finished product and take enough first runnings to make a standard 5 gallon batch, then use the small second runnings for your lower octane brew.

Or depending on how big your mash tun is you could probably make ten gallons and divide the first runnings and second running right in half. First half for you, second half for the missus.

...just some ideas...

 

[bobeer]

Thanks! I do keg so that's a good idea too. Her bday is Nov 2nd so I really don't have time to bottle condition her beer so I'll probably either end up kegging both beers or force carb hers and bottle from the keg. I've never bottled from a keg before but it seems pretty straight forward.

Thanks everyone for the good ideas.

 

[JayDubWill]

Thanks! I do keg so that's a good idea too. Her bday is Nov 2nd so I really don't have time to bottle condition her beer so I'll probably either end up kegging both beers or force carb hers and bottle from the keg. I've never bottled from a keg before but it seems pretty straight forward.

Thanks everyone for the good ideas.

Bottleing from the keg is tricky. I've done it a couple times and end up with a quarter of the beer in the overflow bucket. Do bottle over a bucket, bin, or something because the beer will inevitable foam and flow out the top. A beer gun would be the way to go, but a bottling wand and a stopper can do in a pinch; not to mention easier on the wallet. Chilling your bottles helps too. As well as having only a couple PSI on the keg. It's slow going but much less foam.

As far as your original quation...there are some great suggestions here but I like to keep it simple. If you can split the batch into two boils then go for it. Boil off is a concern if you don't plan for it. Another method would be to boil the pale ale, cool, rack her half off, bring back to boil and do a hop stand with 2-3 oz of whatever IPA style hop you have.

 

[feinbera]

You also don't need to split the partigyled batches exactly along the lines of first runnings vs. sparge, especially if your IPA doesn't need to be insanely strong. Reserve half or three quarters of a gallon of the first runnings for the APA, to make sure it doesn't come out too thin, and throw some of the sparge runnings into the IPA to bring it up to volume and down out of imperial gravity range. I'm planning a ~10% imperial stout/~4% dry stout along these lines, and, well, even at my lousy 70% efficiency, the numbers work on paper, although I guess you never really know until brew day...

 

[stu4stew]

Just dry hop the hell out of half the batch

 

[JKaranka]

A typical thing to do with a traditional partigyle is two boils. The second runnings are boiled longer to bring their abv up. Then, you do NOT make one beer with the first boil and another with the second boil, but you use a portion of each boil in each beer. You could end up with two boils of 7.5 gallons each, and then use the total 15 gallons to produce three 5 gallon fermenters with different proportions of first and second running boils. In the simpler case of two boils for two fermenters you might want to use 2/3 of first runnings and 1/3 of second runnings for the stronger beer and 1/3 of first runnings and 2/3 of second runnings for the weaker beer. That way the two beers are more balanced and of reasonable gravity (you don't end up with a barleywine and a table wine, but, for example, with a porter and a stout, or an AK and an IPA). Also, you can give more complexity to the beers by using sugar additions or different hop additions in the boils.

Partigyling is also very useful as it allows you to pretty much always hit your OG by blending the multiple boils in the fermenters...

 

[bobeer]

A typical thing to do with a traditional partigyle is two boils. The second runnings are boiled longer to bring their abv up. Then, you do NOT make one beer with the first boil and another with the second boil, but you use a portion of each boil in each beer. You could end up with two boils of 7.5 gallons each, and then use the total 15 gallons to produce three 5 gallon fermenters with different proportions of first and second running boils. In the simpler case of two boils for two fermenters you might want to use 2/3 of first runnings and 1/3 of second runnings for the stronger beer and 1/3 of first runnings and 2/3 of second runnings for the weaker beer. That way the two beers are more balanced and of reasonable gravity (you don't end up with a barleywine and a table wine, but, for example, with a porter and a stout, or an AK and an IPA). Also, you can give more complexity to the beers by using sugar additions or different hop additions in the boils.

Partigyling is also very useful as it allows you to pretty much always hit your OG by blending the multiple boils in the fermenters...

Good to know, thanks. For some reason I just always assumed you used the first runnings for the stronger beer and the 2nd for the weaker beer. It makes sense though as to why you wouldn't want to limit yourself to that. I guess the easiest way to tell if you're hitting your numbers by blending would be to have a refractometer so you don't have to take big samples of wort over and over again.

 

[Owly055]

Consider using DME or corn sugar to raise the OG on your half, and a hop shot to up the IBUs on her IPA. Pour hers off into a separate kettle to chill, adding the hop shot at the same time. Add DME or corn sugar to the remainder, keeping it hot until you are ready to chill it also.

H.W.

 

[feinbera]

I guess the easiest way to tell if you're hitting your numbers by blending would be to have a refractometer so you don't have to take big samples of wort over and over again.

Once you've measured the gravity of the original runnings, you can just take a weighted average of the two to calculate the gravity of the blend.

For example, let's say your first runnings are 1.080, and your second runnings are 1.040...

Three gallons of first runnings @ 1.080 and 1 gallon of second runnings @ 1.040
= ((3 gallons x 80 points) + (1 gallon x 40 points)) / 4 gallons total
= (240 + 40) / 4
= 70 = 1.070 final blended gravity

 

[bobeer]

Consider using DME or corn sugar to raise the OG on your half, and a hop shot to up the IBUs on her IPA. Pour hers off into a separate kettle to chill, adding the hop shot at the same time. Add DME or corn sugar to the remainder, keeping it hot until you are ready to chill it also.

H.W.

I think corn sugar would dry out the beer too much. DME might be the way to go if I need to boost the gravity. Thanks!

 

[bobeer]

Once you've measured the gravity of the original runnings, you can just take a weighted average of the two to calculate the gravity of the blend.

For example, let's say your first runnings are 1.080, and your second runnings are 1.040...

Three gallons of first runnings @ 1.080 and 1 gallon of second runnings @ 1.040
= ((3 gallons x 80 points) + (1 gallon x 40 points)) / 4 gallons total
= (240 + 40) / 4
= 70 = 1.070 final blended gravity

aahh. I see, I see. This is good to know. Thanks!

 

[MichaelBrock]

I'm going to be brewing two beers (a Berliner Weisse and a Saison) this coming weekend. I didn't want the hassle and seeming uncertainty of the partigyle process so instead I'm going to mash & sparge as normal, combining the runnings. I'll end up with roughly 28l of 1.060 wort. Then I'm going to take 10l of that, add to it 10l of water to get 1.030 wort for my no-boil Berliner. The rest I'll add additional water to go get the pre-boil 1.040 wort I'll need for the Saison.

 

[bobeer]

I'm going to be brewing two beers (a Berliner Weisse and a Saison) this coming weekend. I didn't want the hassle and seeming uncertainty of the partigyle process so instead I'm going to mash & sparge as normal, combining the runnings. I'll end up with roughly 28l of 1.060 wort. Then I'm going to take 10l of that, add to it 10l of water to get 1.030 wort for my no-boil Berliner. The rest I'll add additional water to go get the pre-boil 1.040 wort I'll need for the Saison.

Nice! Let me know how it came out. I'm still deciding how I'm going to do this.

 

[MichaelBrock]

Nice! Let me know how it came out. I'm still deciding how I'm going to do this.

It worked out well! I somehow managed to come up 1l short on the wort collected but that's not an issue with the technique, just my inattention. I'm a bit surprised we don't see this practice more often (or maybe it is so common that it doesn't bear mentioning). Dilution is an exact process.

I now have 20l of Berlinner Weisse souring, and 19.5l of Saison chugging away, from 27l (should have been 28l) of runnings.