Making a young beer

[Byrdbrewer]

I'm fairly new to all grain brewing, I'm on batch 5. I have extract brewed for years so I understand the basic fundamentals of brewing. It seems that my brewing software greatly underestimates the efficiency of my equipment, and I tend to have about a gallon or so of wort left after my sparge. I batch sparge and my question is this.

Has anyone ever resparged a full 5 gallon batch out of already sparged grain? If so, any comments? I was thinking as long as you sparge right away while the grain is still hot from the mash out and sparge, you should still get residual sugars to at least make a small beer. Especially since my grain bill is usually about 20 lbs (I like big beers). Any thoughts?

I said young beer in the thread title, I meant small beer

 

[Kingbogart]

This is a semi-common practice. Research Parti-gyle. It's basically an old method of brewing. You would take a large grain bill, take the first runnings, and make that into say, an 8-10% beer. Second runnings become a 4-5%, third runnings a low 2-3% ish. Where Royalty gets the best first running beer, and commoners and field workers get the lowest.

 

[Hoppity]

Take a gravity reading. You may find there aren't enough sugars left, deepending on the efficiency of your mash. You could boil off the water to bring it back in line or add DME.

 

[Byrdbrewer]

Thanks kingbogart. That was quick

 

[Byrdbrewer]

Take a gravity reading. You may find there aren't enough sugars left, deepending on the efficiency of your mash. You could boil off the water to bring it back in line or add DME.

Thanks������

 

[Byrdbrewer]

Tomorrow is brew day. 19 lb grain bill, I'm going to try to make another batch off the same grain bill. Should I skip the sparge step and just add extra water to get my volume of first runnings? Then re-strike the second batch? I have my own thoughts, I would just like to see what others have to say..

 

[RM-MN]

Tomorrow is brew day. 19 lb grain bill, I'm going to try to make another batch off the same grain bill. Should I skip the sparge step and just add extra water to get my volume of first runnings? Then re-strike the second batch? I have my own thoughts, I would just like to see what others have to say..

The point of partigyle is to make the first beer with sufficient water so you get a decent amount of first runnings at the OG that you expect for your beer. Don't water it down. That goes into the first boil pot. Then you sparge with enough water for your second beer and that goes into the second boil pot. Still have a high enough amount of sugars in the mash? Do a third runnings for a small beer, then quit. Each time you sparge you reduce the amount of residual sugars and increase the pH and if you continue the pH will become high enough to extract the tannins. You're supposed to be making beer, not tea, so you don't want the tannins.

 

[IslandLizard]

The point of partigyle is to make the first beer with sufficient water so you get a decent amount of first runnings at the OG that you expect for your beer. Don't water it down. That goes into the first boil pot. Then you sparge with enough water for your second beer and that goes into the second boil pot. Still have a high enough amount of sugars in the mash? Do a third runnings for a small beer, then quit. Each time you sparge you reduce the amount of residual sugars and increase the pH and if you continue the pH will become high enough to extract the tannins. You're supposed to be making beer, not tea, so you don't want the tannins.

Although technically you can do "parti-gyling" that way, I've noticed the second and subsequent runnings to lack flavor and body, and not just because they are low gravity. I have not studied this scientifically, but I feel something is missing in them. I am suspecting the specialty grains give up their sugars and flavors quicker, so proportionally more of their contribution ends up in the first runnings, and less in later ones.

There's a real eyeopening article on parti-gyling in the Nov/Dec 2014 ed. of Zymurgy Magazine: Parti-Gyle: Debunking the Myths - Experimental, Extreme, Historic, and Specialty Brewing.

This is way beyond what most of us have mistakenly conceived of that process, and it makes a lot more sense now. I'd say using only the second runnings for a Mild is hereby debunked.

Traditionally developed in Great Britain, in short, they got several runnings at different gravities, as we can expect, which were blended in different proportions to create as many as 8 or even more different ales, all from the same, relatively small brewery.