Session beers with 5 gallon mash tun

[MirImage]

Wife and I recently ran into the problem of kicking our kegs and missing out on our "pipeline". We moved so brewing was on hold for a bit and we didn't realized our three kegs were about to kick.

We do AG in an apartment with a 5gallon igloo mashtun. I've only used this mashtun once before and I was able to get 13 lbs of grain with 1.2qt/lb ratio doing batch sparges.

Now finally to the question: Would we be able to get two session beers from one mash? I would like to try a full boil of two 5 gallon batches, split them into two fermenters and use two different yeasts. My worry is pulling off ~12-13 gallons is way too much and would lead to astringency.

Any suggestions on working around this? I don't mind adding DME if need be. Our goal is to get two beers done in a brew day without two mashes. With summer ahead we have a lot time out of town so brew days are limited.

Also if anyone has done something like this, I don't mind hearing any recipes.

Cheers

 

[wilserbrewer]

I doubt you can pull 13 gallons from a 5 gallon MT.

I think you will need two mashes? If you intend to boil 5, then boil another 5, doing two mashes doesn't take any longer.

If you want to boil both 5 gallon batches simultaneously, perhaps use your MT and BIAB the second batch with a paint strainer bag.

Or mash the second batch in a kettle or bucket, and transfer to your MT.

Or mash the first batch overnight, and get busy with the second mash first thing in the morning.

Or make one AG batch and one extract partial boil, hop bursted w/ a 20 minute boil...that will get the pipeline back w/ minimal effort.

 

[kingwood-kid]

You can mash batch 2 while you boil batch 1. You get all the beer of two batches, but there's maybe 1.5 hours saved. I've done this several times for time scarcity reasons. But if you want to do it like you said: If you sparge like nuts, 75% efficiency is achievable, which along with 3lbs DME, would give you an 11 gallon batch at 1.043 or thereabouts; you'd have to mix the runnings altogether and stir thouroughly to get two equal batches.

Given that you'd have identical grain bills but want two beers, the question is how you would make them differ. You can cap the second runnings with some specialty grains, although that would mean you couldn't mix to achieve equal strengths. Fine if you wanted, for example, an ESB and a Mild. I suppose you could get around that by steeping some specialty grains separately. You can change the amount and type of DME/sugar/Candi-sugar you add. Hop amounts/times/varieties can be changed. Yeast can change. Secondary additions (fruit, spice, wood, brett...) can differ. I've done a number of single-mash split recipes that varied at almost every point. I don't have a specific recipe for you, but it's such an adaptable process that you can make an enormous variety of beers with it, assuming some broad similarity in grain bills.

 

[Setesh]

You can mash batch 2 while you boil batch 1.

This is what I always do. I do three batches every time I brew. While first is boiling I'm mashing next one, while first is cooling I'm pulling first runnings/sparging the next one. Repeat. Works great!

 

[MirImage]

Okay I think I may just mash one while I am boiling the 1st. I heat up my strike water on the stove so this should work.

That ks guys

 

[Setesh]

I do the same thing. The night before I brew I measure out my mash and sparge water for each batch and label them. The mash water for the first batch goes into a kettle and everything else goes into better bottles for this. I wrap aluminum foil over the neck of each better bottle and put the lid on the kettle and then hit the sack. In the morning I turn on the stove and get everything else laid out for the brew day while the strike water is heating. My grain is always stored in the same place in my room so is always +/- 1 degree of 70 so I don't have to do any volume or temp calculations on brew day, just pour and heat to the temp I wrote on the label the night before. Yeah, I'm a nerd....big whoop you wanna fight about it?