First parti-gyle split batch, advice please

[mappler]

My exploration into all-grain brewing started with a talk given by the head brewer at Blue Mountain in Afton, VA describing their method for making their Dark Hollow / Local Species sister beers. Suitably inspired, I've been been all-grain brewing for several years in preparation for an homage to these beers.

I've designed the following two recipes / general plan. The first beer will be a Russian Imperial Stout, the second beer will be Belgian Strong Pale Ale. As with the Blue Mountain beers, I am going to age them back to back in the same oak whiskey barrel. I am not trying to make clones, just beers inspired by the originals. I've brewed a large beer in my equipment (12.5% Belgian Quad), but have not yet taken two runnings off the mash. I was curious to get any feedback on my plan from the many experts and experienced brewers here.

Mash Plan:
12 lbs Brewers Malt 2-row
12 lbs Pilsen Malt 2-row
1 lb Flaked Oats
2 lbs 3 oz Crystal Malt 60L

I plan to take a 50%-50% volume for the 1st and 2nd beers. I estimate the first beer OG to be 1.080. I estimate the second beer OG to be 1.058 given my expected efficiencies.

RIS:
Steep Black Barley and Roasted Barley for color.

Belgian:
Add some candy syrup at 10 minutes and hop accordingly. Thinking Columbus for bitter, Styrian Celeja for aroma, and maybe Cascade for dry hopping.

[NOTE: I've obviously omitted many steps here. I figure once I am in boil kettles things proceed as usual]

RIS will go into the barrel first. After racking out, the Belgian will follow.

Anything wrong with this plan?

Thank you,
-Matt

 

[vacuumcleanerbob]

I have done some parti-gyle beers. Are you planning on doing two separate mashes?

The biggest mistake I did with a parti-gyle was sparging with my first mash. Sparging at 170f stops the converting of sugars. I had stopped all of the sugars from doing their thing and the second runnings were sugarless minus the speciality grains I added for that specific brew..

 

[mappler]

My current plan was a single mash, and then sparge out. However, let me make sure I understand. You did one mash, empty to boil kettle, then refill with water at mash temp, go through a second mash, then empty to second boil kettle and sparge?

Note: I'm mashing in a 10 gallon igloo cooler.

 

[SnakeRidge]

I do this pretty regularly with a Barleywine/pale ale and RIS/Small Stout. I mash in a 10 gallon round water cooler.

I find that I get roughly 55% efficiency on the first run, 30% on the second. I do a 1/3, 2/3 split between the Big and the Little.

I mash, run that off and add 6 gals of water to runoff 6 gallons for the small beer (no more grain absorption, dead space loss with the second runnings).

Vacuum, the second runnings are just rinsing the sugar left in the mash after the first runnings are gone. There is no penalty for denaturing enzymes. The sugar is already there. The whole point of a partigyle is to get 2 beers without 2 mashes. The first run should not be sparged. The second runnings are the sparge.

 

[mappler]

Thank you Mr. Snake, this sounds like what I am planning on doing. I have some DME on hand should things go horribly wrong with the second beer. However, I'd prefer not to adjust it and just let things fall where they may.

-Matt

 

[SnakeRidge]

Thank you Mr. Snake, this sounds like what I am planning on doing. I have some DME on hand should things go horribly wrong with the second beer. However, I'd prefer not to adjust it and just let things fall where they may.

-Matt

Let it ride. That's what I do. Take measurements and you'll know better what to expect next time.

 

[mappler]

I brewed on a beautiful Sunday afternoon. Things went fairly well, and I learned a lot!

My gravity estimate (pre-boil gravity) for beer #1 was 1.090. It came out to 1.092. Pretty spot on.

My gravity estimate (pre-boil) for beer #2 was 1.060. It was 1.038. A little lower than planned, but not bad at all.

LESSON #1: I could have blended a little to adjust this, and in the future I may do just that. I had around 13 gallons of wort in 2 kettles at this point and could have easily worked a swap that would have minimally affected the big beer and significantly raised the small beer.

LESSON #2: My 10 gallon igloo cooler can hold 7.5 gallons of water and 27 pounds of grain with no problems! Holy cow was it full.

LESSON #3: When emptying that cooler at the end, it is easy to dump the whole thing on your front lawn. Be careful.

LESSON #4: Pre-boil gravity is not post boil gravity. Oh...how did I mess this up.... I know this, and this is not hard, but I totally used my target OG into the fermenter as my target gravity out of the mash tun. Rookie mistake [facepalm]. Oops.

LESSON #5: Since I didn't adjust the wort gravities and I made the mistake above, the Russian Imperial may be a tad too strong. This may give me problems with attenuation. This is a very high starting gravity. I used a double pitch of WLP-013. I'm not sure it will make it to the end. This may be a problem I have to deal with.

-Matt

 

[Jwin]

I did a kate the great clone followed by a pale ale.
I have a 22g Coleman. 11g batches.
I setup beersmith for 14g, no sparge to keep of in check.
I collected a gallon and a half or so at 30 min and mashed/steeped my roasted grains in it in a bucket.(only base and Cry malt in mash tun).
At 60, I drained the tun into BK 1, setting aside 3g for the second beer.
Combined roasted wort with wort 1 for KTG. Added 9g sparge water, drained and combined with the 3g saved for wort 2.
Worked great.
It's ideal to save some wort for the second/third brews from the first runnings for body, so I've read.

 

[mappler]

Jwin,
I steeped my roasted grains as well, but in the full kettle of the imperial stout. I did the same as you and had only base malt and crystal (as well as some flaked oats) in the mash tun. Seemed to work great. I like the idea of holding back some of the first runnings for the second beer. That seems to make a lot of sense. I will do that next time.

 

[mappler]

While typing in my last post, I realize my RIS is fixable right now. I'm going to dilute in 1 gallon of water. This should take my OG down to 1.096, a much more manageable number for WLP013 to handle. I need to remember my lessons from extract brewing. Blowoff could be interesting on this batch. I should have an extra gallon that won't get barrel aged though for taste testing.

-Matt

 

[JKaranka]

I brewed on a beautiful Sunday afternoon. Things went fairly well, and I learned a lot!

My gravity estimate (pre-boil gravity) for beer #1 was 1.090. It came out to 1.092. Pretty spot on.

My gravity estimate (pre-boil) for beer #2 was 1.060. It was 1.038. A little lower than planned, but not bad at all.

LESSON #1: I could have blended a little to adjust this, and in the future I may do just that. I had around 13 gallons of wort in 2 kettles at this point and could have easily worked a swap that would have minimally affected the big beer and significantly raised the small beer.

LESSON #2: My 10 gallon igloo cooler can hold 7.5 gallons of water and 27 pounds of grain with no problems! Holy cow was it full.

LESSON #3: When emptying that cooler at the end, it is easy to dump the whole thing on your front lawn. Be careful.

LESSON #4: Pre-boil gravity is not post boil gravity. Oh...how did I mess this up.... I know this, and this is not hard, but I totally used my target OG into the fermenter as my target gravity out of the mash tun. Rookie mistake [facepalm]. Oops.

LESSON #5: Since I didn't adjust the wort gravities and I made the mistake above, the Russian Imperial may be a tad too strong. This may give me problems with attenuation. This is a very high starting gravity. I used a double pitch of WLP-013. I'm not sure it will make it to the end. This may be a problem I have to deal with.

-Matt

Blending is typical of parti-gyle because of the gravity differences. Swapping a gallon across would have significantly strengthened the weaker wort and brought the strong one down a bit. Plus nothing stops you blending post boil and making a third or fourth beer from it either (which is the typical parti-gyle from the XIXth century still practiced).

 

[mappler]

I'm not sure I understand what you are saying. Take wort post-boil from #1 and #2 and make a blend of those to for a beer #3 / #4 etc.?

 

[JKaranka]

If you have 5 gallons of 1.090 and 5 gallons of 1.040 (post boil), you could have any combination of beers with those 10 gallons, such as

#beer 1: 1 gallon of 1.090
#beer 2: 4 gallons of 1.077
#beer 3: 4 gallons of 1.052
#beer 4: 1 gallon of 1.040

By doing a parti-gyle you can even hit post-boil OG every-time, so it used to be a very handy way of dealing with beer taxation back in the day when taxation was different for beers above and below certain gravities in Britain.

PS: obviously, what you will not get are constant 5 gallon batches.

 

[mappler]

That makes a lot of sense. Thank you very much for your clear explanations. I liked brewing this way, and I really like the idea of being able to hit OG every time.

I often brew with a group of local homebrewers in my neighborhood. This seems like a good methodology for some collaborative brewing as well to deal with different mash efficiencies.

-Matt

 

[mappler]

Quick update on my brewing fun. The Russian Imperial Stout was racked into a 5-gallon bourbon barrel last night. Beer #2 is waiting patiently next to it for its turn in the barrel. Both beers have fermented out nicely.

I did end up diluting down the RIS in the fermenter at the start. I had 5.5 gallons, and diluted it down with water to 6.4 gallons. It blew off a SOLID 1 gallon of wort over the next 3 days. The kitchen smelled great!

The RIS tastes fantastic. FG out of the fermenter is 1.022, which I am very happy with. Lots of chocolate notes coming through right now (warm and flat).

-Matt