Parti-gyle brews, does this sound right?

[justbrewit]

ok, so heres my plan. i'm going to make a trio of beers at the same time using the parti-gyle system. i'm keeping it simple, no specialty grains, just pale malt. 35lbs 2 row pale malt, 3 or 4 different types of hops and 3 different yeast types or a triple large starter. i'm going to put this in my 2 plastic bucket mash tuns, mash with 1qt water per pound of grain, that will give me about 6 1/2 to 7 gallons for my first beer(ipa?), then while that one is on the fire, i'll start my sparge for the next brew(pale ale?) and once that one is on the fire, do my last sparge to collect the weak runnings for a small beer, maybe 1.030 og? does that sound about right?

Questions:
should i remash while i'm doing the first brew? i've heard 2 different sides from this question. i've heard that yes i should and i've heard that there is no reason to remash since all the starch should have been converted in the initial mash. what say you guys

should i use the same hops for all 3 beers and just adjust the amount of hops that i use for each beer? or should i use 3 different types of hops and try and make them as different as i can by changing the hops used.

same yeasts or 3 different yeasts? almost the same question as above but with yeast instead.

i'm getting ready to try this real soon, any answers/opinions are welcome.

i'm also thinking about doing this with a wheat beer as well. i want to try and make kind of like an ipa wheat, pale wheat and small wheat. i've been wanting to try playing with hoping rates in wheat beers. i'm a hop head and i love wheat beers. any comments on that are welcome as well

thanks for looking

 

[big supper]

Are you using North American 2-row or a British variety? A big beer with no specialty grains would need Marris Otter in my opinion.

 

[justbrewit]

because i'm poor, i'll be using american 2 row. being as its $1.19 a lb, thats what i'll be using.

 

[BigKahuna]

I'd be tempted to add some Vienna or Cara-Pills to the second batch. That will cost about a dollar for 1/2# and might add just a little something extra. My other Great Idea is to add about $.75 worth of Chocolate Malt to the last batch. It's going to give a nice dark color, but will be deceiving as it will still be a nice light crisp beer.
If You're that broke...talk your LHBS into letting you have the grain for an hours worth of bottle washing or something.

 

[justbrewit]

If You're that broke...talk your LHBS into letting you have the grain for an hours worth of bottle washing or something.

tried that already lol he has someone who comes in to help already, i was going to tell him that i'll work PT if i could get paid in supplies lol

i'm only broke right now cause i had to fix my car and that put me behind, but i have 3 checks coming up in one month so i'll be happily brewing very soon

i wanted to do this one with out any thing but the malt so that i can get a good feel for the flavor of the malt i've been using to see if i should upgrade to MO or some thing just a bit more pricey

 

[BigKahuna]

i wanted to do this one with out any thing but the malt so that i can get a good feel for the flavor of the malt i've been using to see if i should upgrade to MO or some thing just a bit more pricey

That IS a good idea. Do a big'ol mash, do 3 beers with different hops...you'll get a nice feel for the hops as well.

 

[justbrewit]

thats what i was thinkin too. all of my finishing hops will be willamette(baught a half pound a little bit ago) and i have 2 other types of hops waiting in the freeze. i'll use the high alpha hops for the IPA, the med alpha hops for the PA and then nothing but willamette for the small beer. i'll be using 2 bottling buckets with grain bags for my mash tuns so that i can mash 30 lbs of grain all at once, i'll collect the runnings from both for all 3 beers. i've been thinking about this for a while and i'm thinking its going to work pretty good.

 

[salzar]

35lb in a bucket, probably wont fit. The addition of water it would have to be realy thick. The grain will absorb about 4.5 gallons of water, so will atleast need the first sparge to get enough gallons of runoff for the IPA. Though if we are thinking of the same Ale pale style buckets, I belive you will have a logestics problem of mashing that much grain.

 

[justbrewit]

this is going to be split between 2 buckets, one 6.5 gal and another 7 gal bottling bucket with a grain bag. i have already put 16lbs of grain into my bucket and just did a thick mash 1qt per lb. worked out really well. i've been doing it this way since i started AG and haven't had a problem. its a pretty thick mash but it works well with my ghetto system. i can get atleast 32 lbs of grain in 2 buckets. i've been thinking about that, i figured i'd have to cut the grains down to between 30 and 32 lbs in order to get this to work. i'm trying to make sure that i have enough grains for 3, 5 gallon batches of beer. i think i'll be ok with 30 lbs. 35 might be pushing my system to the max and then some lol. although i do have a 10 gallon fermenter that could use a drain in it lol, but the grain bags would not be tall enough, i'd have to make some sort of false bottom and right now i can't do that.

 

[salzar]

When you said 2 bucket mash system, I was thinking two buckets stuck inside each other one with holes to act as a false bottom. Sounds like a good plan, to run each mash thick for each sparge, it should keep the boil off needs down. How are your buckets used for mash tuns? Just the simple Grain bag and a spigot or something more complicated?

 

[justbrewit]

thats my system, 2 grain bags and 2 bottling buckets with spigots at the bottom. its been working really well so far. i just wrap the buckets with towels(3 each) wrap em tight to keep the heat in, dough in with 170 degree water, sits at about 152 for an hour and sparge. thats a normal brew day, this time i'll drain both buckets into one batch to make my big beer, fill both buckets when i get done and sparge both for the next batch and the same with the final batch. i've been thinking this through for a while now, sure my brew day is about to get really long but hey, thats what weekends are for!!!!

 

[camiller]

This sounds like a great plan. I think I would use different hops and the same yeast.

 

[justbrewit]

i'm starting to think the same thing, i already have 3 types of hops. all of the brews are going to get the same aroma hops and one of the brews(small beer) is going to get aroma hops as the bittering hops as well. i'll have to look and see what hops i have at home, i'll post that later so that you guys can see what hops are being used.

 

[BadKarma]

Something like this has been rattling around in my head for awhile too. But I was going to take it in a bit of a different direction. I was thinking of a 5G wee heavy and then run off a short 3G brown. I was thinking that by just running off 3 gallons would keep everything a bit more concentrated and give me something I can work with.

Hats off to ya justbrewit, 3 brews at once, good luck brother.

 

[King of Cascade]

You'll be surprised how much the gravity drops off after your first batch. It sounds like you're going to do this regardless of what I say so just expect a high O.G. for the first (1.100) and a low second (1.030). Maybe be prepared to add extract to the second batch or blend some back.

 

[BadKarma]

King, was that directed at me?