Parti-Gyle Water Calculation Help

[Stovetop535]

I have a parti-gyle recipe I want to try from a book. I am trying to calcualte water volumes based off of what is given to me and my calculations are not adding up.

Beer 1 is a 5 gallon recipe, 31bs of grain, 90 min mash collecting 8 gallons pre boil followed by a 120 min boil

Og: 1.123
Fg: 1.034
11.7 ABV

Beer 2 is a 6.5 gallon recipe adding 1.75lbs grain to previous mash, 30 min steep and collecting 7.5 gallons pre boil followed by 75 min boil.

Og: 1.046
Fg: 1.012
4.5 ABV

I feel like I am making the calculations much more complicated than they should be. If anyone can assist I would greatly appreciate it.

Thanks
Alex

 

[JKaranka]

That is a second runnings beer not a partigyle (which would blend boils). A partigyle would make two or more beers by blending those two runnings and boils in the FVs.

 

[Stovetop535]

I thought that the blending was optional and the main purpose of the partigyle was creating 2 beers from one mash? That seems to be what Strong is intending, the recipe came from his book, Brewing Better Beer. According to him partigyles can either be blended or they can be strictly first and second runnings to create 2 separate beers. Is this not the case?

 

[JKaranka]

It's a tad more complicated. With a partigyle what you do is one mash and each of the runnings is boiled separately. Then the worts are blended in different proportions to produce a number of beers (not necessarily the same quantities of each). For example, you might want to produce all your stouts out of one single mash. You could end up with 10% of your final product being RIS, 30% a double stout and the remaining 60% a single stout.

For example, Fullers partigyle London Pride, Chiswick Bitter and ESB. They all come from the same mash but the boils have different hopping and the blends each contain different proportions of each of the worts. If they did NOT partigyle, they would end up with a very strong beer and a very weak beer (first and second running beers). The whole point of partigyling is that they can produce a range of more moderate products. It also allows you to control the OG of each beer accurately as you just blend the right amount of each wort (for which you know the gravity when you blend).

Btw, partigyling does not mean that you end up with equal amounts of each beer. As you are fixing the OG of each fermentor you are keeping the volume as a dependent variable. The best use would be using one or two one gallon demijohns to produce a strong beer (of mainly boiled first running wort) and then two fermenters for the rest.

 

[motobrewer]

That is a second runnings beer not a partigyle (which would blend boils). A partigyle would make two or more beers by blending those two runnings and boils in the FVs.

i don't understand. if you're "blending the runnings" you're just making beer the "regular" way.

my understanding was that a "second runnings" beer is exactly the definition of parti-gyling.

 

[motobrewer]

It's a tad more complicated. With a partigyle what you do is one mash and each of the runnings is boiled separately. Then the worts are blended in different proportions to produce a number of beers (not necessarily the same quantities of each). For example, you might want to produce all your stouts out of one single mash. You could end up with 10% of your final product being RIS, 30% a double stout and the remaining 60% a single stout.

For example, Fullers partigyle London Pride, Chiswick Bitter and ESB. They all come from the same mash but the boils have different hopping and the blends each contain different proportions of each of the worts. If they did NOT partigyle, they would end up with a very strong beer and a very weak beer (first and second running beers). The whole point of partigyling is that they can produce a range of more moderate products. It also allows you to control the OG of each beer accurately as you just blend the right amount of each wort (for which you know the gravity when you blend).

so, that's fine, but i don't think the final product(s) necessarily need to be blended to call it parti-gyling.

For example, I've made 5 gallons of 10% RIS and with the second runnings got 5 gallons of a 1.040 stout.

 

[JKaranka]

The 10% meant the volume of output that is RIS. So you are producing very little RIS but a lot of double and single stout (which is what your customers tend to consume anyway).

In a single gyle beer all the first running and second running wort are boiled together and you produce one single beer. In partigyling you are blending the different worts after boiling in any proportions you deem fit to produce a range of beers.

 

[JKaranka]

Not sure if this is falling into place, but if you have one single mash, with a five gallon running at 1.090 and another five gallon running at 1.040, you could pour the worts into ten one gallon demijohns to produce ten different beers in the whole range from 1.090 and 1.040. That's quite a lot of variety for a single day of brewing, plus you can dry hop each of them differently or add invert sugar to the demijohns (for example to raise the gravity of the weaker beers).

 

[motobrewer]

I have a parti-gyle recipe I want to try from a book. I am trying to calcualte water volumes based off of what is given to me and my calculations are not adding up.

Beer 1 is a 5 gallon recipe, 31bs of grain, 90 min mash collecting 8 gallons pre boil followed by a 120 min boil

Og: 1.123
Fg: 1.034
11.7 ABV

Beer 2 is a 6.5 gallon recipe adding 1.75lbs grain to previous mash, 30 min steep and collecting 7.5 gallons pre boil followed by 75 min boil.

Og: 1.046
Fg: 1.012
4.5 ABV

I feel like I am making the calculations much more complicated than they should be. If anyone can assist I would greatly appreciate it.

Thanks
Alex

In my (limited) experience with parti-gyling the first one is really going to be a trial. Theoretically you should be able to add up "gravity points" and divide up by water volume but it doesn't always work that way.

I'm not exactly sure what you're asking but if you want 5 gallons of each beer then the math works out to something like this:

5 gal of 123 OG = 5 * 123 = 615
5 gal of 46 = 5 * 46 = 230

total = 845

2 row efficiency is generally estimated at 1.036 per pound per gallon times eff, so at 75% eff you're looking at 1.027

845 / 27 = 31 lb. So you're right on track with weight. I'd probably throw in an extra pound or two of base malt as in my exp. large mashes yield lower.

So now you have to work out how to split them to get your desired preboil volumes and gravities. You kind of have to take what the mash gives you because you need to have an appropriate mash thickness.

If you want 8 gallons of preboil (and 5.5 gallons kettle post boil) you'll need a pre-boil gravity of 1.085. That equates to a mash thickness of around 1.44 qt/lb. 1.44 * 31 lb = 44 quarts = 11 gallons - ~3 gallons loss = 9 gallons of 1.085 first runnings. Pretty close to what you're after. Draw off the 8 in one pot, the extra gallon in the other, sparge with enough water to get your preboil for the 2nd beer.

 

[motobrewer]

The 10% meant the volume of output that is RIS. So you are producing very little RIS but a lot of double and single stout (which is what your customers tend to consume anyway).

In a single gyle beer all the first running and second running wort are boiled together and you produce one single beer. In partigyling you are blending the different worts after boiling in any proportions you deem fit to produce a range of beers.

yeah, i get that, but what if by chance you didn't need to blend the runnings to get the gravities and volumes you're after?

 

[JKaranka]

In your example above, if you wanted equal volumes, you could blend 2/3 of your first wort into one FV and 1/3 into the second FV. You'd end up with a beer with an OG of 1.097 (2*1.123 + 1.046)/3 and another with an OG of 1.071 (2*1.046 + 1.123)/3. It gets more complicated the more different beers and volumes you want to produce.

Sorry, wrote while you were replying. If you didn't blend it wouldn't be partigyling! You wouldn't produce an entire gyle beer but a beer from each running. I think the terminology in general needs quite a bit of clarifying as it still gets confusing between sources when it comes to worts, runnings, gyles and partigyles.

 

[motobrewer]

why blend? i want a beer with an OG of 1.123 and one with 1.046....

 

[dcp27]

blending is not a required aspect of partigyle, nor is just using the late runnings. its just making more than one beer from the same mash by separating the runnings. I generally use it to get 1:2 big to small beer

OP, have you tried Kai's spreadsheet to help with your calculations?
http://braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php?title=Batch_Sparge_and_Party_Gyle_Simulator

 

[Stovetop535]

Interesting discussion on this style of brewing. The recipe in the book makes it seem fairly simple, with no blending of the 1st and 2nd runnings.

I'm not exactly sure what you're asking but if you want 5 gallons of each beer then the math works out to something like this:

5 gal of 123 OG = 5 * 123 = 615
5 gal of 46 = 5 * 46 = 230

total = 845

2 row efficiency is generally estimated at 1.036 per pound per gallon times eff, so at 75% eff you're looking at 1.027

845 / 27 = 31 lb. So you're right on track with weight. I'd probably throw in an extra pound or two of base malt as in my exp. large mashes yield lower.

So now you have to work out how to split them to get your desired preboil volumes and gravities. You kind of have to take what the mash gives you because you need to have an appropriate mash thickness.

If you want 8 gallons of preboil (and 5.5 gallons kettle post boil) you'll need a pre-boil gravity of 1.085. That equates to a mash thickness of around 1.44 qt/lb. 1.44 * 31 lb = 44 quarts = 11 gallons - ~3 gallons loss = 9 gallons of 1.085 first runnings. Pretty close to what you're after. Draw off the 8 in one pot, the extra gallon in the other, sparge with enough water to get your preboil for the 2nd beer.

Thanks. The recipe in the book gives everything except volumes of water for the mash, I am just trying to make sure I do not mash with too much water for the initial runnings, and then sparge with too much for beer #2. I guess I could just fly sparge for beer #2 until I get to my pre boil volume for beer 2. I have never fly sparged before but I finally have the equipment to do so if I want.

blending is not a required aspect of partigyle, nor is just using the late runnings. its just making more than one beer from the same mash by separating the runnings. I generally use it to get 1:2 big to small beer

OP, have you tried Kai's spreadsheet to help with your calculations?
http://braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php?title=Batch_Sparge_and_Party_Gyle_Simulator

Thanks for the link, that calculator makes it a lot easier.