Partigyle newbie

[Gonefishin]

OK, so I'm fired up and ready to do this partigyle brew. It is going to be an English IPA and a Scottish Ale. My (abreviated)method will be to mash my base grains, sparge, then start my IPA boil with the first half of my sparge vol.. While that is boiling I'll be steeping the additional grains for the scottish ale. That should stagger my boils so they will both be manageable. I have been thinking this through and I'm afraid I am overlooking something. If you have done a PG brew, was there anything that was unforseen or that created a problem for you? I tend to overthink things. Thanks for your help.

 

[SeeMont]

Well, I just finished my first Gala I will call it. I lost sleep thinking about this. Did a BW and then a brown ale. I had 23 lbs grain, I topped out MT. Learned it is heavy, moving is it hard. I was able to boil and additional 8 gallon in seperate pot while mashing. I drained and sparged to get boil volume. I topped my grain and added the water at 168 and adjusted temp and filled to top. Started boil on BW, I dumped MT into empty carboy and sealed. Total day was 10 plus hours with cleanup. That much grain is a pain to mix, You will have a lot going on, Checklists !!! Good Luck

 

[Gonefishin]

Yeah Seemont, I figure if all goes well, it will be a long day. I plan to start early. Have Mrs. Gofish bring me coffee and breakfast and just try to stay on track. I have a pretty thorough checklist as well. I think it will get hectic when I am trying to add hops, to two different brews, and begin cooling etc. I may need keep my wits and delay hitting my taps as long as possible! Nah! I'll just go for it and call it my YOLO brew after that olympic snowboarder.

 

[SeeMont]

So Gone fishin, how was the brew day, We need an update.

 

[Gonefishin]

Well, I brewed this on Sunday 2/16 because it was below 20-deg. Sat. morning and the wind was blowing near 40-mph all day. Sunday morning was barely any wind, 27-deg. and supposed to rise up to the upper 30's. I didn't get the garage setup the night before because it was snowing and Mrs. Gonefishin's car sleeps inside on snowy nights. So I started to mash in around 09:00. Overall it went pretty smoothly. I sparged a couple of gallons into one pot, then switched to a second pot then back and forth to try to get my OG's close to the same. This slowed things down a bit for me and I can see why you would do a high gravity and a low gravity brew instead of 2 beers with the same gravities. But I got the Scottish boiling and 10-min. after it's flameout the IPA came to a boil. That put me a little behind where I expected to be but it also probably took a little pressure off the overall process. I put the brew pots in a pile of snow while I ran my IC through and they cooled in record time. The only thing I forgot was the Irish Moss in the IPA! Ugh! 5-oz.'s of pellet hops and no Irish Moss. I have a very green looking fermentation going on. I was told about "Isenglass"? Are you familiar with it? I think I need to try something to help clarify this beer. It is about 8-SRM (without the green!). Thanks for your input. I will surely be doing this type of brewing again. And hopefully I will learn how to streamline the day to make it better. Happy brewing.

 

[SeeMont]

Sounds like you had a day. I did the same thing, last hops addition and moss.

Isinglass (/ˈaɪzɪŋɡlæs/ or /ˈaɪzɪŋɡlɑːs/) is a substance obtained from the dried swim bladders of fish. It is a form of collagen used mainly for the clarification of wine and beer. It can also be cooked into a paste for specialized gluing purposes.
If I used this stuff and Mrs. SeeMont found out, she would not drink it. My last couple of batches, After I racked, I added some CO2 and then set then cold crashed them outside (15 degrees) for a day. I was abe to draw off about a cup of sludge. Beer turned out pretty clear.

 

[WalleyeGuy]

Funny, I actually did my first partigyle on Sunday as well. Had my bother help me watch the second pot.

I started similar to you; 2 separate pots with equal OG(1.070) wort. Wanted to end up with 2 5 gallon batches, but was in realty 2 4 gallon batches. My bother watched/timed one kettle and pitched hops into, and I took the other. Same recipe and schedule but we each used a different yeast. Worked well to have 2 people timing each pot.

We then took a 3rd running, and ended up wit a little over 4 gallons of 1.030 wort. hoped that like I would a pale ale, should make a good session beer.

Sounds like you did pretty good, congrats. I'm excited to see how mine all turn out. Defiantly going to be doing more of this, seems like wasting beer not to!

 

[Gonefishin]

W'guy, it sounds like you did a good job as well. I also ended up with just under 5-gal. in each batch. My Scottish was boiled in a borrowed pot and I had to guess at the volume. And I lost a lot more wort to hop trub in the IPA.
What do you use for a mash tun? How many pounds of grain were in your mash? What was the OG used to design your recipe? The SG at the end of my 2-sparges was right at 1.020. I don't think I could get enough grains in my mash tun (I use a 15.5-gal. keggle) to get another 4-gal. @ 1.030.
It is a good method to use. It would be nice to have a second brewer helping. Happy brewing.

 

[WalleyeGuy]

I use a 10 gallon igloo cooler for my mash tun. Had just under 24 pounds of grain.

for my mash and my batch sparge, the tun was filled to the brim. I was going for 10 gallons of 1.068, and ended up with 8 gallons of 1.070. If I had the space for extra water in the tun, I would have ended up pretty close to 10 @ 1.068. I would have been just a little bit low.

 

[SeeMont]

Walleye, good job. How tired were your arms after moving 24 lbs of grain. I did the 24 and I was tired. Mine, Popped the top on my Barley wine, initial Gravity was 1.098 and after two weeks it is 1.028, the taste was good but still a little sweet, I added some oak chips that have been soaking in bourbon. Plan is to open it up in a week and transfer to a keg and let it sit. Small beer ended up being a brown ale, after I capped it with Chcoclate malt and oats, SG 1.045 and racked at 1.008 nice taste. I would do this again but a 9 hour brew day is hard.