Three simultaneous brews from single mash

[TrickyDick]

Recently got my "Brutus 10" style brew rig problems sorted out.

I was thinking about making a single mash and splitting it into 3 five gallon brews to sample some of the new hop varieties available as ive been on sort of a brewing hiatus for the past two years (only three brew days in over 2 years).

I think it could be done, but was wondering if anyone has tried and run into any problems.

I'd plan a basic mash for a pale ale, and then run off into boil kettle and start it boiling. Meanwhile, clean out the mash tun. Then split the contents of boil kettle via pump into each of the three vessels. Top with water to make 5.5 gallons finished beer, and use different hops in each kettle. Could offset the boil start time on each so I could run each through the chiller when finished.

I estimate I can probably hit between 1.050 and 1.054 for three five gallon batches from a single mash of 30.5 pound (.5 crystal the rest basic malt) in my 15 gal mash tun.
Thoughts?

TD

 

[tfoutch]

No real problems with splitting a batch that I can see, except that when you add the top-off water, you will be diluting your OG. You should prob. simply mash with enough grain to get into your boil kettle all the wort you need to boil. Remember that you will have boil-off in each kettle, so you will need to account for that in your initial volumes. I think several people split batches to try different hops and/or yeasts to sample.

 

[Hex]

I get 14 gal finished wort @ 1.047 from 23 lbs grain(depending grain type). I split that into two boils and two ferments all the time.

Why so little crystal in your recipe?

 

[TrickyDick]

I was just trying to get a quick and dirty estimate of how many gravity points I could get from a nearly maxed out mash tun without using an overly thick mash. That crystal is a 120 L just for color and a bit of body. I can get body from the mash too I suppose, but In general for pale ale I prefer to be a little lighter. This is no final recipe by any means, I just wanted to see if I could get a reasonable OG for three brews.

I'll try and come up with some more precise values and post here before I consider trying this. Brew days are limited, and a friend has recently shown interest so he helps out but splits the batch with him. This I'd have to brew without him!

Another thing I could do, if I wanted is to take one of the three kettles and before starting the boil, I could steep some additional specialty grains in the hot wort run off if I wanted more body or color, before starting the boil. Also if you wanted different OG you could vary the splitting of the wort, and any pre-boil volume dilutions, or even supplement with some malt extract or adjuncts.

I think for my setup, this approach would work better than then partigyle where you collect three runnings, because I would run out of vessels being that I'd be retasking the mash tun..,

Ok. Now I'm just rambling....
TD

 

[TrickyDick]

So what to brew. Hopefully Sunday I can squeeze in a session, have to be dry yeast at this point but I got plenty on hand.

Maybe a trio of single hop variety pale ales?

Been trying to find some recipes with similar color, water profiles, and OG.
Maybe I just wing it and see what happens unless anyone has any killer combos that they've tried before.
I'm using three 15gal vessels, so I can hit a pretty good OG with 1.5 - 1.25 grist ratio.

So any suggestions for brewing three brews from a single mash?

TD

Edit-

After reviewing the BYO recipe collection issue, I found three brews I like and have made two before, all with similar grist and OG.

Alaskan amber, SNPA, and Red Hook ESB.
I'd plan to just mash 30# 2 row at 1.25 ratio or even higher if room permits in mash tun, probably it will, and shoot for the stars. Typically I get 75% or better efficiency.
I'd steep the crystal malts individually. The ESB calls for caramunich, which I don't know if that needs to be mashed ? If so I could mini-mash it in a small beverage cooler. And add separately.
Got to check my hops and specialty malt on hand, but I might be able to pull this off this weekend assuming no leaks on my reassembled setup...