2nd Runnings

Mashing
1

I brewed my first all grain batch this past weekend. Overall i think it went pretty well and i am curious to see if anyone has experience/input with 2nd runnings. My grain bill called for almost 4 gal of water in my mash and 6 gal of sparge water for my 5 gal. batch. After not thinking about it in advance, i realized that i could have/should have? done a larger boil and fermented in two 5 gal buckets or that i could have maybe had a lighter bodied beer off of the second runnings. Does anyone have experience that they are willing to share? I would love to hear some input.

Thanks.

2

If you’re talking about brewing a 2nd lighter beer with the second runnings, it’s called Parti-Gyle. Lots of people do it. I haven’t yet, but am planning 2 big beers soon (Barleywine and RIS) and hope to do partigyle with both. It’s a very creative and cheap way get two beers from one grain bill.

3

Last time I brewed my first runnings were 1.080 but I only got 2.5 gallons, 2nd runnings were 1.040 and I got 4 more gallons.

This was for a 14 lb grain bill, How many lbs of grain would I have to start with to get two 5 gallon batches out of one mash session?

Keep in mind I don’t like making sub 1.050 beers.

4

Well the first thing is you are going to want to mash more than 14lbs of grain to get two beers out of it, especially if trying to get two 1.050 beers out of it. The first beer will need to be something big like a Barley Wine, IIPA, Imperial something that’s like 1.075 or higher. The second beer will not be anywhere close to as strong. You’re only going to get so much sugar/gravity out of the grain. So the second beer you may want to shoot for something in the 1.040 range.

Example: I’m brewing a barley wine soon with an estimated OG of 1.110. I’m hoping to extract enough sugar from the second runnings to get a pale ale out of it that’s somewhere around 1.040-1.050. I’ll probably be adding a 1lb or so of cane sugar to the pale ale to up the gravity a bit and help dry it out.

5

I feel ya, guess I could get a 2nd batch in with some extract to boost the weaker runnings too.

6

That would definitely be an option.

7

Brewed using this technique this weekend (batch sparge). I did a 5 gallon strong ale starting with 20lbs of marris otter. Also added 3 lbs of corn sugar at flame out. ( I’ll post complete ingredients and brew schedule if you want).
OG 1.094.

Second 5 gallon batch I Crushed 4 lbs of left over 2 row and like .5 of specialty dark. Added to mash tun. 4.5 gallons of strike water at 176 degrees I think. (Again I’ll post complete specifics if you want). Added 1 lbs of corn sugar at flame out.
OG 1.056 (If I remember right).

Point is, yes you can. And have fun with it.

8

Back to the original question. Assuming your talking about maybe 11 or so pounds of grain if you mash with 4 gals you’ll drain about 2 1/2 gals first run plus your 5 gals of sparge gives you 7 1/2 gal in the pot. Boil loss will be about 1 1/2 gals. So you end up after leaving a little break behind maybe
5 1/2 in the fermenter. So unless unless your not talking about a 5 gal batch I don’t see you having much water left for a second beer.