Partigyle?

[deadeye]

I’ve got a big 12% RIS coming up and not wanting to waste left over grain sugars in the grain after the first batch I’m thinking about partigyling. My mash tun is small and to get me up on my gravity I’m going to add extract.

My question is once batch one is sparged could I take some of the spent grain out and add back some fresh stuff and mash that for a second batch instead of spending a bunch on extract?

I’m afraid if I just sparge again to get the second runnings I’ll end up with something pointless to ferment. My efficiency is usually 68% so its not great and I know it will only get worse for the first batch.

[fimbrew]

There is no reason you can’t have a minimash going on in a pot on the side and dump it in.
To help you know what to expect for the first and second beers you can use the tables provided here.

http://www.brewingtechniques.com/librar ... osher.html

[cam0083]

I was curious about trying this as well but also had some questions. I read that article and was planning on doing a 50-50 split to get one beer around 1.080 and the second around 1.040.

What size is your mashtun? We have a 10g tall cylinder cooler we use and I’ve heard you can fit upwards of 30# of grain in there if your ration of water to grain is 1:1.

I was also thinking of just adding malt or maybe just so sugar to the second runnings if need be. That said, we only have one kettle so I was wondering whether keeping the second runnings in the mash tun for the duration of the first boil or if it would be better to drain them into a bucket or something and wait?

Sorry to steal your thread with more questions…

[a10t2]

@cam0083

What size is your mashtun? We have a 10g tall cylinder cooler we use and I’ve heard you can fit upwards of 30# of grain in there if your ration of water to grain is 1:1.

It will fit:

Green Bay Rackers--Mash Calculators

, but would you dilute the first runnings with water? At 1 qt/lb the gravity of the runnings would be ~1.110 (link
http://braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php?title=Troubleshooting_Brewhouse_Efficiency#Determining_Conversion_Efficiency
). Plus you’d need to use a lot of grain (~28 lb) and it would just be wasteful.

What I would do is mash at a normal ratio (20 lb grist, 8 gal water), which should give you 6.5 gal at ~1.070. For the second boil, sparge with the full pre-boil volume, which should put the second beer at ~1.035.

You won’t be able to do that with a 10 gal mash tun, though. So my advice would be to forget about partigyling unless you’re willing to make a bigger mash tun. 1.080 isn’t a big enough beer that I’d want to anyway.

@cam0083

That said, we only have one kettle so I was wondering whether keeping the second runnings in the mash tun for the duration of the first boil or if it would be better to drain them into a bucket or something and wait?

What I would do is drain the first runnings, then add your sparge water (assuming you’re batch sparging), stir it in, and let sit in the mash tun. Make sure it’s hot enough to get the grain bed to >176°F for a mashout, and with the cooler being insulated it should stay there until you’re ready to begin the second boil. Otherwise you run the risk of the second runnings being highly fermentable due to the very long rest time.

[deadeye]

My mash tun is a 7.5 gal economy pot from our host my max I can mash at 1.5qt/lb is 19lbs. I plan on mashing at the normal ratio and sparging like normal to collect enough for a 5 gal batch. The second gyle was kind of an after thought. I was thinking I didn’t want to waste all that left over sugar from the sparge volume being low.

[a10t2]

@Deadeye

I plan on mashing at the normal ratio and sparging like normal to collect enough for a 5 gal batch. The second gyle was kind of an after thought. I was thinking I didn’t want to waste all that left over sugar from the sparge volume being low.

In that case, again, I wouldn’t bother with a partigyle. The lauter efficiency after the first sparge is already going to be 70-75%, so there isn’t a whole lot of waste. You could do a 2.5 gal batch with the third runnings, but it would be 1.030 at most.

On a beer this big, you won’t want to mash at 1.5 qt/lb though. If you have a 20 lb grist and mash with 5.7 gal (1.14 qt/lb), you’ll get 3.25 gal of first runnings. Then sparge with the remaining 3.25 gal, assuming your target pre-boil volume is 6.5 gal. Adjust as needed.

[fimbrew]

That sounds good to me. If you don’t like the gravity of the small beer you can add some sugar or DME to bump the O.G.

[deadeye]

Adding extract was the original idea. Then I had the idea what if I took some grain out and replaced it with fresh grain and remashed? Effectively adding back new base malt and then anything else would just be there for flavor. I figured with that much roast malt it would still be drinkable.