Partigyle Brewday - Hot Video Action... Brew Porn

So Sunday after Church, the team gathered at the brewery for a partigyle brew day.   And on this brew day we would be making two 5 gallon batches of beer, a clone of KBS and a brown ale inspired by Surly Bender.   The day could not have been more beautiful, mid 70s , white puffy clouds in the sky.   But like all brew days, things did not go as fast or as perfectly as you expect them to go.  But have no fear beer fans, we knew what to do... Now fair warning, this was a busy brew day and my mind is still recovering so... I cram a lot of information into this one...

Batch 1 The KBS Clone - Russian Imperial Stout

The first batch went almost exactly as planned.  The only little hick up was with our strike water.  We forgot to preheat the mash tun (freaking rookie mistake)  So our mash temperature was 138 to 140 F.  But when we do no sparge brewing we always hold back 15%-20% of the water to either cool the mash, or heat the mash, or to sparge rinse at the completion of the mash.   So we had 1.5 gallons of treated water hanging around. We brought the 1.5 gallons of water to a quick boil on the monster and added it to the mash tun.  The mash rose to 154 F where it stayed for the next hour.  (60 minutes is overkill on most mashes but there was a lot of roasted grain, and 2 lbs of flaked oats in this batch so we wanted to be safe)  So when you do a no sparge brew... my best suggestion is that you make your calculations based on 80% / 20% or 85% / 15%.  Now if you are a mash wizard and you never screw up anything at all... and you never forget anything at all... more power to you.   But we will be following this practice.   So if you are making a 5 gallon RIS and using 20.4 lbs of grain and 9.75 gallons of water... yes that much with absorption and waste...  It looks like this.

• 9.75 gallons = 39 quarts
• 39 quarts x 80% =  31.2 quarts (so call it 32 quarts)
• 32 quarts / 20.4  = 1.568 quarts per pound in your software
• You can hold back the other 1.75 gallons for a mash out or for a temperature adjustment.

But what would that look like for a lower gravity beer... like for instance a Champagne Lager? OK, Well let's look at that.  Champagne Lager 5 gallon batch has 7.5 lbs of grain, and uses 8.5 gallons of water.   It looks like this.

• 8.5 gallons = 34 quarts
• 34 quarts x 80 % = 27.2 (call it 28)
• 28 quarts / 7.5 = 3.73 quarts per pound in your software
• You can hold back the other 1.5 gallons for mash out or for temperature adjustments.

Now, we do not get, or plan on efficiency in the 80s for no sparge brewing.  We don't care.  The goal of brewing is not to maximize efficiency... it is to maximize flavor... and fun. And this is a way, way easier method for brewing.  Don't believe me?  OK well maybe you'll listen to The mad fermentationist. Now one thing you need to realize is that when you no sparge... the grain is buffering the mash like crazy... so it takes more acid to drop the pH to ideal.  If you use that much acid, your beer can taste kinda... acidic.  So  We shoot for 5.5 pH.   Haven't noticed any off flavors.

That is the easy way to do water calculations for no sparge brewing.  And we are big fans of no sparge brewing, or minimal sparge brewing.  Now having said all of this, it is important to remember that a degree or two either direction on a mash makes virtually no difference in the final flavor and mouth feel.  So don't sweat it if you are a degree or two off.   I know award winning home brewers who just mash everything at 150F...light lager...150 F...huge stout...150 F...bret or sour 150 F...

5.31 exactly what the
software predicted. A little
low for us.

So... yes I said it "the amount of mash water is not that important"  Yes, I said it, yes I stand by it.   The arcane and mystical alchemy of home brewing water calculations must be simplified because... well because it is all BS.   Yes thicker and thinner mashes can have an impact on your brew... but not really.  A thin mash just takes longer to convert.  But it still converts.  And it isn't really very perceivable on a home brew level.  So if exact water calculations are not that important...what is important?  What is important is the total amount of water used.  What is important is pH.  What is important is temperature of the mash.   What is important is fermentation temperature... and sanitation.  These are the factors that are important.  Once again, the grains have no idea that they are being mashed.  They have no idea what the water to grain ratio is, they start soaking in the right temperatures... the enzymes become active. When the enzymes are active... the conversions occur.

The mash fluctuated between
153 and 154 F for an hour

So if you haven't tried no sparge brewing yet...  give it a try, it gives you so much flexibility in terms of water and temperature.  So if you are one of those guys who believes your beer is better because you can absolutely nail what it says for water calculations on BeerSmith... good for you.   We can do that to... but what we have learned it that it does not have an impact on our final product.   Whenever we can we no sparge.   And whenever we brew a big beer, we tend to partigyle, more on that in a minute.

The grains mashed for an hour, pre boil gravity was 1.078...final gravity... 1.093... exactly what was predicted by the software... so Mr. Smartypants who thinks mash thickness is critical to efficiency... what do you think now?    We got 72.2% efficiency on a huge no sparge batch of beer.  

The boil went well, and we made all of our hop and chocolate and coffee additions.  The keggle was gross when we were done. Loads of chocolate, We chilled the wort with our Jaded hydra..Jake and I used one of our favorite trick for aeration... a sanitized mixing paddle on a drill.  This batch is fermenting in a 7.5 gallon plastic pale.  It needs the space.   The yeast was pitched, 2 packs of re hydrated US 05.   This batch received a blow off tube and the blow off bucket was set inside of another bucket, just in case it is epic.   Which I think it probably will be.  

Batch 2 the Surly Bender inspired Brown Ale

We have covered what partigyle is on a previous post (or 4) but basically when you make a huge beer, there are so many sugars left in the beer that you might as well use them and make another beer.  That is all we are doing here.  And as you can see it is really easy.   

Alright,  I kinda caught John off guard... so sue me.  But the point is still valid.   To make a partigyle. Just add water to your previously mashed grains and let them soak for a while.  Jake poured 6.5 gallons of water into the mash tun.  Now, the water was treated to remove the chlorine, but no other water treatments are necessary.  Do they help?  sure... I guess... but they are not necessary.  The grains have already absorbed water so... just add what you want to boil.. it will be very close.

1.045?  Ok...you see... uh... well that measurement came from the bottom of the mash tun.  And as I have told you before, unless you vorlauff or recirculate... your gravity readings can be wildly different at different levels in your mash tun.   Sugar is heavy... it sinks... do not argue the physics of this with me.  It is a simple fact.   But it was 1.032.   Which boiled up to 1.042  So that is still a really nice brown ale.  If we do this again without recirculating, we will certainly vourlauff  the entire batch before taking a gravity reading.  Vourlauff the entire batch?  yes... a couple of times... you are trying to rinse the sugars out anyway... and the dang grains only soaked for 10 -15 minutes so just do it.  It improves everything.  

The recipes will be posted this week in the recipe links on the right.   It was a really fun brew day. We tried some fantastic beers that the team assembled and did some planning for up coming batches.  

How to Partigyle Part 1 - A new series Two beers from one Mash.

Partigyle is an old techniqe that give
you multiple batches of beer from one
grist.   It maximizes production. 

Have you ever looked at a drained mash tun of high gravity wort, and thought to your self... "damn there is a lot of sugar and flavor left in there...."   You know it's in there, but most of the time you empty your mash tun into a bag and dutifully set it out for the trash pick up.   Well I am here to tell you... stop.   Don't throw away that high gravity grist.  Don't you dare.  There is so much sugar left in that high gravity grist, so much flavor left in that grist. Do what great brewers of yore did... partigyle your batch. The term Gyle is an old english term that brewers stole from malt vinnegar makers.   Hence the term you have a lot of guile (gyle). Guile is the French version, and when a wine went bad and became vinegar the French, in their normal sarcastic way, called it gyle...as in English Malt Vinegar. You see they had a similar word that meant witchcraft or sorcery... And they really like double entendre... So the term began to be known as trickery or deceit.  You can kinda see where they were coming from.  You open a bottle of wine after years... and it has turned to vinegar... that is deceitful...why not make fun of the English?   You wake up and realize it is Tuesday... why not make fun of the English....Enough history for today. In the production of malt vinnegar, gyling was the standard practice.  We have talked about partigyle before but, in a nut shell partigyling is getting more than one batch of beer out of one grist.  Partigyling was essential at one time to the production of porters.   And many craft breweries still make a 3 runnings gyle... Imperial Stout, Stout, and Brown (mild)  Three beers off of one grist.  Tell me that is not the ultimate in efficiency.  " Hey Bob What was your brew house efficiency today?  I don't know Ted around 130%..."   Of course I know that isn't really how you calculate... so take a breath... the point is there are great sugars left in the grains.  Why not use them?  Why not make more great beer?

photo credit lakelandbrewersguild.org

When ever we brew a high gravity batch of beer we like to partigyle the grist and get a second batch from the beer.  Even when we brew a medium high OG beer, we like to partigyle, and create yeast starter (more on this in another post).This Sunday will be  a great example.   We are brewing a 1.093 Stout as a no sparge batch of beer.   The pre boil gravity will be around 1.075.   When we brew a beer that big there is plenty of sugar still in there.  If we add 6.5 gallons of water to the grist and drain it.  We will have a 1.034 pre boil wort.   It will boil out to a 1.045-1.047 wort.  Perfect for a Brown Ale.  Yes, I know brown ales have fallen out of favor recently, but I for one still love the malty, slightly roasted flavor and aroma of a good brown ale.  In fact Brown ale is one of my favorite styles.  What is better than a quaffable crushable brown ale sitting by a fire pit on a crisp fall evening?

We will be documenting and shooting video of the process.  So make sure you check back.  And I will post the recipes over in the recipe area soon.   The key thing here is learning to plan a partigyle, and learning that a partigyle is not rocket science.   It is a tool you can incorporate to make more beer in less time. It does not double the length of your brew day if you have two heat sources capable of boiling wort.    And we do... In this case, it will only add about 30 minutes to our brew day.

We will also be teaching you some of the tricks we have learned along the way.  Tricks for adjusting color, flavor, and gravity.  Tricks for planning and timing.   It should be a lot of fun.

Here are some classic partigyle combinations.

Tripel and Blonde / Belgian Lager / Belgian Pale Ale
Belgian Blonde and Patersbier
Imperial Stout and Brown Ale  / Steam Beer / Black Lager
Stout and Mild / Amber Lager
Imperial IPA and Blonde Ale / Standard IPA / Premium Lager
Barleywine and Amber
English Barleywine and Irish Red
Wheat wine and any kind of sour / or wheaten saison
Normal Gravity IPA (1.060ish) and Yeast starter

This is an online partigyle calculator that we have found to be pretty accurate.
Make sure you use pre boil gravities. 

When you are planning a partigyle.   You need to get familiar with no sparge brewing.   You are not sparging.  Your sparge is your second gyle... your second runnings create a new batch of beer.  We have posted about it before.  And Don Osborn has a great video on it.   But when you partigyle I suggest that you do not do a mash out on the first gyle. You do not want to deactivate the enzymes.  You may need to add additional grains to the second gyle.   Of course you can always add DME or sugar to get to gravity.   But one of the tricks we will be showing you is how to adjust your color when you are doing a partigyle.   We will be showing you how to cap your mash with grain to get darker colors. Yes, you can make a wheat wine, followed by a amber harvest wheat.  We will be showing you how to plan your partigyle. We use a simple on line calculator.    But be warned.  You have to base things off of the wort gravity, not your final gravity. Above is an example for the up coming weekend.   Our Stout has a pre boil gravity of about 1.073.  1.092 post boil.   So by using the calculator, we know that the second runnings will have a gravity of about 1.0365... post boil of about 1.046.   Perfect.    We may have to cap the mash with additional grain to get the color we want.   And if we are a little low, we may have to add some base malt and let it sit for 30 minutes.   But believe me, that is not a problem on a two batch busy brew day.   Partigyle does take some planning regarding the water.   You will need to be heating 6.5 gallons of water to 150 F to 168 F while you are mashing.  And you probably can't use your existing burner to do it... so if you don't have two burners the ol' kitchen stove may be placed into action.  If you have two turkey fryers this won't be a problem at all.

The most effective partigyle procedure I have seen is kind of a hybrid technique.  We will display it for you on Sunday.  It is kind of a combination batch and fly sparge.  and it is really effective at rinsing out all of the sugars.   Basically you add enough water to slightly cover the grains and let them sit for 10 minutes.  Then you fly sparge to volume.   Believe me you will get the sugars out doing it this way.  By the way if you really know what you are doing with fly sparging,  You can just head straight into your gyle... well show you that in a couple of weeks.  And that is crazy fast way to partigyle.



So tune in early next week for an update on how to partigyle...