[t-bone]

I'm making a big Russian imperial stout this weekend.  As is typical the grain bill is pretty substantial, not huge, for a 5 gallon batch.  I was thinking of trying a parti-gyle beer with the left overs. 

This is the grain bill (5 gallon batch)

10.5 lbs Marris otter crisp
2 lbs      crystal 40
1.5 lbs   Munich 10l
1.25 lb   American chocolate malt
.25 lb     black patent
1 lb        flaked barley

Any ideas for a beer recipe to do with the second runnings. 

As an incentive I will send a complementary 22 oz beer to whoever provides the recipe I use.

Thanks as always
T-bone

[dannyjed]

I'm assuming that you are going to use the first runnings for your Imperial Stout and then use the second runnings for a lighter beer.  I think you might need to up your base grain(MO) a bit and maybe you could make a Mild for the second beer.

[jmcamerlengo]

yeh youre gona want to up the grain bill and only use the first runnings for the stout.

Second runnings...you can do a mild or brown ale. A hoppy american brown. Or add a little more black malt in when recirculating your second runnings and do a sweet stout.

[nateo]

I would cut back the crystal malt. You'll be fighting for attenuation on an big RIS anyway, you don't need to be fighting a bunch of crystal too.

[morticaixavier]

I would cut back the crystal malt. You'll be fighting for attenuation on an big RIS anyway, you don't need to be fighting a bunch of crystal too.

+1. I think people have a tendency to add cyrstal to RIS recipes because they want a big chewy beer but if you double your base malt (I kind of feel like you are wasting money using MO here but TEHO) and mash a little higher you will still get a very chewy beer.

if you want to go really crazy try this
something like
25lbs munich 10L
2 lbs roasted barley
2 lbs flaked barley

3-4 oz bravo or other bittering hops eith at 60 or FWH, enough to get 90% of your desired IBU then something british or britishish @ 30.

Then, after you pull your first runnings cap the mash with .5-1 LB crystal and do a mild or add some chocolate and do a dry stout.

[t-bone]

I found this recipe on the Beertools recipe board.  I figured I would try it.  Its called Tzar Bomba by AtomicGecko and its supposed to ferment to something crazy like 11%.  That's the reason for the particular grains used.  I thought since I was using so much grain I might have enough residual sugar in the grain to brew something from the second runnings.

[nateo]

I found this recipe on the Beertools recipe board.  I figured I would try it.  Its called Tzar Bomba by AtomicGecko and its supposed to ferment to something crazy like 11%.  That's the reason for the particular grains used.

I don't know who that is, but at the risk of sounding like a jerk, I'll go ahead and say that Fred Bonjour knows more about brewing than AtomicGecko does. Fred's website is kinda flaky, but here's a page from the wayback machine: http://web.archive.org/web/20101212100602/http://beerdujour.com/Howtobrewabigbeer.htm

[hoser]

It is only 8.25% crystal malt, that is less than 10%.  I think that would be fine in most beers including an RIS.  I think mash temp, yeast pitching rate/starter, and yeast selection are way more important than crystal malt percentage (which are not given), in most beers.  But, especially in big beers.  If he was using over 10% percent crystal malt I may be concerned, but probably not in this case.  However, I do agree you will need to increase your base grain malt if you are planning to do a parti gyle RIS to obtain 10 gallons total wort, unless you are planning on using DME to adjust your gravity? Right now, roughly punching it into ProMash only gives you an OG of about 1.080 with approximately 75% efficiency, which is big for a Foreign Export Stout.  Not so much for a RIS.

[t-bone]

The recipe doesn't show the addition of 2lbs of brown sugar and 1 lb of lactose.  I didn't include these since they were not part of the grain bill for a second running.  I'm showing a theoretical alcohol content on BeerTools of 10.98%.

I haven't really tried to determine the viability of this recipe.  I figure I would just brew it.

Thanks again
T-Bone

[morticaixavier]

I do NOT know as much about brewing big beers as Fred bonjour but I have brewed a few partigyle batches and  13 lbs of grain is not going to get you 5 gallons of 10% beer and 5 gallons of small beer. My last partigyle was a 'belgian wheatwine' and hefe split. I used 26 lbs of grain, added 2 lbs of coconut sugar hit 1.094 and ended at 1.006 for a 11.5% abv and the hefe was 1.034 ending at 1.004.

I say brew the recipe you want to brew and see how it goes. But keep some DME on hand to bump the gravity when you don't hit what you were expecting.

It is only 8.25% crystal malt, that is less than 10%.  I think that would be fine in most beers including an RIS.  I think mash temp, yeast pitching rate/starter, and yeast selection are way more important than crystal malt percentage (which are not given), in most beers.  But, especially in big beers.  If he was using over 10% percent crystal malt I may be concerned, but probably not in this case.  However, I do agree you will need to increase your base grain malt if you are planning to do a parti gyle RIS to obtain 10 gallons total wort, unless you are planning on using DME to adjust your gravity? Right now, roughly punching it into ProMash only gives you an OG of about 1.080 with approximately 75% efficiency, which is big for a Foreign Export Stout.  Not so much for a RIS.

It's not that it's too high a percentage of crystal malt, it's just that when you brew a really big beer you don't really need to add any sweetness. Particularly if you use a british yeast. again, brew what you want to brew but I would generally leave any crystal out of an RIS.

[nateo]

My big brews were horrible when I started brewing. After I started following Fred's advice, my big beers got immensely better. When I had no idea what I was doing, I would post my crazy recipes on teh Internetz and tell people they were good, because I was proud of the beer I made and didn't know enough about beer to be able to objectively evaluate the beer I was making.

I strongly suggest picking up a copy of "Designing Great Beers" if you don't have one already.

[MDixon]

http://carboyclub.com/parti.htm
http://www.trubclub.com/articles/partigyle.html

[tomsawyer]

I made a BVIP not too long ago and used the second runnings for a brown porter without capping or adding any of the first runnings.  I didn't have too much hope for the beer but it turned out to be very tasty.

[hoser]

I do NOT know as much about brewing big beers as Fred bonjour but I have brewed a few partigyle batches and  13 lbs of grain is not going to get you 5 gallons of 10% beer and 5 gallons of small beer. My last partigyle was a 'belgian wheatwine' and hefe split. I used 26 lbs of grain, added 2 lbs of coconut sugar hit 1.094 and ended at 1.006 for a 11.5% abv and the hefe was 1.034 ending at 1.004.

I say brew the recipe you want to brew and see how it goes. But keep some DME on hand to bump the gravity when you don't hit what you were expecting.

It is only 8.25% crystal malt, that is less than 10%.  I think that would be fine in most beers including an RIS.  I think mash temp, yeast pitching rate/starter, and yeast selection are way more important than crystal malt percentage (which are not given), in most beers.  But, especially in big beers.  If he was using over 10% percent crystal malt I may be concerned, but probably not in this case.  However, I do agree you will need to increase your base grain malt if you are planning to do a parti gyle RIS to obtain 10 gallons total wort, unless you are planning on using DME to adjust your gravity? Right now, roughly punching it into ProMash only gives you an OG of about 1.080 with approximately 75% efficiency, which is big for a Foreign Export Stout.  Not so much for a RIS.

It's not that it's too high a percentage of crystal malt, it's just that when you brew a really big beer you don't really need to add any sweetness. Particularly if you use a british yeast. again, brew what you want to brew but I would generally leave any crystal out of an RIS.

The percentage of crystal malt will also go down if he bumps up the base malt.  Jamil's RIS in BCS uses 8.4% of crystal malt, FWIW.  He will be fighting attenuation issues if a lot of DME or LME are used to make up for the poor mash efficiency.  I think using a BIG starter of WLP001 or WLP007 will help this beer really attenuate well and dry out.  Maybe even a simple sugar if greater than 10% of the wort is from extract?  At least those would be one of the yeasts I would use.  I would lean to WLP007.  And as nateo suggested, Fred Bonjour's website and Designing Great Beers by Ray Daniels are a great resource.

[ccfoo242]

FWIW, I did something similar a few weeks ago with around a 20lb grain bill. First runnings were way lower gravity that I was expecting so my efficiency was around 50%.

Also, I made an American brown with the second runnings, though I left the dark/crystal malts out of the mash and added them cold steeped to the boil.

So my imperial stout of more like an extra stout and my American brown is a session brown but they are tasty nonetheless.