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Author Topic: Partigyle - split the mash or all first for the main, all second for the small?  (Read 10542 times)

Offline tom

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Thanks Kai. I couldn't find the info on your site. Do you have a link?
Tom
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Offline Kaiser

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There was a good chart in one of this summer's zymurgies which had the gravity of the first runnings vs mash ratio (and % efficiency). You can plug them into a homebrew computer program to get your total amount of grain necessary.

that table was calculated incorrectly. For one the efficiency was based on total grain weight and not extract potential. Secondly it assumed an incorrect grain absorption.


Here is a tread that I started about that article: http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f128/zymurgys-geeks-article-hitting-your-target-gravity-125939/
It also contains a corrected table. What you are looking for is the OBY (overall brewhouse yield) column under "w/ considering wort volume increase"

I have been thinking about brewing a imperial Pilsner as batch #100. My plan is to use only the first runnings for that beer. Here is how I plan to go about figuring out how much grain to use:

To get to 1.100 and 15% boil-off I'll need a pre-boil of about 1.085. Using this table and assumoing that I'll get ~100% connversion in the mash:


(http://braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php?title=Understanding_Efficiency#Measuing_conversion_efficiency)

I need a mash thickness of about 3 l/kg or 1.44 qt/lb.

To end up with 5 gal post boil I'll need 5.9 gal pre-boil. I expect the grain absorption to be 0.12 gal/lb. After putting all this in a spreadsheet and trying a few grain bill sizes I found that I need about 24-25lb of grain and 8.6 gal of strike water. That's quite a bit and I'll have to find a large enough mash tun for that.

An Other option is to mash thicker. But I may have problems hitting the 100% coversion with a thick mash which means that I may need more grain if I can't make up for that loss in efficiency by sparging more efficiently.

I've never made a beer that big and I don't want to boil down a lot of wort to hit the targeted 1.100 since it should become a light beer.

Kai
« Last Edit: December 10, 2009, 10:30:39 am by Kaiser »

Offline Kaiser

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Thanks Kai. I couldn't find the info on your site. Do you have a link?

All the theory is there but nothing that ties it all together. But I think it would make a really useful article. The topic would be "how to figure out partygyle sparging". One point of interest would be how to determine a sweet spot where you get the target gravity and volume you want with the best efficiency.

Kai

Offline akr71

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akr71

from what I understand, you aren't going to have a problem with the small beer being light to medium bodied - they can be "thin" as many folks have described.

if you aren't topping off, there is no need to "mash" the second beer - you can just run the sparge, just like you would do in a batch sparge, just into a second kettle.   however, if you want to top off the second beer with additional base malt or specialty grains, you may want to let it sit - especially if they are grains that need to be mashed.

cheers!
Thanks blatz!  I think I may have to top up for the small beer - maybe the best bet would be to have some malt on hand and if the OG of the big beer is higher than expected, don't worry about the extra malt for the second beer and do a little mixing to get the preboil gravities I'm aiming for.
Andy

Amherst, NS - Canada

Offline coypoo

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For that chart w/ the mash thickness and resulting gravity, how much grain is that for? Is that assuming you have enough grain in the mash tun to reach that target SG?

Offline Kaiser

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For that chart w/ the mash thickness and resulting gravity, how much grain is that for? Is that assuming you have enough grain in the mash tun to reach that target SG?

The table gives mash thicknesses which are independent of the actual grain weight. To get the grain weight you have to play around with the desired SG and preboil volume. To calculate the amount of water needed you'll have to add the absorption of wort by the grain. That is usually around 0.12 gal/lb.

Kai

Offline stout_fan

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Excellent work Kai.
I was thinking about making a chart like this.
I'd say something witty down here, but I'm at a bit of a disadvantage in that department.

Offline blatz

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mucho thanks - looks like if I target 1.5 qt/lb I'll be right where I want to be.
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Offline blatz

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well, I did this (and an Old Ale) yesterday and had a great time, but I doubt I'll be doing a partigyle and another batch in one day - I am beat today.

anyhow, I nailed the Barleywine - 1.104-6 actually, which was well over what I'd wanted (1.095ish) but that is okay.  ~100 IBUs, it will be yummy I'm sure, just will put you under the table in one pint.  Weird, b/c when I tested the first running as I was vorlaufing, I got 1.080 (just under 20 brix) which corresponds to kai's chart, but there's no way I boiled off enough in 90 minutes to get up to 1.104.

for the ESB, the second runnings tested ~1.035, so I added a 1/2lb of c-60, 1/4lb victory, 2lbs of basemalt (MO) and a lb of carapils (to counteract the 'thinness').  I miscalculated on my water addition temp, so I ended up 'mashing' for 25 min at 147, but the main mash was 154 so I expect it to be 'okay'.  I ended up 1.052 which was right where I wanted to be - the wort tasted very yummy.

The one thing that really puzzled me was the amount of protein silt that I had to vorlauf out with the second runnings.  Also, there was an absolute ton of cold break for the small beer.  All in, I think I liked doing the big beer this way - just gotta get a better handle of efficiencies/ratio to end up on the right gravity.
The happiest people don’t necessarily have the best of everything; they just make the best of everything they have.

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Offline tom

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It looks about right to me: post-boil 5 gallons * 104 pts/gal = 520 pts
pre-boil 520 pts = X gallons * 80 pts/gal, 520 pts/80 pts/gal = 6.5 gallons pre-boil
Sound about right?
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Offline blatz

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actually, yeah, its about dead on.  I guess I am just used to my smaller beers where I know I will "gain" 12-15 points over the boil, but being that this is so much denser, the 'gain' is much larger. duh!

I ended up with just shy of 6g in the fermentor, and I started with an 8g boil, and that math works out almost perfectly...especially if you use 1.106 as the OG.
The happiest people don’t necessarily have the best of everything; they just make the best of everything they have.

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Offline tom

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Remember that if you want to brew 10 (or 12) gallons, your boil-off percentage will drop by 50% so you won't get as much increase in gravity through the boil.
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Offline ndcube

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I can't figure why Beersmith goes by percentage.  I use a gallons per hour figure that comes pretty darn close depending on the weather.