I’ve been doing some Hochkurz No-Sparge batches lately, and have enjoyed the convenience and ease of experimenting with step mashes when I forgo the sparge. But I am getting about a 15-20% efficiency drop, which leaves me wondering how effective of a partigyle I could try. The idea would be to fill the tun with a second full boil volume of water immediately after draining it of the first batch’s sweet wort. Then I would drain the cooler tun about 90 mins later when the first beer has chilled and gone into the fermenter. Is there anything wrong with this plan?
Doing what you said makes sense. Below my signature line is a calculator for doing parti-gyle. Because the second running is much weaker it often makes sense to not fully drain the first mash and to add some additional malt to the mash or sugar to the kettle. Changing styles, say ipa to small stout, often works well. Don’t expect to fully recover the efficiency drop.
I might be misunderstanding, but what you have decribed sounds to me more like a normal partigyle, not a “no-sparge” partigyle, which sounds to me like an oxymoron. You’re essentially using the first runnings for your first beer, and then batch-sparging but using all of the second runnings for the second beer. This is precisely how I have done partigyle in the past, with the exception that after running off the first runnings, I set it aside without mashing out, while I made the second beer to completion. Skipping mashout and continuing right on with the second beer resulted in extended saccharification of the first runnings, allowing this wort which would become a barleywine to be highly fermentable and not poop out when FG hit about 1.030 or whatever. If I’d wanted to have a beer with normal attenuation, I could have included a mashout step by bringing the sweet first runnings (not the mash itself but just the sweet wort) to 170 F to kill the enzymes before continuing on.
There is zero need to extend the mash time for the second beer – it will turn out thin and watery and kind of lifeless regardless. As long as you did a good mash for the first beer, you can just add more water to make the second beer, stir the mash, wait 20 seconds, then immediately drain it out and continue brewing as normal.
Another nice thing I like to incorporate into my partigyle is to swap a little bit of the two worts, e.g., take a few quarts of the first runnings and blend into the second, then take some of the second to put back into the first, and do this a couple of times, which brings the gravity of the first beer down slightly but brings the gravity of the second beer up quite a bit. Otherwise the second beer inevitably turns out so thin. I theorize that most of the good flavor compounds are retained in the first runnings and don’t make it into the second wort, so a little blending can help jack up the second beer without hurting the first one much. Also I like to steep specialty grains in the second wort as well to help jack it up better too. Just a few ounces or up to a pound maybe is all that’s really needed to keep the second beer more lively in character.
Boiling the second wort first is an interesting idea. My plan had been to do a doppelbock with something experimental (and use a low-attenuating yeast). Since there’s very little crystal in the doppelbock, I could add some to the small beer and a little chocolate malt - sort of a Munich mild?
I think that is a splendid idea! A German lager, and a duo German-English ale!? You could even add an ounce or two of biscuit malt and EKG or Fuggle hops for a more obvious English effect.
If the first runnings are an expected 22 srm and 1.084, what should I expect from the second runnings (before I add anything), in terms of SRM and og?
In general, think 2/3 from first runnings, 1/3 from second.
That’s how I do it. Figuring 75% mass efficiency, I get 50% (2/3) of the sugars in the first pull and 25% (1/3) on the second pull. Color is harder to nail down. An imperial stout i did we’re both black, a barleywine was more like 16srm and a dirty 10srm.
I believe Denny is correct. You could probably expect 1.042 and roughly 10 SRM. A bit swaggy but pretty close.
Ok, so here’s the current recipe/plan:
20 lbs Best Dark Munich
6.5 lbs Best Pilsner
8 oz Weyermann CaraAroma
144F/158F/168F mash, with 7.5 gallons run off (7 gals for doppelbock and 2 qts for small beer). Brew doppelbock, then add 6.5 gals 180F water, 12 oz medium crystal, and 8 oz pale chocolate malt to the drained grains and run off into kettle with 2 qts of 1st run wort. Depending on the gravity, add the appropriate amount of hops to produce a balanced mild or English brown ale.
That seems like too much water for the partigyle unless you’re making a big batch of it. Remember, there will be mno grain absorption for the second beer.
You really think so? I haven’t run any of the numbers but this looks to me like a pretty good plan, skyler.
My pre-boil volume is typically 7 gallons on a 60 mins boil for 5.5-6 gals in the fermenter and ~5.1 in the keg. I do tend to waste about a half gallon, but the occasional sludgy cold break or loose sediment doesn’t go into the keg this way.
Cool…then it looks like you’ve got it sussed.
I’ve seen the old Mosher partigyle SWAG numbers floating around for a long time. They will certainly get you in the ballpark but if you really wanted to get a more accurate picture of the first wort gravity, you can always use Kai’s calcs. They will predict with a fair amount of accuracy the first wort gravity and then you can SWAG second runnings.
Just another tool in the kit.
What the world needs now is Kai, sweet Kai. Everybody!
Dang we need to bring that guy back.
I’ll drink to that.
So I’m not the only one who routinely checks his blog to see if he’s back?
Every month man.
Last time I spoke with him he indicated he hardly brewed any longer and had no desire to be back.