My First Partigyle Brew Experience: Russian Imperial Stout (RIS) and Porter

From a "volumes and gravities" perspective, my 1st partigyle brew day went like this today...

I usually use a 15g Blichmann HLT, 15g Blichmann MLT w/ false bottom, and 20g Blichmann BK to produce 11.25g batches. I recently decided to buy a Blichmann false bottom for the 20g BK. Today was the first time I used my 20g kettle as a MLT. I put 39# of grain into 13.25g of strike water, mashed for an hour, and collected 8.25g of first runnings with a 1.077 SG. I boiled this beer for 90 minutes, but at the 80 minute mark I added 1/2 a liter of cold water extracted roasted barley (1#). My resulting OG was 1.116 and I put 5.5 gallons into a carboy. I'm expecting to fill a 5 gallon keg with 12% abv RIS and drink it in about 6-12 months time.

I batch sparged with 14.5g of sparge water expecting to collect 13.75g of 2nd runnings (I'm learning now that I'm losing a lot of volume because I run off a bit too quickly) but today I ran off slowly and collected 15.25g of 2nd runnings. Perhaps the large batch size had something to do with it, or perhaps its the speed of my run off. I use a pump so if I run off too quickly, the "feed side" of my pump doesn't get enough wort and cavitates(sp?) (aka sucks air) early leaving me with less collected running volume.

With my slower run off speed today, I actually wound up collecting the originally planned volume (13.75g) in the 15g boil kettle and then collected the unexpected additional 1.5g of 2nd runnings in a pot. The 1.5 gallons of additional runnings stopped at 1.020 SG, so there was still some additional sugars to be had if I would have run off even slower for sure!!!! Anyway, I divided the unexpected 1.5g of 2nd runnings into 3x 64oz swing top growlers with the expectation of using them for starters in the immediate future.

I boiled the 13.75g (1.031 preboil) of 2nd runnings for 75 minutes and 60 minutes into that boil time I added 1# of amber DME as well as the other 1/2 a liter of cold water extracted roasted barley. My resulting OG after a 75 minute boil was 1.046 and I split 11 gallons of wort amongst 2 carboys. I should end up with 2 sixtels and might add cocoa nibs to one and/or vanilla beans.

My strategy for recording this experience in Beersmith 2.0 was to do the following:

A. Make 2 separate recipes (1 for each running)
B. 1st running batch recipe (5.5g batch size) had a 42.75 brewhouse efficieny and a 41% mash extraction efficieny
C. 2nd running batch recipe (11g batch size) had a 32% brewhouse efficieny and a 25.5% mash extraction efficiency

NOTE: I simply ignored the unexpected 1.5g of 2nd runnings in the calculation of the 2nd batch recipe. I'm sure it means my numbers for "C." are off, but I haven't taken the time to figure that out yet.

NOTE: In retrospect, I should have cold water extracted all 4 pounds of dark malts that went into the recipe but I'm excited that I at least did it for 1 pound of roasted barley. My first foray into cold extraction of dark malts. Gordon Strong pushes this to lessen any astringency that may result from dark malts being hot water extracted with a full boil time.

 

Oh and my mash extraction efficiency numbers in beersmith are also a little lower because I have the 1# of cold extracted roasted barley simply added into the recipe as a normal boil addition. I also wonder if having the dme added as a normal boil addition also skews the mash extraction efficiency numbers in beersmith?

If I would have factored that extra 1.5g of second runnings into my recipe, I'm sure my OG on the 2nd beer would have been lower but my mash extraction efficiency and brewhouse efficiency would have been higher.

 

Make that "simply as a normal mash addition" on the 1# of cold extracted roasted barley in beersmith.

 

So I just adjusted some of my beersmith numbers (calculated the 1st runnings extraction with the 1/2L of cold extract factored out, and calculated the 2nd runnings with the 1/2L of cold extract and the 1# of late boil dme factored out) and my mash extraction is now: 42% for the first runnings and 29% for the second runnings. The 29% second runnings number is still artificially lowered since I still haven't corrected the fact that I factored the last 1.5 gallons of 2nd runnings (that I put aside for starters) into my extraction calculations. My guess is that somewhere between 5-13% of the sugars are in that 1.5 gallons. So my actual 2nd runnings mash extraction is between 34-42%

 

You know I just realized something I totally misinterpreted when reading Mosher's advice on Partigyle. He says...

"The batch may be split in different ways. I find the one-third/two-thirds split perfect for my brewing arrangement, giving me 5 gal of very strong beer and 10 gal of lower gravity beer from one 15-gal master batch. I ferment in 6.5-gal glass carboys and can use a different yeast in each batch and get three different beers.
For a one-third/two-thirds split, I have found that approximately half of the extract from the malt ends up in first third of the mash runoff, and the other half ends up in the last two-thirds. Because the volume of the first portion is half that of the second portion and has the same amount of sugars, it will be roughly twice as strong."

So what I did was make my first runnings finish in a batch size that was 50% of the second runnings batch size. That seems to confirm to Mosher's line about "giving me 5 gal of very strong beer and 10 gal of lower gravity beer"

But where my experience differed, is that I collected 8.25 gallons of first runnings (preboil) and only 13.75 gallons of 2nd runnings (preboil). Well again, I collected 15.25 gallons of 2nd runnings, but took the last 1.5 gallons and used stored them away for future starters instead of including them in my 2nd batch of beer. Either way, my 1st runnings volume was only slightly more than 1/3 of my total runnings volume.

Now I know he said "approximately" so I guess I don't have to nitpick too much, but it seems that to be inline with Moshers other statement "approximately half of the extract from the malt ends up in the first third of the mash runoff" I'd need my second runnings volume to be double my first runnings volume. My personal experience was that I got roughly 42% of my sugars in the first 35% of my run off volume. I then got somewhere between 32% - 42% of my sugars in the remaining 65% of my total run off volume when I did the second run.

So in my experience, I believe my 42% of the sugars in the first run (which was 35% of the total runnings volume) would scale up to roughly 60% of my sugars in the first 50% of my run off volume.

 

Russian Imperial Stout:

After 4 days in primary the gravity is down to 1.035 (from 1.116 OG) and the yeast still look plenty active. Hoping for a 1.027 FG and 12% abv when all is said and done. Planning on letting this one sit on the yeast for 3-4 weeks in primary, then keg conditioning for 6-9 months before consuming.

Porter:

After 4 days in primary (including 1 day of freezing the wort to 31F by mistake) my wort is back up to fermentation temperatures and fermentation has resumed. The gravity is down to 1.022 (from 1.046) so far and I'm hoping for 1.014 FG which will give me 4.5% abv. Planning on splitting the batch three ways.....

1/3 plain porter
1/3 black pepper porter
1/3 ancho vanilla porter

 

Brief update for anybody interested:

RIS was down to 1.031 when I checked at day 26 in primary and I needed the space so I crash cooled for 48 hours and kegged at 11.5% abv. I'll condition the beer for 6+ months before carbonating it or drinking it.

2nd runnings Session Porter finished around 1.016 FG and the chipotle version was killer. Just enough chipotle to give each sip of this session beer flavor, but not enough to detract from the drinkability by either building heat or overwhelming you with pepper flavor. Not even after 4 pints. The ancho vanilla variation was lacking a bit in ancho and a lot in vanilla, but it's still a tasty porter. The plain base portion wasn't bad on it's own either.

Looking forward to my next Partigyle brew day, which I've decided will be....

8.5g of Baltic Porter and 8.5g of Hard Root Beer (both around 7 - 7.5% abv)

I'm going to use the same 40 pound base recipe for both. (note: different base recipe than my partigyle RIS/Porter) Then I'll add cold water extracted carafa III as a late boil addition in the Baltic Porters boil kettle (to give it some roast while keeping the roast out of the 2nd runnings Root Beer batch), while adding black strap molasses as a late boil addition to the Baltic Root Beers kettle.

Both beers will be fermented with lager yeast for 1 month and then cold crashed for 1-2 months. After that, I'll keg the Baltic Porter carboys. As for the Baltic Root Beer carboys, I'll probably kill off the yeast by adding campden for 24 hours. Then I'll keg them and add the root beer extract, some vanilla extract, some wildflower honey, and possibly some additional sugar. Killing the yeast off first should keep all of these keg additions sugars from fermenting and transform the beer into something much (sweeter) more reminiscent of soda.

Since I'm going with a 50/50 partigyle this time, I won't be able to build too much off of the 35 / 65 RIS Session Porter experience I recently had. But I'm going to use 40% brewhouse and 40% mash extraction as a base line for my 50/50 partigyle recipe and see what happens.

 

Now that I've had some time to think about it, my current guestimate is that this upcoming 50/50 split partigyle will have numbers (when entered as 2 separate recipes in beersmith with equal batch sizes and preboil volumes) that might actually work out to something more along the lines of:

Baltic Porter (1st runnings beer)
51% mash extraction (calculated w/o molasses)
49.5% brew house efficiency (calculated w/o molasses)
9% abv (calculated with molasses)


Hard Root Beer (2nd runnings beer)
34% mash extraction (calculated w/o carafa III)
31.5% brew house efficiency (calculated w/o carafa III)
6% abv (calculated with carafa III)

 

I really have to start proofreading better. It should be:

Baltic Porter (1st runnings beer)
51% mash extraction (calculated w/o carafa III)
49.5% brew house efficiency (calculated w/o carafa III)
9% abv (calculated with carafa III)


Hard Root Beer (2nd runnings beer)
34% mash extraction (calculated w/o molasses)
31.5% brew house efficiency (calculated w/o molasses))
6% abv (calculated with molasses))[/quote]