I was thinking about things to brew next, and a couple of ideas that stuck out were an APA / hoppy golden ale type thing and a Belgian-ish hoppy session beer, loosely inspired by De La Senne's Taras Boulba. Then I came up with a cunning plan - try to brew them both to the same specs with the same grist, with only the yeast and the late hopping different between the two. It seems like it should make for an interesting comparison... I've come up with the following - what do people think? (As previously, everything's converted from my short 3-gallon-ish brewlength up to 5 gallons and from metric to imperial, so apologies in advance if I've messed up any calculations...) Both: 97% Dingemans Pale Ale malt (9 EBC) 3% Special B (I'm hoping to get distinct dark fruit and caramel notes from the Special B without it dominating everything - does 3% sound about right?) Mash at 152, aim for 1.050. Add clean bittering hops at 60, aiming for about 40 IBU once the contribution from the late hops has come in, too. Brew 1: Add about 1.5oz of Mosaic at each of 10 mins, flameout and dry hop. Ferment with US-05. Brew 2: Add about 1oz of Boadicea (English, floral-spicy-grassy) at each of 10 mins and flameout. Ferment with WLP-500. Any thoughts? Thanks!
You will need to have a vessel large enough to take the entire runnings for both batches and then separate them into 2 vessels for boiling.
Firstly I think this is a very good idea. Below are some of my thoughts/comments: Grain Bill I think your grain bill will ‘work’ just fine. I utilize Special B in brewing a number of my Trappist/Abbey style beers and I use about 5% but along with other specialty malts (e.g., Caravienne, etc.). My guess is that just using 3% Special B will get you into the ballpark of what you desire here. Hoping Schedule The hoping schedule you are considering for your APA is more like what I would use for an American IPA; in other words a bit ‘heavy’ but maybe you want a very hoppy APA? I have no personal experience with Boadicea so I am uncertain how to properly comment here. When I brew my Trappist/Abbey Ales I prefer to go light(er) on the flavor/aroma hop additions and have the beers feature more of the Belgian Ale yeast strain flavors. For example when I brew my Dubbel I use ½ ounce of Styrian Goldings for the last 15 minutes of boil and ½ ounce for the end of boil. Maybe you should halve the amounts of the Boadicea but that really depends on how much hop aroma/flavor you want in this beer. Yeast My preferred yeast for my American style APA/IPA/DIPA beers is US-05 so I would encourage you to use this yeast strain. I have never brewed with the Chimay strain (WLP500). My preferred Belgian Ale yeast strain is Wyeast 3787 (the Westmalle strain) and I make sure to ferment warm (e.g., 72-73 degrees F). You might be quite pleased with the Chimay strain? Best of luck on your two beers and please report back how they turned out. Cheers!
Agree that this is a good idea. My thoughts on Special B is that you will need more than 3% for it to shine, consider boosting to at least 5% (I've even gone higher which is contrary to conventional advice). I get no caramel from B, don't be afraid to add crystal malt if that's your goal. That's to style for both pale and Belgian brews. It may be of interest that Mosiac is a killer addition to Belgian brews. That's what Duval used to use in its Tripel-Hopped which was very well received. My thoughts are your two hop schedules are interchangeable (i.e. Boadicea for the pale and Mosiac for the Belgian). I've done a couple of parti-gyle brews and the task of having two brew kettles going, then two fermenters creates considerable more demands for the head brewer (presumably you). You do know you'll need two different temp schedules for the fermentation period? Good luck.
I agree with @PortLargo in that the Mosaic could work nicely with both brews. This would save you from splitting into 2 kettles for boil. Just boil it all in one kettle and split between 2 fermenters. Your choice though. You could also consider throwing in a little Caramunich or some Aromatic.
Thanks for the advice so far! FWIW, I'm actually planning to do two fully independent brews, not parti-gyle - "one grist" might have been misleading there. Cheers!
