Friday, January 14, 2011
Photo-journal: Parti-gyle brewing
On New Year's Eve, Dan and I decided to try something a little different. We wanted to make a big Russian Imperial Stout with coffee, but that wasn't quite crazy enough. For this big brew day, we decided to do 2 split 5-gallon batches, as a parti-gyle brew. The idea of a parti-gyle is that you start with a huge grain bill, and all the first runnings become a single batch. You then sparge the grains, and these second runnings make up a lower gravity batch. We went really big with our batches, starting with a whopping 32 and a quarter lbs of grain, well above what a single 10 gallon mash tun could handle. In order to do this brew, we had to use both Dan's and my mash tuns, and both of our pots. It sounds good in theory, but we had to be very careful to split the grains and water evenly, as well as maintain the same temperature in both tuns to ensure good, predictable results. We used 10 gallons of water to mash the Imperial Stout, and got 6 gallons out after grain absorption. We then sparged with another 6 gallons of water for our smaller batch, a Brown Ale with coffee. After a few days of waiting for fermentation to start, it went crazy and needed a blow-off tube put in to keep from popping the airlock. Anyway, all that should give you an idea of what's going on below, now on to the photo-journaling.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Doesn't draining the mash tun into the pot with no tube pose the significant threat of hot side aeration? Why not use a tube?
ReplyDeleteHot side aeration (HSA) is really only a concern when oxygen is introduced post-boil but before chilling. Normally water that you pour out of your tap or from a bottle has a fairly high oxygen content. When water (or wort) boils, this oxygen is driven off. Even major breweries do not worry about HSA pre-boil, as seen in photos of Sierra Nevada dropping wort several feet from a pipe in their boil kettle, and other videos and photos out there of similar things at a variety of breweries. It's also why you have to be intentional about introducing oxygen after cooling, there is no longer enough present to ensure good yeast propagation.
ReplyDeleteIf you want to read more on the subject, visit some brewing forums like Home Brew Talk and perform a search on hot side aeration.
BTW, I usually use a tube off the mash tun at home, but this is more to keep the wort from splashing all over my floors than anything else.