Partigyle brew 2

[nigel_c]

Well after plenty of planning and putting it off i finally got around to doing a big partigyle brew day.
Last night i got out the scales and got crushing. 17 Kg of grain. By hand (note to self get drill for mill).
I went with the following.

Marris otter 13 Kg
Vienna Malt 2 Kg
Crystal 60 0.73 Kg
Wheat malt 0.52 Kg
Cara Pils 0.38 Kg
Amber malt 0.35 Kg

This was all milled and split into 2 buckets for today.

Bright and early this morning i got the first mash on the go. 70 min mash @ 65.
I collected 12-13L if first runnings in one bucket and sparged and collected second runnings in a second.
Mash number 2 got on the go then.
Same procedure. collected runnings the same and ended up with 25L of first runnings with a pre boil gravity of 1.088

The 2 batches each got a 60 min boil and i ended up....

Batch 1 Small beer. 22L of 1.054 70IBU pale ale hopped with Magnum and Galaxy.
Batch 2. BIG beer. Was a real pain as it knocked out my kettle twice getting up to boil. Had to drain and clean elements twice before going for a 10 min boil with citric acid which did the job.
This beer has hopped with Chinook centennial Amarillo and cascade to 138IBU 
Gravity of this beer came out at 1.104 so a bit bigger than i was expecting.

I have the yeast cake of a small pale ale i brewed with Nottingham that I'm gonna use for both.
Grand day except for the fecking elements cutting out but it gave me a bit of a break for lunch.
Small beer will go pretty quick but the big one is gonna be put away. Have some i brewed the same way last year still.
Both will be dry hopped and big beer might lay done on oak chips for a few weeks.

Its a big commitment but not a bad way to spend a day off.

Nigel.

[Ciderhead]

17kgs of grain by hand, all right there Popeye

[nigel_c]

Yeah should be a big barleywine. Unless super Nottingham does it stuff then it'll be a big double IPA. either way im looking forward to seeing what it does. Thinking of next years competition already 

Last years finished at 1.020 as far as i remember so around there ill be happy.

[nigel_c]

Both were going strong by lastnight.

[newToBrew]

so.. lets ay I want an average beer and a low alcohol beer - would I use say 10 KG - use first runnings and maybe topup with pre boiled water to bring it to an avarage SG reading and likewise for teh low alch version - sparge and top up - to a low sugar reading
presuming this is correct -
how would it the effect body on both beers ? would one be full of body and the other thin ?

[nigel_c]

Big beer has dropped down to 1.030. A good few points higher than i was expecting. Gonna take another sample in a few days just to make sure its done.

I'm also considering pitching some wine yeast to see if it can drop it down to around the 1.020 mark. Don't really want the gravity to drop much lower. Any thoughts on this?

[nigel_c]

Its still bubbling away every now and again so just gonna forget about it for a while. Not in any rush for the bucket. Backup beers are well and truly stocked so can forget about it for as long as it needs. Sample is promising and its still gonna get a monster dry hopping. Amarillo and Cascade. about 50g pellet of each. 

Also i keggeg the small beer the other day. Bittered with magnum then its all galaxy with 60g going in dry for a week or so. Looking forward to this one. 

[nigel_c]

Has dropped to 1.020 so im well happy. 
Just dry hopped with 50g Amarillo pellets so in a weeks time I'm going to rack to keg, force carb it ( on more dry hops) and bottle from keg.
Sample is really nice. Alcohol warm (11.2%) but not over heavy. Bitter but balanced. Needs more hops.

[Partridge9]

That's an outrageous beer - I am surprised the yeast coped so well

- well done !

[nigel_c]

Bottled from keg. Should have a bottle for the next NCB meet up