big beer / partial mash technique?

[zorak1066]

ive been playing with northern brewers Russian imperial stout recipe and trying to convert it to a partial mash. what I got is:

5 gal batch, 6 gal boil
partial mash: 7# American pale 2 row
.5# American roast barley
.25# UK black patent
.5# UK chocolate
.25# UK crystal 60

figure 3 gallons of mash water, 4 gallons sparge for a boil volume of around 6 gallons? if I hit 70% efficiency I estimate boil grav if just using the above of 1.036.

after the mash is done and sparged, add 6# LME dark which will boost the boil gravity to about 1.062 assuming I hit 70% above.

hops: 1.25 oz summit for 60 min
1.25 oz cascade for 8 min.

that would give me a 5 gallon batch at around 1.08 ish for a starting gravity.

now I want to add d180 1# to this to get the abv up to around 9.5% and add all kinds of dimensions to the final product... which will get secondary fermenter for about 2 months and bourboned oak chips etc...

since the OG without it will be about 1.08...kind of high to begin with... I would like to feed the d180 to the yeast later so they don't stress out.


question 1 - what would be a good feeding schedule for the D180 additions? the later higher gravity would make it helpful for the yeast right?

question 2 - do I originally pitch yeast sufficient for the 1.07 gravity? or for the later way higher gravity of 1.09 ish?

assume I am using danstar Nottingham.



thanks in advance...hope this makes sense. haven't slept well in months.

-z-

[zorak1066]

I figure with a partial mash and lme I should be able to improve my efficiency rather than trying again with tons of grain.

[jimjohson]

Just curious, when do you plan to add the LME to the boil? What is your usual efficiency?

[mashani]

Random thoughts.

You only need to pitch a starter big enough for the gravity wort you are putting into the fermenter initially if doing a sugar feeding. So if 1.070 is what goes in, and feedings bring you higher, then 1.070 sized pitch rate is enough yeast. **** Exception would be if you are pushing the edges of alcohol tolerance, then I would pitch a bit more yeast... but ideally for most ales you want 2-3 generations of growth in the fermenter before active fermentation begins, that gives you the yeast flavor profile, but ferments as efficiently as possible. Exceptions there would be beers that you WANT to be very estery, like a wheat beer, then that sized pitch is too much. As in you would get little/no banana.

I would feed the sugar as soon as the initial high krausen starts to fall off, 3-4 days in or so. The yeast is very active, the wort has been 40-50% fermented out (or even more depending on yeast strain), and the yeast are highly adapted at that point for the original wort gravity and the PH changes. They will have no problem at all with a 1/2# to 1# sugar feeding at that point - edit - again as long as you aren't pushing the edged of alcohol tolerance...

I usually feed sugar in 1-3 feedings depending on my initial OG. If I was starting at 1.06 I would do it as 1 (unless I was adding 2# of sugar, then I would do it as 2), 1.07 I would do it as 2 or 3 (if using 2# then 3), 1.08 I would do it as 3 regardless.... hopefully that logic makes sense. You don't have to follow it, but it's what's worked well for me.

[Gerry_P]

Hey Zorak! I thought your skull looked familiar...

I think that yeast is OK with 9.5%, but you might want to pitch 2 packs if you weren't already. Or go with a liquid yeast with a good-sized starter, if you're so inclined.

Question: What's the advantage of adding the sugar later? I've heard of doing that with something like WLP099, but shouldn't need to baby that Nottingham yeast to hit your target ABV. I could be wrong though, I don't use dry yeast much.

Also, may I ask why you're bothering with the partial mash instead of full mash? If your efficiency is a little low that's not necessarily a bad thing, especially if you're consistent.

[Beer-lord]

I've always read that the longer a flavorful sugar is boiled the more is lost. Some say there's less chance of a boil over.

[mashani]

Question: What's the advantage of adding the sugar later? I've heard of doing that with something like WLP099, but shouldn't need to baby that Nottingham yeast to hit your target ABV. I could be wrong though, I don't use dry yeast much.

Also, may I ask why you're bothering with the partial mash instead of full mash? If your efficiency is a little low that's not necessarily a bad thing, especially if you're consistent.

The sugar - if you are talking about feeding it post fermentation, then the main reason, especially in a product with a high alcohol content, is to get the yeast rip roaring without stress on a lower gravity wort, and then once they are fully adopted to the wort and you add the sugar they will chew through it and the remaining sugars in the wort without any issue. With some yeasts such as WLP530/Wyeast 3787, you will actually get higher attenuation levels by doing this more often then not. I always feed WLP530/3787 if my OG would be more then 1.07 with the sugar added. Besides the potential for higher attenuation, you get less hot alcohol and stress related yeast by products - so you can drink your blonde/tripel/strong beer sooner.

Now I don't know why he is doing a PM, but I can tell you why I would. Equipment limitations. All of my 5 gallon batches where I mash end up as partial, because I boil on my stove and it can only boil so much volume in an amount of time I find acceptable. Since I BIAB, that leaves me with a limit to how much grain I can fit into my pot, unless I was to go out and buy a pot that I could never bring to a boil. Which to me is pointless. So once I am over that, it becomes a PM, or even a PM with partial volume boil. For a really big beer, even 2.5 gallon post boil target volume is beer too much grain/water for my pot. But since I make really good beer doing either of those things, I haven't been able to justify buying a lot of extra equipment, especially since a lot of the time I'm also mixing in short boil duration 2.5 gallon or 5 gallon extract batches to save time. (saving money in the extract vs. grain sense is meaningless to me, because my issues are more "time" related then "money" related, and I've been making excellent beers using really fresh extract - not canned stuff, fresh bulk stuff, IE from MoreBeer or such). So in my case the PM in such a beer would be more about nailing a profile I'm targeting that I can't do with extract. I do AG stuff too, it just depends on if I have the time and what kind of beer it is.

[Gerry_P]

I got ya. The only time I ever found the sugar thing to be an issue was with a beer that was over 10%. That's just my experience, I'm not arguing the point or anything. I have a barleywine that's 12%+ where I started with Wyeast London Ale, which took me from 1.105 to 1.032 before it crapped out, then I used WLP099. That is not an easy yeast to work with, and White Labs recommends a procedure similar to the one you described. They recommend that for those intrepid souls who are attempting to reach the upper limits of the yeasts' tolerance of 25%, so I just did a 2-step starter thinking I'd be good down to my target of 1.016 and be in good shape for bottling. I was wrong. The WLP099 fizzled out at 1.026. Eventually I got it down to 1.021, which was a little over my target, with some CBC-1, but I can live with that. It tasted OK when I bottled it, but there are definitely some fusels in there, probably from over-pitching. Long story short (too late, I know), I should have added the sugar (or wort) in increments, or skipped the WLP099 and used champagne yeast. I've never had problems with fusels or attenuation in beers up to 9% (knock on wood).

Now the equipment thing: My first all-grain batch was BIAB, but I soon switched to doing batch sparges (sort of) in a 5 gallon Igloo and have gotten much better efficiency with what I consider a minor financial expenditure and little extra effort. I use sort of a modified batch/fly sparge ("Flatch sparge" maybe...?) that's been working well for me, and if I end up with 5 or more gallons pre-boil I split the wort into 2 pots, boil it down until it all fits in my bigger pot, then continue normally. Which brings me to....

Boiling longer does not boil out flavorful sugars. On the contrary, long boiling times caramelize the wort more, giving it a very nice depth of flavor. The only concern about longer boiling times is darker colored wort, which may or may not be bad. Unless of course you're doing a really clean pilsner or something, which I don't mess with. The last beer I made was a Scotch ale. For that one I took 64 oz. of first runnings. boiled it down to about a cup, and added it to the wort which was boiled for about 2 hours. It tasted delicious, and I can't wait to see how that one turns out.

Anyway I'm not saying my way is better by any means, I'm just passing along my experiences with what has worked pretty well for me so far.

[mashani]

Boiling longer does not boil out flavorful sugars. On the contrary, long boiling times caramelize the wort more, giving it a very nice depth of flavor. The only concern about longer boiling times is darker colored wort, which may or may not be bad. Unless of course you're doing a really clean pilsner or something, which I don't mess with. The last beer I made was a Scotch ale. For that one I took 64 oz. of first runnings. boiled it down to about a cup, and added it to the wort which was boiled for about 2 hours. It tasted delicious, and I can't wait to see how that one turns out.

Yes, this is absolutely true. Think about it if your a skeptic - to make the candi sugar whatever shade it is, required boiling it for a long time... the darker the longer. That's what made all those wonderful flavors (I sometimes make my own candi sugar). So boiling the sugar is your wort isn't going to hurt it. Although it might change the profile of the final product if you do the boil vs. feed it. So it mostly matters if you want to duplicate a recipe precisely. But it's not going to "hurt" it.

RE: your scotch ale, I've done that sort of thing (I call it a "pseudo decoction"), for many beers, it worked most excellent for a weizenbock, made some awesome flavors. You just have to be careful not to scorch/burn it once it gets really syrupy.

EDIT: FWIW, if I was going to switch to pure AG, I would either build a MLT (used to have one 20+ years ago in my previous brewing life) or if I happened to have a crap load of money burning a hole in my pocket, then build/buy a recirculating electric build. But in my case I just don't have time to do pure AG all the time, so I will live with the BIAB for now. I like BIAB for the most part, it's easy to do and clean up after.

[Gerry_P]

"RE: your scotch ale, I've done that sort of thing (I call it a "pseudo decoction"), for many beers, it worked most excellent for a weizenbock, made some awesome flavors. You just have to be careful not to scorch/burn it once it gets really syrupy."

Yeah you ain't kidding about the scorching. I boiled it down to the point where it was getting difficult to work with, then stopped. I ended up with a little bit more than I was planning to use, but nothing major. It reminded me of making a roux a little bit. Or more accurately, making candy. Here's the recipe, if you're interested. I scaled it down to 2.5 gallons and changed a couple minor details: http://www.skotrat.com/skotrat/recipes/ ... es/10.html

[zorak1066]

the thought behind the pm... cooler tun too small for 5 gallons... however I am building a bigger one. just need to pick up a dremel and learn how to cut slits in copper tubing and I will be good to go.