The Parti-Gyle Experiment: The Brew Day Strikes Back

It always sounds easy, doesn't it? One Mash, two beers? Heating up a lot of water, draining a lot of wort? Cake walk. That's what I said Thursday night when I told Mrs. Muckney Brewing that "sure, I can brew tomorrow so we can go to your Dad's house on Saturday!". Well, while Eric and I were cooling the remaining 4 gallons of Barley Wine wort at 2:45 AM early Saturday morning, racing against an advancing storm, watching the chunky, Irish-moss-less, over-boiled, golden-caramel pre-beer move quickly through a transfer hose I grumbled under my breath that said "cake walk" had turned into a long, meandering marathon of a brew session.

It all started well. I had the brewery up and running by 6:00 PM. The plan was to mash-in by 7:00 PM or so and be boiling by 9:00. Well, the water took a bit longer to heat than anticipated, pushing the mash-in back an hour. All seemed to be going well through the sparge, though it too took a bit too long. We finally gathered enough wort (more on "enough" later) close to 10PM. This is where things took a turn for the worse. There were about 5 gallons of wort "left over" after the Barley Wine (MB0027) was "good to go". So instead of wasting it, I boiled the Table Beer (MB0028) in two separate pots with few issues, except forgetting the Irish moss. No biggie. I ended up with about 3+ gallons of 1.040 OG wort, which was about 10 points higher than what I was shooting for, but oh well. I'm not complaining.

Now for the Barley Wine. Well, as the Table Beer was boiling away, the BW was "coming to a boil", which, unfortunately took about 90 minutes. There was something inhibiting the burner from getting to full strength, so after a quick fix of the propane, we were boiling. Ninety minutes later, the BW was cooling (after an additional 10 minutes to sterilize the wort chiller) without the addition of Irish moss.

After transfer being an hour late and a gallon short, I took a gravity reading - 1.090, no where near the 1.100 I was shooting for, and this was for 4 GALLONS! That means at 5 gallons it would have been closer to 1.080. So this means that my efficiency was sub 60. This is where "enough" from above comes in. Basically, I left 20 gravity points in the mash. The last batch sparge read 1.030. It should have been closer to 1.010. So, I missed 20 points of wort. Basically another 4 gallons of golden goodness. All I can say is "D'0h!"

All in all, it was a 9 hour brew session that could have been shortened to about 6 with a bit more planning and little less stupidity. But hey, there are two beers, one big and one small fermenting away, so I guess in the end, it's counted as a success.

I'm planning on writing an "analysis post" on this in the near future, with some possible fixes for the above problems. As for now, I'll chalk this one up to "learning through experience". No excuses, but it was my first all grain by myself. More to come, including some twists on the two brews from this batch.

Stay Tuned.

Cheers,
Dave

A big shout out to Nate for letting me borrow his equipment, Pat, Craig and Eric for helping brew and to Rob for his moral support.

Mash Tun Photos

I told you they were coming - frankly, I warned you. So here they are, the aforementioned pictures of "Mashie" (it's kinda catchy, isn't it.

Enjoy.

Cheers,
Dave

The Glory that is "Mashie"

Obligatory Side View

Ball valve outlet with hose barb

Circular steel braid lautering device with copper t-juction and hose barbs


Obligatory close up

Back to Brewing

It's been a while - since December, in fact - since I pulled out the brew equipment. Well, with the return of summer, and my recently purchased, though not yet assembled MLT, the time has come to make some beer. Now, the little Brew Devil inside of me is pulling me in a few different ways, and I have a couple of obligations to previously conjured brews, so the brew schedule is filling up fast. Here's a quick run down.

1) Since I couldn't decide between whether to do a barley wine or a table beer, I'm going to do both . . . from the same grain bill. Yup, we're going to play a game of "Big Beer/Small Beer", and collect the second runnings of the barley wine to make a table beer. Details forthcoming.

2) The Ides of March is still un-brewed. This is not cool. The IoM will be brewed this year, just a bit late, so more like, Ides of July.

3) I'm in a Saison mood. I'm also in a Sour mood. I think we're gonna see a funky saison in the near future.

Oh, and the good thing. We're going all-grain on all of this.

Stay tuned.

Cheers,

Dave

The First Steps Toward All Grain

So over the weekend, Justin, Nate and I scoured every hardware, farm supply, value, and surplus store that was open in Indiana, PA in search of parts to build new Mash/Lauter Tuns. We were specifically searching for 10 gallon cylindrical coolers (to no avail) and the corresponding drainage hardware. The latter was easy to find, the former, not so much. This is why I settled for a 48 qt. square cooler. Nate's holding out hope to find the drink cooler.

Unfortunately, it's not built yet. I've run into some hardware issues and need to pick up some additional materials. This would be the reason for a lack of pictures and directions to what I did, both of which will follow upon completion. Until then, the MLT is just a cooler with a hole in it.

Time for a beer.

Cheers,