Oct 112012
 

So I decided to try my hand at a partigyle brew, and I figured what better style to do this with than an English brown ale and a mild ale. I’ve been meaning to do this for a few years now, but never sat down to actually calculate a recipe. I sat down with my brown ale recipe (Nutty Brown Dog) and my mild recipe (Muddy Paws Mild), and tried to figure out the commonalities between them so I could formulate a common recipe to brew them both. They both had Maris Otter and chocolate malt, so that part was easy. The crystal malts weren’t too dissimilar – crystal 80 and Special B versus crystal 60 and crystal 120. But the brown ale has special roast and amber malt, while the mild has mild malt and aromatic malt.

Nutty Brown Dog
Muddy Paws Mild
9 lb
Maris Otter
3 lb
Maris Otter
8 oz
Crystal Malt 80
2 lb
Mild Malt
8 oz
Special Roast
1 lb
Crystal Malt 60
8 oz
Amber Malt
8 oz
Aromatic Malt
4 oz
Chocolate Malt
4 oz
Crystal Malt 120
3 oz
Special B Malt
3 oz
Chocolate Malt
OG:
1.052
OG:
1.035
SRM:
22.8
SRM:
19.1

I weighed my options, and in the end I decided to base this recipe off of the mild ale.

To formulate my recipe, I assumed I would obtain 65% of my sugar in the first runnings and 35% in the second runnings. I’ve been analyzing the gravity of my first and second runnings for a few years now, and I typically see 2:1 ratio of the gravity between the first and second runnings. I batch sparge, so I figured this would be predictable of a partigyle. These numbers are similar to those reported by Randy Mosher in Brewing Techniques where he says to expect ~58% of the sugar in the first runnings, and ~42% in the second runnings. I formulated my recipe for an 11 gallon batch assuming 70% efficiency:

9lb Maris Otter
5lb Mild Malt
2lb Crystal Malt 60
8 oz Crystal Malt 120
6 oz Chocolate Malt
1lb Aromatic Malt
OG: 1.042
SRM: 19.6

Given the 65%:35% ratio of first and second runnings, that translates into the following for each:

First Runnings (Brown Ale)
Second Runnings (Mild)
5.85 lb
Maris Otter
3.15 lb
Maris Otter
3.25 lb
Mild Malt
1.75 lb
Mild Malt
1.3 lb
Crystal Malt 60
0.7 lb
Crystal Malt 60
5.2 oz
Crystal Malt 120
2.8 oz
Crystal Malt 120
3.9 oz
Chocolate Malt
2.1 oz
Chocolate Malt
0.65 lb
Aromatic Malt
0.35 lb
Aromatic Malt
0.5 oz
Challenger 8.3% (60 min)
0.5 oz
Kent Golding 5.5% (FWH)
0.5 oz
Kent Golding 5.5 %(60 min)
0.5 oz
Kent Golding 5.5% (15 min)
0.5 oz
Kent Golding 5.5% (0 min)
OG:
1.055
OG:
1.029
SRM:
25.4
SRM:
13.7
IBU:
27.8
IBU:
11.4
The recipe seems all well and good, so onto brewday.
Everything went according to schedule, I hit my mash temps, and drained my first running. Instead of obtaining the predicted theoretical gravity for 1.050 in the 6 gallons obtained, I obtained a gravity of 1.060. I sparged with 6 gallons of water, and obtained a gravity of 1.021 instead of the theoretical 1.027. So my sugar ratio was 74%:26%, and my overall efficiency was 73%. I decided to continue brewing with these worts, and then blend them after boiling to obtain to reduce the gravity of the first runnings and increase the gravity of the second runnings. To keep the same BU:GU ratio the same for the increased gravity of the first runnings, I added an additional 0.25 oz Centennial (9.7%) at 60 minutes.
After boiling, the gravity of the first runnings 1.068, and the gravity of the second runnings was 1.023. I calculated that I could take 1 gallon from the first runnings and add it to 4.5 gallons of the second runnings, and 1 gallon of the second runnings and add it to 4.5 gallons of the first runnings to obtain 1.060 and 1.031 for the first and second runnings, respectively. In actuality I obtained 1.057 and 1.032, which was close enough. I pitched WLP002 into each, and let everything ferment.
In the end, the brown ale turned out pretty good. It’s a little bit too nutty for me. It reminds me of hazelnuts, which I’m not a fan of. But the caramel flavors are nice, and the medium, almost creamy mouth feel is what I was looking for. I think the nutty character of the mild malt is adding to the nutty flavors of the chocolate malt, which is too much for me. Next time I’ll cut out the chocolate malt.
The mild did not turn out so well. The light mouth feel is nice, and I really like the maltiness. However, there is a really ashy taste that I can get over. My guess is that it is from the chocolate malt. Perhaps my sparge pH was too high, or I left the sparge water on the mash for too long. Whatever the reason, it is not what I was looking for. Next time I will monitor the sparge pH, and adjust accordingly. Also, I think I’ll blend the first and second runnings prior to boiling to adjust the gravities.
Overall, I think things went pretty well, and I learned a lot about partigyle brewing. It’s definitely an easy two for one brew day.

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