Parti!

Well partigyle at least. My latest brew day encompassed 2 firsts. It was my first attempt at a barleywine and my first partigyle brew session. Partigyle brewing is when you take the first runnings of the mash to make a large beer and then use the second runnings of the mash to make a smaller beer. I made an ESB with the second runnings. The recipe I followed called for 28 pounds of grain in the mash tun. As you can see below, my system tops out at around 23 pounds of grain.

At capacity

Thankfully I was able to get beersmith up and running again for this brew. It was very helpful in making the adjustments to the recipe. Because my mash tun was not large enough to make the beers as called for, my partigyle brew actually used the first and half of the second runnings for the barleywine and the other half of the second runnings and the third runnings for the ESB. In order to give the ESB some additional character I steeped a pound of crystal malt while it was coming to a boil. One issue I ran into during brew day was a place to store all of the wort for the ESB while I was boiling the barleywine. I will need to get another big kettle.

A little ESB here, a little there...

Because I had to run even more water through the grains to get the amount I needed to boil it made the ESB a little watered down. I was able to do some calculations taking my pre-boil gravity into account and I added some dry malt extract to get the gravity to where I needed it. I managed to hit the expected original gravity exactly and it was definitely a highlight of the day.

Overall, I enjoyed doing the partigyle, but I definitely need some additional equipment to make it go a little smoother (i.e. another kettle). It was very fun to see these beers ferment like crazy after I added the yeast. The barleywine nearly bubbled through the air lock, but the krausen receded just in time. I have a long road ahead with the barleywine. It has a couple months of oak aging ahead of it, but I have a feeling the wait will definitely be worth it.