Brew Like a King
On Sunday, January 19th, 2005, a small crew of 4 (myself - Jamie Crawford, Art FitzSimmons and Jennifer Rhude, along with our shop brew lead MB Raines) gathered at the shop to brew up a parti-gyle batch of Dougfoot and Dougweiser. January marks Doug King's birthday, and we brewed his recipe to celebrate his life and all he did for our club.
You can find the recipe for Dougweiser here. The full version of the Dougfoot/Dougwesier Parti-gyle recipe is available on pages 236-237 in our latest 50th Anniversary Recipe book available in print and digital on Amazon.
Brew Day
We kicked off the brew day bright and early at 9 AM by collecting water into the mash tun and hot liquor tank. Most of the milling, including the grinding the rice into a mostly fine powder, was done the day before by MB and Art, which left us with just the final preparations measuring out our hops and rice hulls.
Cereal Mash
We brought 12-13 gallons of water to a boil in a 24-gallon pot.
Once boiling, we added milled rice to the water while constantly stirring to prevent clumping. The rice becomes molten at this point, so proper protective gear is essential.
When the mixture reached a cream of wheat consistency, we cooled it by adding 3-3.5 gallons of cold water, then added 10 pounds of grain to reach a temperature of 160-165°F, holding it for 30 minutes. The rice mash thinned considerably after adding the grain, with most of the balled rice dissolving.
We brought the mixture back to a boil and held it for another 15 minutes. We encountered a slight boil over but managed it by adding water to knock it down.
Main Mash
We faced an issue with the mash tun, as the washer that goes around the dip-tube and keeps grain out of the false bottom was lost during the last brew day. We had to procure another washer and some stainless scrubby to plug the hole and prevent grain from flowing through, which limited our flow out of the mash tun a bit.
We started our main mash using the mash tun during the last 10 minutes of the rice/cereal mashing. The mash started at 124°F and cooled to 120°F until the boiled rice was transferred to the mash tun. We transferred it 2 gallons at a time using a 5-gallon pot until only a few gallons were left, which we then drained directly from the kettle.
The mash read 155°F, and we added 1-2 gallons of cold water to bring it to around 152°F. After mashing for 15 minutes, we started recirculating and mixing the top third of the mash. The mash tun flow blocked, so we pumped HLT water into the drain port to unblock it. The drain rate was slow but okay for lautering.
Dougfoot
After 60 minutes, we were ready for mashout. However mashing out with our slow flow would have taken forever. So we decided to get a little creative. When the mash reached 158°F, we ran the wort through HERMS to the 24-gallon brew kettle and collected 10 gallons. With the HLT at mash out temps, we figured we could get the wort close to mashout temp on the way to the boil kettle instead of trying to raise the temp of the entire mash tun.
The gravity check read 1.078. We collected the first 16.5 gallons of runoff in the 24-gallon boil kettle for a separate boil. We boiled for 90 minutes until the volume reduced to 13.5 gallons. We then whirlpooled by hand, pumped through the wort chiller back into the kettle with the whirlpool attachment, and started chilling after a 10-minute rest. The gravity check at this point was 22.5 P or 1.090, which should be closer to 25 (possible sampling error?).
We oxygenated for 2 minutes for 5 gallons, then pitched 1.5-2 cups of yeast slurry. MB used Novalager, while Fitz used WL Cal Ale. MB chilled her wort to ~53-55°F by leaving it in the pool overnight.
Dougweiser
The first half of the parti-gyle was complete, and we continued to brew the Dougweiser.
We mashed per the Dougfoot recipe after collecting the first 16.5 gallons for Dougfoot. We drained the mash tun into the brew kettle, collecting around 7 gallons. We added approximately 20 gallons of sparge water to the mash tun, first through the drain port until just below the top of the mash, then through the sparge arm until the mash was covered. We mixed the top two-thirds of the mash and recirculated until clear, then redirected to the brew kettle.
We collected up to 27 gallons in the boil kettle, with a gravity check reading around 1.058. We boiled until a good hot break before adding the 60-minute hops. We used an immersion wort chiller to cool the wort to 69°F and transferred it to fermenters. The final gravity was 15.4 P or 1.062. Both Jamie and MB used water to lower the gravity to 1.050 and 1.047, respectively.
Final Thoughts & Lessons Learned
We ended up wrapping up cleanup around 6:30 PM. 9.5 hours for a big parti-gyle batch with a cereal mash, while a long brew day, wasn't too bad. This was my first experience with a cereal / rice mash as well as the first part parti-gyle. Thanks MB for leading us in this complex brew day!
The Mash tun had it's dip tube cut short when the Beenie Coil was installed. With the new false bottom, the dip tub isn't long enough to hold the essential "grain blocking" washer in place, which is why we lost the washer on a previous batch. We will look into getting a second, longer dip tube for use with the false bottom which will give us flexibility between the two methods.
Everyone's beer is currently fermenting away and will be sampled at an upcoming club meeting (March?). We used a couple of different yeasts, and it will be interesting to see them side by side. Five gallons may also make their way to the Southern California Homebrewers Festival (SCHF) this year.