Welcome to the Parti

It had been a while since I had brewed any beer, a few months at least, and with Mrs Velkyal out of town starting her Masters degree, I took the opportunity to make a start on some beers for upcoming competitions.

Reading a recent edition of Brew Your Own magazine, there was was an article about Fuller's, along with some clone recipes which will be given a run out at some point. In the article, it was mentioned that Fuller's do a tehcnique called "parti-gyle", and so I decided that in order to maximise the efficiency of my tiny mash tun, I would give it bash.

I am sure you know what parti-gyling is, but just in case, basically you pull the strong first runnings to make one beer and then the weaker second and third runnings to make another. Obviously the first runnings are used to make something stronger, while the rest is for a more sessionable brew. Given my small set up I decided to do a single gallon from the first runnings, and a normal batch from the second and third.

In deciding what to brew I looked at my grain store (sounds so much grander than "box of bags of grain") and opted for a robust porter for the stronger beer, and a dark mild for the weaker. I also chose to make Briess Special Roast the main specialty grain, supplemented with Caramel 80 and Chocolate for colour and some more flavour. Initially my plan was to use Maris Otter for the base malt, but when I drove round to our local Fifth Season, they had Golden Promise as well so I plumped for that instead, purely because it is a Scottish barley. I was nervous though that the second and third runnings would produce a wort that would fall well short of the 1.030 target gravity of the session brew, and so I bought some dark Belgian candi sugar just in case.

Into my mash tun then on Saturday went the following:

• 80% Golden Promise
• 12% Special Roast
• 4% Caramel 80
• 4% Chocolate

For the hopping of the two brews, I have had a 2oz bag of Willamette leaf hops sitting around in the freezer since I won some bling at the Virginia Beer Blitz,so it was about time they got used. For yeast, my favourite dried Nottingham strain was lined up for the porter, while the mild would be fermented using Wyeast's 1338 European Ale, a warm fermenting strain from Germany.

The brewday went without a hitch, other than the expected short fall on the gravity I wanted for the mild, and so, in went the sugar. In trying to decide what to call the beers, as it was my good friend Reuben's birthday on Saturday (check out his blog), I thought it would be nice to name the stronger beer in his honour, and so Gray's Gylactic Porter was born. On the mild front, I went for Wee Willie's Mild, referring to a nursery rhyme from home, and the fact that I used a Scottish base malt.

The vitals for the beers are as follows:

Gray's Gylactic Porter

• OG - 1.062
• IBU - 47
• ABV (projected) - 7.2%

Wee Wille's Mild

• OG - 1.036
• IBU - 23
• ABV (projected) - 4%

If I did my calculations correctly, doing a parti-gyle in my little mash tun meant I ended up with an efficiency of about 78%, and most importantly will have more beer to drink than from a standard mash! I think this method will become something of a regular occurrence.