Turning an American Stout wort to a RIS wort in the kettle...

[stratslinger]

So, SWMBO has asked that I brew my American Stout again sometime soon - but she's asked that I double it up and make the second half into a RIS.

I'm wondering if I can just do a 12 gallon batch of my American Stout, and either add some sugars in the kettle to ramp up the OG (brown sugar, demerara, molases, something like that), some DME, or a combination of the two.

My American Stout malt bill looked something like this, for 6 gallons:

11.5lbs 2 row
1lb Roasted barley
.75lbs carapils (I may go lighter on this next time around due to some foaming issues from last batch)
.75lbs chocolate malt
.75lbs crystal 60L

Mash @ 154

I hit an OG of about 1.061, the American Stout version hit an FG of around 1.015

The mash temp is a little concerning for what would become a RIS - but I think adding a couple lbs of simple sugars should keep the FG pretty low still (though I admit, I haven't crunched any numbers in Beersmith yet).

Has anyone tried anything like this before? Had any success, or any failures worth avoiding?

 

[billl]

You can certainly do that, but I don't think just adding sugar for the ABV bump won't give it the richness and body you would be looking for. You can add DME, but then you'll have some attenuation issues.

The more traditional way to do this would be to use the first runnings to make the big beer and the second runnings to make the smaller beer. (blending a bit if you want to hit a particular OG) If you want the smaller beer to finish at a higher FG, then you can add lactose or maltodextrin to the kettle.

 

[cmoewes]

Doing a partigyle would be a traditional way to do it using the first runnings for the RIS and the second runnings for the stout. Your stout might end up a little lower OG depending on your grain bill.

You probably could come up with a decent combination if you made the batch large enough.

A quick calculation would be a pre boil gravity of 1.049 would result in 7 gallons down to 5.5 gallons @ 1.061 and 11 gallons down to 5.5 gallons at 1.100.

That an 18 gallon batch (preboil) so maybe tweak your recipe to get a higher pre-boil gravity and then top off the stout side with water when you start the boil.

You could always add some d-90 or d-180 candi syrup to bring some additional fermenatbles and flavor into the RIS portion.

 

[stratslinger]

The Partigyle thought had occurred to me, but for two things: 1) I have what I feel is a pretty well proven American Stout Recipe now, and I'd like to stick to it if I can (well, aside from the adjustment to the Carapils) and 2) I know next to nothing about planning out a Partigyle such that I could predict what I'd actually get from the first and last runnings...

I completely get what you guys are saying though, about not really getting the mouthfeel right, by just taking an American Stout and ramping up the OG with sugars or DME... I mean, maybe with the DME just because it probably wouldn't attenuate as much, I might get a bit of that, but it likely wouldn't be "right".

The more I think about it, the more I start to think these may need to just be two separate brews - unless I can figure out how to make the Partigyle concept work, though I thought that typically you got a much lighter beer out of the last runnings, so I'm not even sure that two different stouts could come out of the same mash like that. Is that even doable?

 

[billl]

"Is that even doable?"

Sure. People were doing it before they could even measure gravities.

Braukeiser made a great wiki about mash numbers.
http://braukaiser.com/wiki/index.php?title=Understanding_Efficiency

Ballpark numbers if you want to try it. Your base recipe gets you 6 gallons of 61point beer. If you want to make that plus a 110 point RIS, that would be 2.8 times a much grain if you could get the same efficiency. You probably won't, so I would round that up to 3 times or 44.25 lbs. (Can you mash that much?)

Assuming a 1.25 mash thickness, you'll need 13.8 gallons to mash and should recover 8.3 gallons. The gravity of those runnings should be 96 points if you get full conversion. Assuming 1.5 gallons/hr boiloff in each kettle, you'll need 6.7 gallons of sparge. Those runnings should come in around 34 points.

For the RIS, you'll need about 6.5 gallons of the first runnings and 1 gallon of the second. (6.5*96 +1*34)/6 = 110) That leaves 1.8 gallons of the first + 5.7 of the second (1.8*96 + 5.7*34)/6 = 61.

Of course, your system and brewday numbers will differ a bit from the "ideal" calculations. You'll need to take readings along the way and make adjustments based on what you get. (You'll also probably want to keep a little DME on hand in case you come in lower than expected)

If that sounds like too much math to do while brewing (and presumably drinking a beer or 2 along the way) then you can always just do them separately.

 

[stratslinger]

Thanks Bill - that sounds interesting as all get-out. Sadly, my MLT is a 10 gallon cooler. That said, I may be able to borrow a larger MLT (maybe a buddy's 15g blichman & false bottom) to make this work.

I'll definitely read up on that link.

 

[kingwood-kid]

http://morebeer.com/brewingtechniques/library/backissues/issue2.2/moshertable.html

No math required if you want to plan out a partigyle. However, when you do one, the numbers can be a bit misleading as far as the actual enjoyability goes. The first beer ends up much richer and maltier than the numbers suggest, and the second tastes a little watery and bland, even if the color and gravity indicate that it should not.

I would play around with the recipe and make the RIS a separate batch. Remember that the FG doesn't mean much for beers with different OGs. At the same FG, a beer with a 1.090 OG will have 50% more residual sugar than a 1.060 beer fermented down to the same FG. So cutting out the carapils entirely is a viable option. The RIS may need some extended aging, so it'll lose hop flavor and bitterness, which you may want to compensate for somehow.