The London Pride / ESB partigyle rabbit hole

[Twostage]

I'm tasting a bottle tonight I'll post something.

No I'm not . I only kegged/bottled it a few days ago. Tonight I'm tasting the New Zealand pale ale.

 

[matt76]

Not sure what to call what I was making apart from a SMASH. 100% Vienna and 30g Chinook first wort hopped. I did a 20g whirlpool at the end. I'm tasting a bottle tonight I'll post something.

(I made a Helles with only first wort hops and it was amazing how the hop flavour carried through so I'm experimenting with doing it in other brews)

Playing around in Brewer's Friend I think I can get it down to about 70g with a grain bill of 4.31kg, but that's down at the lower 25 IBU end of the scale for Best Bitter.

That said I'm planning to partigyle a best and an ESB for which no brewing software is really geared up!

 

[RoomWithABrew]

Have you factored in the Fullers boil time?
Is it longer I wonder?

 

[matt76]

Have you factored in the Fullers boil time?
Is it longer I wonder?

Good question, but having listened to the various Brewing Network podcasts I'm pretty darn sure it's 60min.

(In any case, there's not not a huge jump in bittering from 30 mins to 60mins, even less from 60 to 90)

 

[Sadfield]

The beevana article possibly has the answer. The brewing record has two figures for each hop. They do two 60 minute boils. One of first runnings hopped with the larger quantities of hops. The second a wort of 1.005 with the lower quantity. Unless it has been recently debunked, hop utilisation is higher in lower gravity worts. I suspect the second wort is pretty hoppy. Also, boil size affects utilisation through hop concentration. Higher volume, better utilisation.

https://beerandbrewing.com/hops-utilization/

 

[matt76]

The beevana article possibly has the answer. The brewing record has two figures for each hop. They do two 60 minute boils. One of first runnings hopped with the larger quantities of hops. The second a wort of 1.005 with the lower quantity. Unless it has been recently debunked, hop utilisation is higher in lower gravity worts. I suspect the second wort is pretty hoppy. Also, boil size affects utilisation through hop concentration. Higher volume, better utilisation.

https://beerandbrewing.com/hops-utilization/

Thanks. From the podcasts where they interviewed the brewer they basically split the hops ⅔ & ⅓ between the stronger & weaker worts respectively - which fits with their own brewing log book, and what you're saying there.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Would brewing on such an industrial scale suddenly mean your hops go a lot further, or could they be using special "magic" hops only available to professionals???

The posh name for it is hop utilisation and yes it's higher when brewing at scale, but like all these things it's complicated as different hop components respond differently. This presentation gives you an idea based on what happened in one particular experiment at Columbus Brewery in Ohio :
https://www.homebrewersassociation....ween Homebrew and Commercial Utilization..pdf
Also they say their average alpha is 11.4% which is high for the varieties they use, implying it was a good vintage - probably 2015 I suspect? You would need much more of 2023 hops for instance.

And yeah, you're probably used to being a bit heavy-handed - I'm the same, I tend to end up using all of a 100g pack in a brew because life's too short to have pennies' worth of hops hanging round in open packs. But for a commercial brewer it can be the difference between life and death.

 

[matt76]

The posh name for it is hop utilisation and yes it's higher when brewing at scale, but like all these things it's complicated as different hop components respond differently. This presentation gives you an idea based on what happened in one particular experiment at Columbus Brewery in Ohio :
https://www.homebrewersassociation....ween Homebrew and Commercial Utilization..pdf
Also they say their average alpha is 11.4% which is high for the varieties they use, implying it was a good vintage - probably 2015 I suspect? You would need much more of 2023 hops for instance.

And yeah, you're probably used to being a bit heavy-handed - I'm the same, I tend to end up using all of a 100g pack in a brew because life's too short to have pennies' worth of hops hanging round in open packs. But for a commercial brewer it can be the difference between life and death.

Thanks, yes, I had a feeling that the commercial scale vs. homebrew scale might well be a factor.

Interesting presentation too, thanks for sharing

Also they say their average alpha is 11.4% which is high for the varieties they use, implying it was a good vintage - probably 2015 I suspect? You would need much more of 2023 hops for instance.

OK - now I'm actually reading that as just the Target is 11.4% AAU. Reason being that I know from podcasts the Target goes in at 60mins for bittering and the rest very late at about 3mins (interestingly I'm certain the brewer mentioned they do a hopstand/whirlpool before chilling which isn't mentioned in the CYBI recipes or chatter on homebrew talk).

Reading it like that the late hops aren't going to add much in the way of IBU's (only about 5 out of around 30-35 total). And the Target I have in the freezer is 10% AAU so I shouldn't require significantly more.

But that is purely my own interpretation, and you could be right.

In the absence of more details my pragmatic view is to add what "feels" like the right kind of amount for my system/from my experience, do it in proportion to the Fuller's amounts, and perhaps try hard to exercise more restraint! I can also take a steer from the CYBI recipes which are at least much closer to the amount I plan to brew.

 

[Sadfield]

(ESB & Chiswick Bitter are also dry hopped later on)

You'll see on recipe sheets that this is at Declar, or declaration. This is when the yeast is pitched.

 

[matt76]

I finally brewed it!

Test Batch
Not a partigyle but a few weeks ago I made a London Pride-ish clone-ish beer using my normal single infusion and short boil process. I have this on tap now and I'm pleased with the result. I haven't done a back to back comparison and it's not expected to be a clone but it certainly seems to have a Fuller's-ish London Pride-ish character to it.

Partigyle
Having finally managed to get my hands on a pack of Northdown I took a day off last week and brewed it. I won't go to into the details as these will most likely be specific to my setup and the gear I have on hand.

I had a good idea in my head of how I planned to go about it. The biggest challenge is simply that it was a departure from my well honed process so as much as I had planned, not everything turned out exactly as expected and I had to figure out solutions on the fly.

One example is I had to make do without my mash re-circ pump - double my normal grain bill meant the wort would not drain through the grain bed as fast as the pump was pumping it to the top.

Another was how to deal with the Gyle 1 trub when I needed the kettle back in a hurry to start the boil for Gyle 2.

And a third is simply the best way to blend the two worts to maximise yield and make sure the OG's are on target - the way I planned and did it wasn't optimal, in hindsight there's an obvious, simpler and better way.

It was a long brew day, probably not as hands on as a double decoction mash which I've done a couple of times, but there's only so fast you can do 2 x 1hr boils.

I ended up with:
ESB: 6.5L @ 1.056 OG
LP: 9.5L @ 1.046 OG
(For comparison, my normal batch size is about 11.5L in the keg)

Initially I was a bit down about the time invested for a relatively small yield, but in hindsight I'm pleased I did it, I learned some stuff and if I did it again there are some obvious areas for improvement.

At pitching I thought the OG's were slightly under for the ESB and slightly over for the LP. Both beers have been fermenting away for just over a week and are more or less at FG now. I'll need to check final readings with a hydrometer once they're done but if the Tilts are anything to go by (and they aren't always) it looks like the yeast has attenuated rather more than the Wyeast specs suggest - and this was also the case with the test batch.

I reckon another few days then I'll be ready to keg them both and see how they've turned out

 

[Twostage]

It does you good to go out of your comfort zone and challenge yourself every now and again. Do you think you would do it again ? There is probably something you've discovered that you can use again even if its not a full blown parti.

 

[matt76]

It does you good to go out of your comfort zone and challenge yourself every now and again. Do you think you would do it again ? There is probably something you've discovered that you can use again even if its not a full blown parti.

Hmm... Well, never say never... I think the main issue would be getting a whole free day to do it, in this case I had some leave to burn so it worked out ok.

First step is to see how these beers turn out. In the short term I think I'd be inclined to re-brew using my normal process and see what difference it makes.

But I don't think I'm done with this yeast strain just yet, it's incredibly flavorful - one of the beers I had recently at Rebellion had a very similar note to it, and apparently Lagunitas IPA uses the same strain. I'll be interested to try it in my Porter and American Amber Ale. I think an open fermentation could also be really interesting.

 

[Twostage]

Hmm... Well, never say never... I think the main issue would be getting a whole free day to do it, in this case I had some leave to burn so it worked out ok.

First step is to see how these beers turn out. In the short term I think I'd be inclined to re-brew using my normal process and see what difference it makes.

But I don't think I'm done with this yeast strain just yet, it's incredibly flavorful - one of the beers I had recently at Rebellion had a very similar note to it, and apparently Lagunitas IPA uses the same strain. I'll be interested to try it in my Porter and American Amber Ale. I think an open fermentation could also be really interesting.

It must be possible to get 'slick' at it as it used to be common practice. Then again its not a popular commercial practice these days is it ? (genuine question, I don't know if its still done commercially).

Yes, it would be interesting to compare them made using your normal process and seeing what the yeast does to other styles.

I've made two brews using alternate methods recently - a Guinness clone which was a SMASH and steep recombined at the boil which gave me the idea of doing the three sub-styles of Biere de Guarde using a normal mash/boil plus two mini-mash/boils recombined for the ferment. It has opened my eyes to different ways of doing things and wanting to learn more.

 

[matt76]

It must be possible to get 'slick' at it as it used to be common practice. Then again its not a popular commercial practice these days is it ? (genuine question, I don't know if its still done commercially).

Yes, it would be interesting to compare them made using your normal process and seeing what the yeast does to other styles.

I've made two brews using alternate methods recently - a Guinness clone which was a SMASH and steep recombined at the boil which gave me the idea of doing the three sub-styles of Biere de Guarde using a normal mash/boil plus two mini-mash/boils recombined for the ferment. It has opened my eyes to different ways of doing things and wanting to learn more.

Well my normal AIO BIAB full-volume no-sparge short-boil homebrew process is already pretty slick these days. So I suppose a second boil is more of a significant percentage extra time spent.

IF you were doing 3V and sparging and already having a long regular brew day then maybe partigyling makes more sense, less of an additional time investment maybe???

Fuller's still do it (clue in the thread name ). At the commercial scale where you have to sparge then maybe it makes more sense. On the one hand I imagine Fuller's wouldn't do it if it doesn't make financial sense. But on the other hand maybe that's what makes their beers taste like their beers, and maybe it makes them harder to imitate.

Even if it isn't particularly a time saver at the homebrew scale, maybe it's one of those things like decoction mashing that some of us brewers like to do from time to time to feel a connection with traditional techniques.

Given another day to myself (hah!) I'd like to do it again, mainly just to prove to myself I can make the process better with some obvious tweaks and maybe a bit of practice

 

[RoomWithABrew]

I've certainly found a partigyle is a great thing to do if making barley wine or imperial stout.
The " free " keg of lighter beer at the end makes the efficiency bearable.

 

[matt76]

I've certainly found a partigyle is a great thing to do if making barley wine or imperial stout.
The " free " keg of lighter beer at the end makes the efficiency bearable.

Yep, agreed.

For me I don't tend to make strong beers like this but if one was then I agree, it would absolutely make sense.

I've actually done this twice in the past:
- The last time I made a Baltic Porter (though the resulting small beer didn't work out that time)
- Early in my brewing career I heard about this technique on Drew & Denny's podcast (I don't recall them specifically referring to "partigyling" but I could be wrong) so I made a regular beer and just re-mashed the grain in half the volume of water, both beers turned out well

 

[Sadfield]

I've certainly found a partigyle is a great thing to do if making barley wine or imperial stout.
The " free " keg of lighter beer at the end makes the efficiency bearable.

A few guys I went to homebrew club with started a brewery, they do this all the time. A normal beer and an imperial version from the first runnings, that they brand as their Monster range.

I've got a version pencilled in for some time off work. I'm going to do a Mosaic Golden Ale and a Barleywine, all being well.

 

[Twostage]

Fuller's still do it (clue in the thread name ). At the commercial scale where you have to sparge then maybe it makes more sense. On the one hand I imagine Fuller's wouldn't do it if it doesn't make financial sense. But on the other hand maybe that's what makes their beers taste like their beers, and maybe it makes them harder to imitate.

Right. For some reason I'd picked up it was something they did in the past. When I googled commercial partigyle I didn't get much so wasn't sure, hence the genuine question bit. Note to self, read c a r e f u l l y.

Also note to self, buy a couple of bottles and try them.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

Fuller's still do it (clue in the thread name ). At the commercial scale where you have to sparge then maybe it makes more sense. On the one hand I imagine Fuller's wouldn't do it if it doesn't make financial sense. But on the other hand maybe that's what makes their beers taste like their beers, and maybe it makes them harder to imitate.

It's all for financial reasons - effectively they reuse the heat used in heating the first gyle, by heat exchanging it with the second gyle. It is also a way to make a range of beers, including low-volume ones like Golden Pride that wouldn't work as a single brew on their big kit.

Those are the main reasons, the effect on flavour is incidental but broadly you can think of flavour extraction as roughly proportional to the sugar extracted. So Golden Pride benefits from more flavour than you would otherwise get from a single brew, conversely don't make the USian mistake of not putting any first runnings in the weakest wort as you will end up with a beer with minimal flavour and a rather harsh tannic note IME.

 

[matt76]

It's all for financial reasons - effectively they reuse the heat used in heating the first gyle, by heat exchanging it with the second gyle. It is also a way to make a range of beers, including low-volume ones like Golden Pride that wouldn't work as a single brew on their big kit.

Those are the main reasons, the effect on flavour is incidental but broadly you can think of flavour extraction as roughly proportional to the sugar extracted. So Golden Pride benefits from more flavour than you would otherwise get from a single brew, conversely don't make the USian mistake of not putting any first runnings in the weakest wort as you will end up with a beer with minimal flavour and a rather harsh tannic note IME.

I had a bottle of Golden Pride the other day actually, very nice. From memory I thought it had an ESB / 1845 kind of vibe, which would make sense if they're all using the same yeast if not the same grist (and possibly hops too).

It crossed my mind to wonder whether it was also made via partigyle, same goes for their London Porter too - I assumed it's yes in both cases and that the GP would be predominantly but probably not solely made of the first runnings.