The weak part of a gyle - advice please.

[aamcle]

I'm considering brewing a small batch of Big Stout or Baltic Porter as a parti gyle in my GF.

Taking the process through to the removal of the grain with should give me 14 to 16litres of high SG wort for the stout.

While that's heating n boiling I'll sparge and dump the grain making up the volume of the resulting low sg wort with water and using that with more grain to make a lower (normal) strength beer. Making a second batch.

Considering the carryover from the stout into the second batch what would you brew?

Atb. Aamcle

[aamcle]

The big one will take months to get to its best so for want of other inspiration I'll use the wort for a hopy US stout.

Aamcle

[Jocky]

I would definitely add some more grain for the second beer. Every time I've had a beer made from just sparge runnings only it's tasted a bit thin and tannic.

As to your original question, my first suggestion would have been some kind of dark mild or dry stout. There's no reason that you can't hop up either of these - The Kernel brewery do wonderful 'Dry Irish Stout' that they hop up.

One thing I'd be careful of is the level of bitterness. An American stout would normally be quite bitter - 60 IBU. A dry stout would be about 40 and a mild nearer 20. I'd be inclined to stay in the 20-40 range.

Personally I'd plan to get all the bitterness from a 60 or 30 minute addition, which I'd calculate once I know what the pre boil gravity is. If it's down near 1.030 then I'd add 20 IBU, and scale that up to 40 IBU at 1.050. Then with 1 minute left in the boil add one of the American 'C' hops at a rate of 1-2 grams per litre of wort. If it's tasting good when the ferment is done you can consider adding some dry hops at a similar rate.

You can ferment with any English or American ale yeast, or even most lager yeasts, although I do like the American Ale yeasts for these kind of stouts as they allow both the roast grain flavour and hops to come through.

[aamcle]

I brewed Olga's Origon Stout some time ago that came out very well .

[Cobnut]

The more traditional route is to collect first and second runnings and then take portions of each to make the different beers (2 or more).

I did this once based on a recipe from "Guile Brews" by Peter Symons (a Cornishman exported to Australia).

The recipe was for a Double Stout Porter and a Plain Porter based on a recipe from the Kilburn brewery from sometime in the 19th century.

It also required each of the worts to be "boosted" with some invert sugar (I used a combination of Tate & Lyle Goden Syrup and Blackstrap molasses, but I think I ended up using a bit too much of the latter as it definitely shows in the beers).

Having said all this, it was a very long and tiring brew day which required me to bring my BIAB Tea Urn back into service as a second boiler and a plastic fermenter to collect the first runnings out of the grainfather.

Much as it was interesting and the beers turned out quite well, I'm not sure I'd do it again considering how kn*ckered I was by the end of the day!

[aamcle]

I did a gyle brew some years ago, the time was as you say very long..