Splitting Batches for Variety, Experiments, and Volume

For homebrewers, there are never enough brewdays. Our jobs, families, friends, and other hobbies fill our schedules, leaving us less time than we would prefer for making sweet wort.

One way to take full advantage of these fleeting brewdays is by splitting batches, creating more than one finished beer from a day’s work.

Why Split Batches?

Other than variety, splitting batches allows the brewer to experiment with ingredients, yeasts, techniques, and equipment. The possibilities are endless, but I have given a few examples throughout this post to help get the wheels turning.

Another reason to split batches is equipment limitations. Though I split several five-gallon batches beforehand, I honed these techniques after increasing my brew length to ten gallons. Because I only have 5 and 6.5-gallon fermentors, my equipment forces me to split batches after the boil. As so many homebrewers do, I used this limitation as a base for creativity and learning. Split-batch experiments are now commonplace for me, and I rarely make ten gallons of the same beer from the same wort.

I won’t concentrate on equipment limitations in this post, but I think the following methods and recommendations are applicable on any scale. If you understand your brewery, you can navigate any of these techniques within it.

Where to Split

If I said there was a point in the process in which a batch could not be split, there would be a homebrewer that could tinker his/her way to proving me wrong.

Practically, we will focus on splitting wort or beer before the kettle, fermentor, keg, and bottle. Generally, more preparation is required when splitting earlier in the brewing process. As such, we will work our way backwards, starting at packaging. 

Splitting at bottling allows the brewer to execute most of his/her process as normal. It is a great tool for all experience levels.

Use multiple bottling buckets or dose individual bottles with different ingredients.

Experiment ideas:

• Different priming sugars: dextrose, unrefined sugars, honey, DME, liqueurs, maple syrup, candi syrup
•  Different priming yeasts
• Different levels of carbonation
• Bottle one portion 'clean' and one portion with brettanomyces or bacteria.
• Wild yeast ‘spikes’

The last idea is my personal favorite. Though I have done structured experiments, normally I just dose a few bottles with brettanomyces or a mixed culture on bottling day. This works best with a very dry beer (like a saison or Tripel) but is (at least) an interesting experiment across all beer styles. If the beer's final gravity is above 1.006 or so, use heavy bottles.

Splitting in kegs offers many of the same benefits and experimentation options but has the added benefits of reducing oxygen exposure, easy transfer, and easy sampling. It is also a fine method for quarantining brettanomyces and bacteria for those who may otherwise fear cross-contamination. 

To split a five-gallon batch, rack the entire volume into one keg first, which simplifies racking and allows for more accurate measurement. I use my grain scale to measure the split by weight during transfer. I plan to give more details on this process in an upcoming post on blending, as well as during my presentation at this year's NHC.

Experiment Ideas:

• Explore dry hops or cold-side additions
• Create a small, 'special' portion of beer on the fly (one gallon of "Christmas Stout" from a keg of oatmeal stout)
• Blending
• With beer (sour saison, historical porter, gueuze)
• With other fermented liquids (wine, mead, cider, spirits)
• With water

Transferring a small portion of finished beer onto fruit or spices can yield a unique offering for a festival or party. I also love using this method for adding fruit or oak to a portion of a sour batch. 

Splitting before fermentation is standard procedure for most homebrew batches greater than 5-6 gallons. However, the same split can be done at any brew length with a few minor considerations.

For instance, a 5 gallon batch can be split into two 5-gallon fermentors for primary fermentation. Because the amount of beer lost to yeast and trub will nearly double, increase the batch size by a gallon or so to compensate (if possible within your system). 

For beers requiring long conditioning times, and especially for sour beers with mixed cultures, transfer the beer to a smaller container to minimize head space during conditioning. Excessive head space significantly increases oxygen pickup over time. Small better bottles or one-gallon growlers  are inexpensive and work well! Small kegs are a fantastic option if you have them.

Experiment Ideas:

• Different yeasts
• Different fermentation specs: pitch rate, oxygen, temperature (vary one, keep others constant).
• Sugar or fermentable comparison: candi syrups, honey varieties, fruit
• Sour beer base!

If I don't have another experiment in mind, half of my 10-gallon batch is normally spiked with my mixed culture and allowed to conditioned for a year or more. As these 'other halves' come to maturity, each offers a 5-gallon batch of sour beer to blend, fruit, or bottle as-is without a dedicated brewday. Talk about a big return on a small investment!

Splitting before the boil requires some additional planning and (potentially) equipment to be successful, but I think its less daunting than a decoction or turbid mash.

When splitting pre-boiled wort, most homebrewers think parti-gyle: splitting the wort into portions (or 'gyles') of different strength. Most often, this is executed by separating the first and second runnings of a batch sparge mash. Parti-gyle can produce an infinite number of wort combinations, and executing a parti-gyle brew can be as simple or complicated as the brewer wishes. Since I have never used this method, I'll refer you to Ron Pattinson and Randy Mosher for more information and tips:

Ron Pattinson. “Parti-gyle: Debunking the Myths”. Zymurgy, November/December 2014.

Mosher, Randy. "Parti-Gyle Brewing". Brewing Techniques, March/April 1994. Online:
http://morebeer.com/brewingtechniques/library/backissues/issue2.2/mosher.html

Another option is to collect all of the pre-boil wort in the kettle, then transfer a portion before (or during) the boil. I use this method to remove hops from a portion of the batch for sour beer base or pressure-canned starter wort.

Experiment Ideas:

• Different kettle additions: hops, spices, finings, yeast nutrients, water salts
• Steep specialty grains to create different base beers from one mash: pale ale vs. stout, Flanders Red vs. Oud Bruin.

Practical Recommendations (for split boils)

Plan ahead. A successful split will take more time, ingredients, equipment, etc. than a single, straight-forward batch.

Map out the split in your brewing software of choice. For split-boils, I use BeerSmith to create a full size malt bill, then scale the batch and save as separate recipes. This allows me to calculate hop additions, bitterness, steeping grains, yeast pitches, etc. at the proper volume. Check out the recipes from a recent split batch, "Raw Grain Saison", on my BeerSmith Recipes page.

For parti-gyle calculations, several tables are given in the Mosher article listed above. Kai Troester provides a batch sparge calculator on his website (BrauKaiser.com). It is effective but requires some efficiency inputs for your system. I dialed in the sheet with guess-and-check using numbers from previous batches.

Organize your brewday. Because you planned ahead, you know how the brewday should progress, what equipment is needed, and where ingredients will be added.

Measure (and label) salts, hops, spices, finings, and yeast nutrient additions. I like using lidded, 4-oz plastic containers because they are cheap and won't spill if (when) I drop or knock them over.

Position all necessary brewing equipment before you start brewing. Make sure you can get liquor, wort, and cooling water everywhere it needs to be along the process. Also make sure that everything is in reach and you won’t be constantly tripping over hoses, propane tanks, pump stand, etc.

Offset your boil by 15 to 30 minutes (or more) if you will need to share critical equipment: chiller, pump, cooling water, etc. This offset can also be helpful for the brewer already juggling multiple transfers, measurements, and kettle additions, along with copious note-taking. Speaking of…

Practical Recommendations (in general)

Plan ahead. Prepare yeast, sanitize enough fermentors, have enough bottles or kegs. For experiments on bottling day, set up all your equipment and have your mise en place in order.

Prepare enough healthy yeast. You may need to make multiple starters, or propagate with multiple steps.

Take detailed notes. Whether the goal is experimenting with new ingredients or comparing a process change, the additional effort required for splitting a batch loses its value if the results cannot be repeated (or adjusted). Don’t rely on your memory to recount the specifics of a brew day, gravity measurements, fermentation profile, blend percentage, etc. after the beer is finished – it is already overloaded with juggling split batch tasks!

Label EVERYTHING: starters, hop additions, fermentors, kegs, and bottles.

Practice Makes Perfect. The more times you split batches, the more comfortable and confident you will become with your process. 

Hopefully you can use some of these ramblings to make multiple beers from a single brewday! Let me know what you brew up!

Get to splittin'!

Let's Talk Blending at the 2015 National Homebrewers Conference

I was recently selected as a speaker for the 2015 National Homebrewers Conference. What a HUGE honor! I thoroughly enjoyed presenting in 2013 and can't wait to geek out again in San Diego! A (still pretty rough) outline of this year's presentation is given at the end of this post.

This year's list of seminars and speakers is outstanding, and I can't wait to take in brewing knowledge from these all-star brewers!

I'm STOKED to meet up with several of the homebrewers who I know mostly or solely via social media, forums and blogs. If you're going to be there, give me a shout on Twitter or Instagram!

Every year I'm blown away by the quality of homebrewed sour and funky beer at NHC. Though I can't serve beer during the presentation, I will be filling my bags with as much homebrew as they will hold! I can't wait to trade pours and talk shop! Of course, this luggage space will be refilled with Cali saisons and sours before we make our way back to Saint Louis.

After the conference, my wife and I are heading up the coast to visit family and breweries (Russian River and The Rare Barrel, among others). I want to visit breweries doing interesting things with mixed fermentation, so if you have recommendations, I'm all ears!

Presentation Outline

In this year's presentation, I will dive into the broad topic of post-fermentation evaluation and adjustment. My intent is to give practical advice on execution of beer evaluation, small adjustments, flavor additions, and blending.

First, we will review critical beer evaluation. It may see elementary, but committing to an evaluation ritual and being able to consistently repeat it will, in turn, make your adjustments repeatable in the future. After all, the whole point of evaluation and adjustment is to produce great beer now while making it easier to replicate later.

For 'tweaking' finished beer, I've stolen a few tricks from chefs, bakers, and wine makers. We will discuss 'seasoning' beer with minerals: salt, gypsum, and calcium chloride. I will also share some ideas and experiments in enhancing a signature flavor by adding very small amounts of supporting flavors, like enhancing chocolate flavor with vanilla or coffee (an old bakers' trick). Finally, we'll spend some time on adding fruits and spices without going overboard OR using an entire batch. Because 5 gallons of pumpkin or Christmas beer is just too damn much (for our house, anyway).

Blending beer fits in well with this topic, but it is also the portion I'm most passionate about. Though my blending experience is based in sour beer, we'll discuss how to apply blending principles across all beer styles. I will also share my setup and procedure for blending by weight in a closed, keg-to-keg transfer.

See you in San Diego!

2014 Recap

After a year-long drought, this blog is in desperate need of updates and shiny new content!

While I haven’t been posting, I did make some beer in 2014! My plan is to post some highlights throughout the first half of 2015.

Outside the SHPB, I had a big year in 2014. Here is the executive summary:

We bought a home in Saint Louis and are settled. I set up shop quickly; the basement is already littered with containers of sour, funky SCIENCE.

I joined the STL Hops Homebrew Club, a small group making a LOT of great beer! The club served beer at several festivals throughout the year; a new and exciting experience for me. Festival season is coming up again, and I intend to post our serving schedule and (more importantly) recaps with plenty of pictures!

Homebrew club meetings, festivals, bottle shares, and beer releases have given me more opportunities than ever to share my beer. I upgraded my equipment and doubled my batch size (now 10 gallons) to keep up! More importantly, I've been using the additional wort to conduct yeast experiments and make more sour beer!

I attended the 2014 National Homebrewers Conference along with six other STL Hops members. We had a blast! We brought a TON of great beer to pour at the Expo and on Club Night, including a split batch experiment with new hop varietals and some fantastic fruited Berliners. My keg of Gueuze was a big hit on Club Night. It vanished in about 45 minutes, but not before earning some press from Basic Brewing Radio and praise from The Mad Fermentationist, Mike Tonsmire!

Finally, for our second anniversary, my wife and I traveled to London and Brussels. I came back brimming with inspiration, life experiences, and a few liquid souvenirs. I’ll share a recap (and lots of pictures) in an upcoming post.

Thanks for sticking around! Hopefully in 2015 I can offer some insight, inspiration, or at least some new “what not to do’s”!

Let’s get to it!