Making the most of a mash!

[J A]

So I'm going to do a sizeable whiskey mash and I realized that I can end up with a decent "second runnings" wort for a quick batch of some sort of session beer.
The grist contains a fair amount of flaked barley and oats but it'll be mashed pretty low-temp so it should be a decent balance between fermentables and body, even in a light beer. I could go with noble hops and a lager yeast for a Leichtbier or with Willamette and Nottingham for a Bitter or Cascade and Chico for a session blonde (that's the way I've got it laid out). I might need a little something to boost the gravity so I've thrown in a pound of sugar but I'd cook and invert that if I use it. Grain amounts are based on scaling the original grist to match gravity and volume of likely gyle wort.
Seems like it should work.
https://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/view/1624785/whiskey-mash-parti-gyle

 

[Yooper]

So I'm going to do a sizeable whiskey mash and I realized that I can end up with a decent "second runnings" wort for a quick batch of some sort of session beer.
The grist contains a fair amount of flaked barley and oats but it'll be mashed pretty low-temp so it should be a decent balance between fermentables and body, even in a light beer. I could go with noble hops and a lager yeast for a Leichtbier or with Willamette and Nottingham for a Bitter or Cascade and Chico for a session blonde (that's the way I've got it laid out). I might need a little something to boost the gravity so I've thrown in a pound of sugar but I'd cook and invert that if I use it. Grain amounts are based on scaling the original grist to match gravity and volume of likely gyle wort.
Seems like it should work.
https://www.brewersfriend.com/homebrew/recipe/view/1624785/whiskey-mash-parti-gyle

I really like the idea! So assuming you do have an OG of 1.038, I’d consider lowering the IBUS just a bit. I like firm bitterness, like a pilsner, but not too much in a blonde. I like willamette and cascade together- I do that in a Spotted Cow clone that I love. That may be nice, if you’d want to give that a try. Maybe even consider a kolsch yeast to make a nice cream ale-ish blonde if you have that on hand.
Should be a great lawnmower beer.

 

[J A]

I really like the idea! So assuming you do have an OG of 1.038, I’d consider lowering the IBUS just a bit. I like firm bitterness, like a pilsner, but not too much in a blonde. I like willamette and cascade together- I do that in a Spotted Cow clone that I love. That may be nice, if you’d want to give that a try. Maybe even consider a kolsch yeast to make a nice cream ale-ish blonde if you have that on hand.
Should be a great lawnmower beer.

I did consider pushing toward the cream-ale style. I usually just use S-23 fermented warm for that anyway so I'd be splitting the difference between a cream ale and Leichtbier. I definitely like Willamette and Cascade together but I'm a little low on Willamette so we'll see. I might even consider Saaz/Cascade combo, as well - I always use a Saaz-Cluster combo for cream ales and since I don't have Cluster, that would get me pretty close.
Regarding IBU, I'll recalculate when I get an actual gravity and it'll probably be a little lower. I've found that, either owing to my palate or water additions or something, if I don't hit around 20 IBUs, beers don't seem balanced. This low gravity might, indeed, require a lighter touch, though. I just floated my keg of UK Golden Ale so, one way or another, I'm definitely in need of a light, clean, easy drinker.
I will say that the last time I split out a whiskey mash (slow and low for max Beta) for a beer, the resulting wort had a lot of fermentable sugars and I expected it to end up dry and thin. It was pretty light in body but the flavor wasn't lacking malty sweetness. This is a mash recipe that I'll be repeating a few times over the next month and a half or so. If the sparge/gyle beer split works out pretty well, I can try a few more combinations.

 

[Bigbre04]

You could always toss some DME/dextrose/rice solids to bump up the OG. might be worth it to hit around 4%? i would consider being more around 16IBU at that low of a starting grav. just a 60 min and a 15 min addition?

 

[J A]

You could always toss some DME/dextrose/rice solids to bump up the OG. might be worth it to hit around 4%? i would consider being more around 16IBU at that low of a starting grav. just a 60 min and a 15 min addition?

I thought about some DME but I hate to go to the extra expense when I have so much grain sitting around. When it comes down to it, it wouldn't be hard to throw a couple pounds of malt into a pot to steep/mash for an hour or two while I'm messing with the other stuff. That would make up enough, probably. The beauty of the sugar is that I'd just add as needed to get the gravity to a reasonable level. If I invert/caramelize it, that'll be better for flavor. One way or another, I like the idea of a low-gravity, low-ABV beer...It's already getting hot as hell here and having a slammer on tap is a matter of survival.
Regarding the boil, I'm pretty set on doing 15 minutes total. I don't know how the Distiller's Malt is for DMS but I bet it'll be fine.
I better get to work on this. I've been a little side-tracked with a hybrid barrel project - stainless vessel with charred oak insert. I'm making some for spirits but it occurs to me that the larger ones (couple gallons) would be good for barrel aging small batches of stout or whatever. Maybe I'll start a show-and-tell thread.

 

[Bigbre04]

I thought about some DME but I hate to go to the extra expense when I have so much grain sitting around. When it comes down to it, it wouldn't be hard to throw a couple pounds of malt into a pot to steep/mash for an hour or two while I'm messing with the other stuff. That would make up enough, probably. The beauty of the sugar is that I'd just add as needed to get the gravity to a reasonable level. If I invert/caramelize it, that'll be better for flavor. One way or another, I like the idea of a low-gravity, low-ABV beer...It's already getting hot as hell here and having a slammer on tap is a matter of survival.
Regarding the boil, I'm pretty set on doing 15 minutes total. I don't know how the Distiller's Malt is for DMS but I bet it'll be fine.
I better get to work on this. I've been a little side-tracked with a hybrid barrel project - stainless vessel with charred oak insert. I'm making some for spirits but it occurs to me that the larger ones (couple gallons) would be good for barrel aging small batches of stout or whatever. Maybe I'll start a show-and-tell thread.

full send it!

I am brewing a vienna lager and hit 91% eff....which means that it went from 12.9 to 13.8 which is not what i wanted. added 3 gals of water, but the adjustment calculator said that i needed 5.8 gals to get back down to my target OG...which would fuck my IBUs and shit up. sucks lol.

 

[J A]

adjustment calculator said that i needed 5.8 gals to get back down to my target OG...which would fuck my IBUs and shit up. sucks lol.

Even when I'm brewing regular batches, I hold off on calculating hop additions for keeps until I have a pre-boil gravity and volume. It mostly doesn't make things too far off when there's a small discrepancy but, yeah, when you count on 80% and get lucky and hit in the 90s, either the gravity or volume has to give. I pretty much always choose adding volume.
My biggest miss was when I got 15 gallons of my Irish Stout rather than 10. I added a hop addition to make up the IBUs for the volume. Unfortunately, I calculated a 5 minute addition and ended up doing 10. It turned out just a little out of balance on the bitter side but, fortunately wasn't bad.

 

[Bigbre04]

Even when I'm brewing regular batches, I hold off on calculating hop additions for keeps until I have a pre-boil gravity and volume. It mostly doesn't make things too far off when there's a small discrepancy but, yeah, when you count on 80% and get lucky and hit in the 90s, either the gravity or volume has to give. I pretty much always choose adding volume.
My biggest miss was when I got 15 gallons of my Irish Stout rather than 10. I added a hop addition to make up the IBUs for the volume. Unfortunately, I calculated a 5 minute addition and ended up doing 10. It turned out just a little out of balance on the bitter side but, fortunately wasn't bad.

i wish i could do that, but i am doing far far too many things while brewing to mess with adjusting hops on the fly unless something seriously messed. i also generally take a preboil and an OG. so if both are within acceptable i dont worry about it. but when my preboil is over my finished grav i start to mess with overall volume. i try not to add more then 3 gals into 76finished.

 

[J A]

i wish i could do that, but i am doing far far too many things while brewing to mess with adjusting hops on the fly unless something seriously messed. i also generally take a preboil and an OG. so if both are within acceptable i dont worry about it. but when my preboil is over my finished grav i start to mess with overall volume. i try not to add more then 3 gals into 76finished.

Yeah, most of the time, I'm easily within range. Sometimes when I'm doing split batches and adding dark malts or splitting into different hop additions, I need to jigger things a bit more. When I brew a lager (might be getting too late for me to pull that off this year), I try to fill my big fermenter so I have to max out my boil pot with higher-gravity wort and then top up a fair amount. I've done it enough times that I can get everything to come out right.

 

[Bigbre04]

Yeah, most of the time, I'm easily within range. Sometimes when I'm doing split batches and adding dark malts or splitting into different hop additions, I need to jigger things a bit more. When I brew a lager (might be getting too late for me to pull that off this year), I try to fill my big fermenter so I have to max out my boil pot with higher-gravity wort and then top up a fair amount. I've done it enough times that I can get everything to come out right.

agreed! i generally am very spot on, but lately i have added an improved some of the stuff that i am doing these days...so when i am doing recipes that i had previously brewed using older practices, i have to really adapt the recipe. I dont always get it right, but i am slowly honing back in on being consistent.