Styles that work for split-batch recipes?

[J A]

Looking back over my recipes, I find that I've done a fair number of brews that involved splitting a bigger batch into smaller ones for brewing more than one style at a time. Since I do batches of at least 10 gallons, I can get 2 5-gallon beers easily. If I mash bigger and either dilute a stronger wort or rely on late addition fermentables or steeped grains for different malt character and color. I can get 3 batches of at least 4 gallons in 3 different styles. My record is four 5-gallon (or nearly so) batches of pretty different beers from a single brew day.

Of course, it's easy to brew a pale or IPA and use different hops in the splits or do styles that will work with very different yeasts like Chico and Belgian types. Fairly different styles with the same basic malt color/flavor notes aren't too hard to pull off. It's a little tougher to figure out how to generate very different styles from one base wort but it can be done.

Some of the combos that I've brewed are:
Lager split for building 2 different yeasts for pitching a couple of bigger batches
House Blonde for building 2 different yeast styles - S-04, US-05, Belgian Wit, S-23, 34/70, etc...
IPA/Stout
Hazy Pale/Witbier
Pale Ale with 3 different hops during fermentation for biotransformation testing
Amber Ale/Irish Red/ Belgian Pale
Irish Red/Octoberfest
Irish Stout/Witbier/Hazy Pale/Golden Ale (codename: Fridge Filler)

Anyone have interesting combinations that you've tried or would like to try for split-batching? Feel free to speculate...just because it hasn't been tried doesn't mean it can't be done.

 

[Dave Y]

boldest I’ve done is a 10 gallon mash; 26# of malt, split out 50% and boiled separately for an IPA East Coast/West Coast split. Quite different hop schedules, and different yeast. Both came out well.

 

[Ward Chillington]

I do a session brown split with fuggles or EKG and switch up the pitches. One Voss that I bottle the following week and the other half with T58 that gives me a Belgium table beer. The only thing that I don't like about doing that is the 14 gallons of boiling wort in a 16 gallon kettle!!

 

[J A]

I do a session brown split with fuggles or EKG and switch up the pitches. One Voss that I bottle the following week and the other half with T58 that gives me a Belgium table beer. The only thing that I don't like about doing that is the 14 gallons of boiling wort in a 16 gallon kettle!!

I feel your pain on the big boil. I'm lucky in that I have an electric boil pot so I can set the temp for 208F and let it heat up with the lid on while I'm cleaning up from the mash. When it gets there I can reset to over 212 and monitor. When it hits a boil I can bring the power down so that it's a nice easy boil for the first 10 minutes while I'm skimming break material and get the hops going. The heat is really consistent so it never simmers down or kicks up through the boil. My kettle is right at 16 and I can start with a full 14 and not boil over.

 

[Ward Chillington]

Oh yeah...I'm using propane on a 3 legged turkey fryer and it kinda does this shimmy shake thing when it gets to a rolling boil...good times....good times!

 

[J A]

Oh yeah...I'm using propane on a 3 legged turkey fryer and it kinda does this shimmy shake thing when it gets to a rolling boil...good times....good times!

I had to go back to my burner for my big 4-beer brew a couple of weeks ago. Just as I got the boil going, my controller fried. I had to move a kettle full of very hot wort to get it on the burner. Also had to remove all the insulation on it. Once the main wort was boiled, I used my 7-gallon pot to short-boil the smaller batches. That was a potential mess. That pot was always just barely big enough to get a 5-gallon batch out of. With the short boil, at least I could start with closer to the amount that was going in the fermenter.

 

[Brew Cat]

Looking back over my recipes, I find that I've done a fair number of brews that involved splitting a bigger batch into smaller ones for brewing more than one style at a time. Since I do batches of at least 10 gallons, I can get 2 5-gallon beers easily. If I mash bigger and either dilute a stronger wort or rely on late addition fermentables or steeped grains for different malt character and color. I can get 3 batches of at least 4 gallons in 3 different styles. My record is four 5-gallon (or nearly so) batches of pretty different beers from a single brew day.

Of course, it's easy to brew a pale or IPA and use different hops in the splits or do styles that will work with very different yeasts like Chico and Belgian types. Fairly different styles with the same basic malt color/flavor notes aren't too hard to pull off. It's a little tougher to figure out how to generate very different styles from one base wort but it can be done.

Some of the combos that I've brewed are:
Lager split for building 2 different yeasts for pitching a couple of bigger batches
House Blonde for building 2 different yeast styles - S-04, US-05, Belgian Wit, S-23, 34/70, etc...
IPA/Stout
Hazy Pale/Witbier
Pale Ale with 3 different hops during fermentation for biotransformation testing
Amber Ale/Irish Red/ Belgian Pale
Irish Red/Octoberfest
Irish Stout/Witbier/Hazy Pale/Golden Ale (codename: Fridge Filler)

Anyone have interesting combinations that you've tried or would like to try for split-batching? Feel free to speculate...just because it hasn't been tried doesn't mean it can't be done.

one of my favorites simple split was Heffenweis /saison
Often I would make a basic 2 row mash and then steep different grains in the boils also I would make a high gravity wort and then dilute to different OG
basically you can make anything . I used to do some complicated pairs. I had to write it all down to keep track. I'm to old to do it now. I find it harder to multitask these days