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Based loosely on my earlier Tropical Foreign Export Stout, but with higher ABV, and aimed at my dark beer barrel. 2022-02-02: Making 2L (really, it looks like I got more like 2.25L so gravity will be a touch low) starter today. Wort cooled to 74°F, yeast at 70°F, and room supposedly at 68°F. Pitched at 1945. Running the Maelstrom at 3 in the 4L Erlenmeyer flask. I anticipate a brew day two days from now on Friday the 4th. 20222-02-04: Brewday. I will note that the yeast starter, still stiring, has become clumpy, a sure sign that it has proceeded well. Started around 0715 or so. The mash fills the MT to the wingnut on the float arm exactly with a reasonable amount of wort on top. I didn’t bother mesauring mash pH since it is a dark beer. Pre-boil gravity is estimated from post-mash gravity. I collected 5G and added 2L of yeast starter or about 5.8G total volume. OG = 1.093 taken from boil a minute before done. Oxygenated with pure O2 for a minute. I also collected 5G of 2nd runnings with a pre-boil gravity of about 1.023. I used an unmeasurably small amount of unidentified local whole cone hops, plus 0.20 oz of 3.4 AA Hallertau Mittelfruh 1.55 oz of 3.4 AA Tettnanger on top of the two hop bags already present and mostly depleted. Hops added at 60 min. 0.25 tsp od yeast nutrient added at 10 min. No other additions. The second runnings yeast I am using is terribly out of date. The yeast is Imperial Yeast B45, Belgian Gnome, with a package date of 2020-10-12 which should be down to about 5% viability. My wort should have a gravity in the range of a starter anyway. Nathan Fennely gave me the yeast and the wort was essentially free. The hops either old or given to me, so nothing will be wasted except time and effort if it doesn’t work out. I am shooting for a 1G boil off giving me 4G of about 1.030 OG wort. Lets see what I hit… At 30 minutes I am down 0.75G so I lowered the controller power from 100% to 80%. Note that we were seeing a 30% evaporation rate at 100% (determined via calculator herein). Yest pitched in 70°F wort shaken for one minute. About 3.5G collected at OG of 1.038. We will call this Belgian Dark Pater Bier or BDPB. IAS OG=1.093 BDPB OG=1.038 2022-02-05: IAS began blow-off first thing in morning and is at 65.6°F despite room at 70°F. No activity on BDPB yet. EOD: a couple of hours ago I ran the blow-off from IAS into BDPB to capture some of that great yeast and maybe get BDPB fermenting since nothing had started yet. Got some yeast and a mess on the floor to clean up (despite leaving the BDPB’s stopper a kilter with a gap, it blew off and dumped yeast to the floor as well as the carboy). All cleaned up and IAS is set up with a proper blow-off again. 2022-02-07: BDPB: Krausen barely visible last night and a huge krausen (2.5” on a small beer) and lots of bubbling this morning. IAS: The krausen may have settled. Bubbling still constant. 2022-02-08: IAS: Krausen has dropped completely. Bubbling has slowed to every few seconds. Going to an S-lock. BDPB: Krausen has dropped a lot and bubbling very much slowed. Rewetting the barrel in preparation for racking in aweek or so. EOD: I have wetted the Balcones barrel and it is holding water fine. I am adding 6.55 oz of Powers Gold Label Irish Whiskey to the Balcones barrel and inserting a stopper. 2022-02-09: IAS moved onto the higher of the two benches to warm it up a bit. I think I will drop the room temp 1°F to 69°F. BDPB is running at around 71.8°F and could therefore be cooler as well. 2022-02-12: IAS is fine. BDPB is at 70°F which could be a bit lower. I am going to lower room temp one degree and put the BDPB lower down and next to the IAS to cool it off. 2022-02-13: IAS has a gravity of 1.015! Can’t expect more out of it than that. Flavor is mild and already whiskey like, viscous. Could have used some roasted barley maybe. ABV is around 10.5%. Should age well. Racked to the Balcones barrel. BDPB is now at 67.8°F and that is better. Still some bubbles on top. I read 5.2 Brix whch adjusts to 1.010 given the OG of 1.038. It should also be done or nearly so. Too much hop bitter but otherwise good. Hope those hops mellow with age. It certainly does have some Belgian character so that is as intended and good - it isn’t just English yeast. I would like it to settle a little longer before racking to keg. I used the weight/volume tool to determine that I have 3.2G of BDPB - that won’t fit in the 2.6G keg - I will have 0.6G, minus trub, left over. I racked BDPB to keg # 11. The excess after racking of IAS and BDPB were blended in keg # 10 a true parti gyle! Percentages unknown but around 4 to 1. If I use 0.2G of IAS and 0.8G (high but the ratio is right) of BDPB, I get an ABV of 5% for the mix. 2022-09-05: BDPB (2nd runnings) is tapped today. ABV is 3.7%. Calories per 12 oz is 124.8. Still bitter. Drinkable. IAS/BDPB Parti Gyle is estimated 5% ABV. About 171 calories per 12 oz. This is not yet tapped but the keg is ready to go. 2023-05-12: IAS Racked to keg 7. Refractometer showed 10.9 for an FG od 1.013 and ABV of just under 11%. Taste is awesome. Cant wait to try it cold and carbonated. Gravity came down a long way but with no funky flavors. IAS is still clean as is the dark beer barrel,