An update on the belgian

Despite my previous concerns about the belgian tripel I decided to stick with it and give it some more time. The general concensus of the people I asked at brew-club, was that the off flavours I didn't like were probably caused by stressed yeast. I think I may have under-pitched or something. If that's the case it could be that the yeast will clean up the beer and it'll taste better in time. Fingers crossed anyway.

So I bottled the beer in the small belgian beer bottles I had and boxed them up ready for storage. With such a strong beer I should probably allow it a good few months to condition properly anyway. I think I was just a bit impatient.

I bottled my American IPA #2 at the same time, which means the kitchen is now full of beer!

The first couple I tried in the first few weeks didn't taste great. Quite a few of what I would call off-flavours. Not very descriptive I know. There was a dry, bitter finish to the beer with some astringency. The worst part though, was the fact it gave me an instant headache! Kind of like sniffing marker pens at school, which I'm guessing is caused by higher alcohols in the beer. This hasn't given me much hope for the future, but it is interesting to see how the conditioning process rounds off the flavours.

Well, it looks nice at least! (Pardon the miller glass)

Happily, the most recent bottle of this that I opened didn't give me an instant headache! It's also carbonated more than the earlier tasters. I think this helps 'lift' the flavour of the beer, making it seem less sweet and stodgy. While I think this still has a little way to go to become a good beer, it is at least heading in that direction.

The Belgian Tripel brew day

Yesterday was brew day for my effort at a belgian tripel. The recipe was lifted from Brewing Classic Styles - I thought this was probably a good place to start. I listened through the podcast for this recipe at work too, so I felt like I had a good handle on the process. The recipe I used is this:

Ingredients

Amount	Name	Type		%/IBU
6.35 kg	Pilsner (2 Row) Ger (4.0 EBC)	Grain		83.6 %
0.11 kg	Aromatic Malt (50.0 EBC)	Grain		1.5 %
67.00 g	Tettnang [3.70 %] - Boil 60.0 min	Hop		31.2 IBUs
14.00 g	Saaz [4.15 %] - Boil 10.0 min	Hop		1.5 IBUs
1.13 kg	Sugar, Table (Sucrose) (0.0 EBC)	Sugar

Yeast: Belgian Ale (White Labs WLP550)

Mash for 90 minutes at 65C.

Boil for 90 minutes.

Pitch yeast at 17C and allow to rise to 22C over three days. I will let the yeast go higher (as I have no means of cooling it down) but will ensure it doesn't drop below 22C.

Listening to the Jamil Show I picked up the tip to only add the sugar once the ferment starts to slow down. This is to encourage the yeast to break down the more complex sugars in the wort before being given all the simple sugars, resulting in better attenuation. This is important as the style should finish dry.

All in all the brew day went pretty well, but with the longer mash, and longer boil, it did stretch the day out more than usual. It also took a bit longer getting started as I was trying out a new spreadsheet for calculating water additions. To be honest, it's all a bit of a dark art really, and I've no idea what difference it actually made, but the pH and other things were all adjusted!

Mash, finally at the correct temperature.

Running the wort off (lautering doncha know!)  with the kettle above ready to sparge.

The mash temperature was a bit of a pig to hit. No idea why, but I was under, then over, then hit it. My mash tun isn't directly heated so it was just a case of adding more water to adjust the temperature. Thankfully I left some water out to start with so there was still room in the tun! 

Ever such a pale wort. That'll be the pilsner then!

A blockage free post-boil runoff 

One thing that always surprises me is the colour of the wort. I know it shouldn't because changing the colour is the whole point of the recipe, but I was still worried that the mash had gone wrong when the wort came out such a light colour.

One success of the day was in improving the post-boil runoff to the fermenter. My first two brews took ages as the hop filter kept clogging up with hot break/trub/whatever it's called. This led a a good 20 minutes of stirring to keep the filter clear. Not so today! Today I decided to skim off the hot break during the boil. From what I've read, there's no problem doing this as it's mostly left behind with the hops after the boil anyway. I wasn't exactly sure if it would help, but it certainly did. No blockages at all, just ran straight out - a process I'll definitely be repeating.

I didn't get my hot liquor tank built in time to use today, so I had to lauter into a fermenting bin and then transfer it to the boiler after.  Still, it all worked and now seems to be bubbling away contentedly in the corner of the kitchen. I just hope the temperature doesn't drop too much overnight. It's supposed to hit -7C tonight. Hopefully the water bath I have the fermenter sat in will keep it insulated. Time will tell!

The original gravity of the wort going into the fermenter was 1.058, which is pretty much where I wanted to be. As I won't be adding the sugar till later, the numbers are off from the recipe at this stage, but I should be on for a 10%abv beer if I can control the ferment ok in this weather.