Brew Night: Three Strikes

Faux Beer Barrels in Gaston's Tavern

It's 1:15 and I've just hit a boil 10 minutes ago.  Its going to be a late one. With a grist of 12 lbs of Weyemann Pils I'll be boiling for 90 minutes. There are a lot of hurdles for this beer to overcome. But nothing is impossible. First, plan on force carbonating and serving this at a super bowl party 2 weeks from tomorrow. No wait today. Tripels are usually conditioned for at least a couple weeks. Secondly, my homebrew shop only had one 3 month old White Labs WLP 530 Abbey Ale. I only have a 2 L flask so that's as big a starter as I could make. I was just reading a great article by Stan Hieronymus about Belgian fermentations from a 2006 BYO article. Westmalle pitches at about .25 Million cells per mL per degree Plato. Huh, good news for me. Too bad they are using top cropped well acclimated yeast. We'll see how this sucker turns out. Last tripel I made ended up a bit sweet. So this time I cut the gravity down, hoping for higher attenuation but arriving near the same ABV. Recipe anyone?

THREE STRIKES:

6 gallons

OG 1.068

FG  1.008 (hopefully)

35 IBU

12 lbs Pilsener Malt

  2 lbs Cane Sugar (added to boil)

1 oz Mt. Hood @ 90 minutes 5.2 % Alpha Acids.

1 oz Tettnanger @ 45 minutes 3.9 % Alpha Acids.

1 oz Tettnanger @ 15 minutes 3.9% Alpha Acids.

WLP 530 - Abbey Ale 2 L starter

RO water with 1 tsp Gypsum (4g), 1 tsp Calcium Chloride (3.4g), and 5 mL Lactic Acid

Leftover Wort Fermented with Red Star Montrachet.

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Brew Day: Michuda 10

This beer was meant to be. I went to the home brew store on Friday with no idea what I was brewing on Sunday. I looked at the base malts and the yeast available. The freshest things that caught my eye were WLP 530 Abbey Ale and WLP 800 Pilsener Lager. The Belgian pilsener malt was fresh so I went with the Abbey yeast. A couple ounces of Saaz and a couple of Hallertauer. I came home to find the latest issue of BYO. Whats the cover story? A feature article on brewing traitional Tripels. Sweet. Good reading will making sure the 2 L Erlenmeyer doesn't boil over.

Note: I was shooting for 1.081 original gravity. Two things happened. The lady at the homebrew store spilled some cracked malt going from a bucket into the bag. Then she added 4 more lbs. The spilled portion was probably mostly husks. Also I sparged really slow. I was concerned I'd be low on gravity. Good guess.

Michuda 10

OG: 1.091-94 (Depends on whose refractometer calculator you use)

IBU: 35

Grist:

15 lbs - Belgian Pilsener Malt

2.5 lbs - Dixie Crystals Granulated Cane Sugar

Mash:

131 F for 10 minutes

141 F for 40 minutes - raised by direct heat

153 F for 20 minutes - raised by direct heat

Could be the reason for the big jump in efficiency.

Water:

RO water from machine at grocery store. 4 grams each of SO4 and CaCL added to mash. 2 grams of SO4 added to Boil with 3 grams of CaCL.

Hops:

1 oz - Hallertauer 85 mins

1 oz - Saaz 85 mins

.5 oz - Hallertauer 30 mins

.5 oz - Saaz 30 mins

Yeast:

WLP 530 Abbey Ale

1860 mL Starter, 1 tastey pint decanted.

Pitched at 62. Free Rise to 66. Raise 2 degrees a day for 3 days. Then temp control off.

This is my first time using my brand new chest freezer and Johnson controller. What a pain in the ass it tape the probe to the side of a better bottle with bubble wrap as insulation. Gotta figure out something better. Maybe I'll go the thermowell route.