My favourite brew from the past year has definitely been the Raging Queen Belgian IPA. I think a lot of that owes to it being strong, and to the belgian yeast I used. So I decided it was time to make another strong, belgian ale.
Westmalle Tripel. Always liked that one. I found this recipe referenced on a couple of forums and decided to go for it. As always, some minor modifications here and there.
2.5 gal
Fermentables:
- 6.25 lbs Pilsner malt
- 1 lbs Belgian Candi Syrup (Golden, D5)
- 2 oz table sugar
Hops:
- 0.4 oz Saaz
- 0.5 oz Hallertau
- 0.75 oz Celeia
Yeast: Lallemand Abbaye Ale Dry Yeast
Schedule (90 minute boil):
- 60 min: 0.4 oz Saaz
- 45 min: 0.5 Hallertau
- 20 min: 0.75 Celeia
- 10 min: Whirfloc
Mash:
- 20 min @ 124 F
- 60 min @ 147 F
- 15 min @ 170 F
The recipe calls for doing a decoction to raise from 124 to 147, but I really don't want to deal with that.
Predictions (Brewer's Friend):
- OG: 1.081
- FG: 1.008
- SRM: 5
- IBU: 40
- ABV: 9.6%
I bet this could be cut down to a 60 minute boil and a 60 minute mash (at 147 F), but might as well stick to the recipe where it's not a hassle.
This is my first time brewing on my brand new 6.5 gallon Anvil Foundry. So exciting!
Looking at ~6 lbs grain and a 2.5 gal batch. Will definitely do a sparge. The Anvil Foundry manual says I should use 3 gal strike water and 1 additional gal for the sparge. A strike temp of 158 is expected to drop to 152 with grains. I want to hit 124 F, so I'm putting strike temp at 128 F. Guesstimating here. Set the timer on the Anvil and had the strike water waiting for me in the morning.
The Foundry manual says boil off should be about 0.5 gal per hour. Since I'm doing a 90 minute boil, I'll be adding an extra 0.25 gal of strike water, so 1.25 in total.
Summary:
- 3 gal strike water at 128 F
- 1.25 gal sparge water at 170 F
And that strike temperature was spot on. Landed exactly at 124F with grains.
Mash went ok, but got completely stuck once. Easy to fix once I understood what was going on. Recirculation was bit iffy too; I had to adjust the flow several times. But it worked out. Post sparge, I had 3.5 gal. 0.25 higher than planned, but ok.
But even so, this was fun. The temperature control alone is incredibly convenient and seemed to be spot on when I checked with a separate thermometer.
The 3.5 gal had SG 1.036 at 153 F, which is 1.053 at 68F. Added 1 lbs candi sugar (PPG 1.032), and 2 oz table sugar (PPG 1.042), which should push up SG by 10-11 points by my math, so that's say 1.063. Still 3.5 gal, or a bit more even with the candi sugar added. Reduced to 2.5 gal that's an OG of 1.088. A bit too high.
However, the foundry should have a boil off rate of roughly 0.5 gal per hour. With our 90 minute boil, that means a post boil volume of 2.75 gal, which puts OG at 1.080. Almost spot on.
Boil was a breeze. Added hops according to schedule. Cooled with the included immersion chiller. That was very nice, and a big improvement from mucking around with ice baths. Got down to 70F in 15 minutes or so.
Somehow ended up with exactly 2.5 gal post boil. Could've diluted up to 2.75 to hit OG, but didn't. Transferred to fermenter, aerated, pitched the yeast.
- OG: 1.087
Oh boy. Fermentation took off pretty quickly. I checked the temperature and it seemed to be stable at roughly 24 C. Warm, but ok for this yeast I would think. A day later I checked again, and realized it had been fermenting as high as 28 C. Oy vey.
Three days after brewday, it sat at a steady 1.018, and has been there since. I'm aiming for 1.010, so something needs to change. I tried to agitate the yeast by swooshing the fermenter around a bit but no cigar.
Today I added a whole pack of S-04 yeast and wrapped it in a blanket.
No change to SG according to tilt over the past 4 days, but I took a hydrometer reading today and it came in at 1.014. I think that's close enough to call it done. Not ideal, but good enough.
I felt the sample from the 13th tasted a bit too sweet, and the more I thought about it the less happy I felt about being 6 points above target. So I decided to make a small yeast starter to see if I can push it down to 1.008. Probably not entirely necessary, but kind of interesting so why not?
Starter:
- 2.3 oz Pilsen DME
- 2 cups water
- 1.5 tsp yeast nutrient
- a sprinkle of US-05
Boiled for 5-10 minutes. Chilled to 22 C. Pitched just a little bit of yeast. Half a teaspoon at most. Shook it all like crazy to aerate. Covered with aluminum foil and left it to do its thing.
Not much activity during the first 12 hours. Just a thin layer of foam. Checked again about 12 hours later and had a thicker layer of foam. Figured peak krausen probably happened overnight, so I went ahead and pitched it. SG went from 1.016 to 1.018, according to Tilt.
SG is now hovering between 1.017 and 1.016. I see two possibilities:
- The yeast culture had not yet grown strong enough to restart the stuck fermentation
- Fermentation is actually not stuck; there's just a whole lot of unfermentables in there.
Considering how low my mash temperature was (147F), I don't think 2 looks all that likely.
Let's do some math on the starter:
2.3 oz DME in 2 cups water should produce a starter OG around 1.050. Let X denote the starter's SG when it was pitched to fermenter. We added 0.125 gal at SG X to 2 gal at SG 1.016.
0.125 * X + 2 * 16 = 2.125 * 18
So X = (2.125 * 18 - 2 * 16) / 0.125 = 50
If this is correct, starter gravity may well have been around 1.050. In other words, fermentation had not started. But then again, the margin of error is pretty large so I'm not really sure.
I guess I'll do another starter then, and make sure I see some serious activity before I pitch it.
I did a test starter with some harvested OSLO Kveik slurry that I had in the fridge. After 12 hours, it was actively fermenting. After 24 hours, it appeared to have slowed down. Gravity was around 1.015-1.020.
Last night around 9 PM, I made another starter. 2.3 oz Pilsen, DME, 2 cups water, a pinch of yeast nutrient and one teaspoon of OSLO slurry. Pitched that today at 3 PM. This sucker was definitely actively fermenting, and had been for at least 6 hours.
Beer was at 1.015 and shot up to 1.017 with the starter (says Tilt). That increase is roughly what I got last time, but yeah, large margin of error so I'm not sure what conclusion to draw.
I'll bottle this next weekend, regardless of gravity.
Original plan was to bottle this whole batch, but bottling sucks. And, with all the tinkering I've been doing, and the high fermentation temperature, I'm not so sure I expect this to be a beer worth aging. But mostly I'm just lazy.
So I kegged about 1.4 gal, and filled 4 12 oz bottles. Primed with 50 g sugar in 1 cup of water for the keg, and 2.2 g dry table sugar in each bottle.
- OG: 1.011 (Hydrometer)
- OG: 1.015 (Tilt)
I really don't think these starters were worth the effort. Seems like it got me 1 gravity point at most. But it was kinda fun so whatever.