Tripel de Jar et Clu

Ok, this is my second attempt at a tripel. The first one ended up ok, but it had a fairly strong phenolic and fusel alcohol bite to it and it had way too much body. It was fermented way too hot. That's what I get for brewing a 10% beer in the summer. I'm not trying that again.

So, here it is in January/February and Jared and Clu asked for a tripel. So, I'm giving it a second shot. As for the recipe, I'm starting from scratch. I'm shooting for a light mouth feel, light color, light citrus and apple fruit aromas and a big head on top. The hard part is going to be getting the lighter mouth feel with the big head. Usually having a lot of protein in your beer will do both (big head and a thick feel). But, I'm hoping we can strike some kind of balance between the two. One thing that should help thin out the mouth feel on such a big beer will be a generous dose of carbonation. That usually makes the beer feel a bit lighter in your mouth.

Another - somewhat more technical trick is to do a short beta-amylase digest at 150 and then bring the temp up to 158 for a bit longer to promote alpha-amylase enzymes. That way I'll keep a medium body on there but skip the protein rest at a lower temp. I'm also going to use a fair amount of wheat malt with a fair portion of caravienne to boost the body. I don't really care about clarity so I'm leaning on the heavy side for these dextrinous malts. So, expect a cloudy, golden-yellow, slightly fruity beer with a big rocky head, and a medium to light, refreshingly carbonated feel on your tongue.

We're brewin' her up on Saturday the 27th starting somewhere around 9 am, so stop on by if you can make it.

Grain:
9 lb. Belgian Pils 2-Row
3 lb. Wheat Malt
6 oz. Cara Vienne

Double Infusion Mash:
150 degrees for 15 min.
158 degrees for 45 min.
Sparge at 170 degrees

Boil:
6 gal beginning volume and we should boil off a gallon or so
60 min. boil
Add 3 lb. Clear candi sugar (I'm actually just using table sugar or sucrose) at the beginning of the boil
1/2 oz. Irish moss added at 60 min.

Hops:
60 min:
3/4 oz. Hallertau (8.5% AA)
30 min:
1/4 oz. Hallertau (8.5% AA)
15 min:
1/2 oz. Saaz (3.7% AA)

Yeast:
A starter of White Labs "Abby Ale" yeast (WLP530) pitched into one carboy with 5 gallons of wort.

Predicted Original Specific Gravity:
1.079

Notes:
I'll be fermenting this thing at around 70 degrees.

Dubbel Trubbel

My homebrew club has been experimenting with a new product from www.darkcandi.com. It's a liquid dark candi sugar product produced locally. The owner of the company donated a bunch of candi for us to use in some brews and see what we think of his product. The club even payed for half of the brew... I hope it turns out ok. Mt idea for this one was to make a belgian dubbel with the same basic recipe from the belgian strong dark ale I brewed before. We'll see how she turns out.

The namesake arose after I had pitched the yeast into the carbouy... I put the stopper and air lock into the mouth of the carboy and it didn't want to stay put, and kept popping out. So I muscled it in there and "POP" it shot into the carbouy where it's floating now at the top of my wort. So, I hope it was sterile. Otherwise I think the beer's in trouble... dubbel trubbel.

Grain:
12 lb. Belgian Pils 2-Row
8 oz. Cara Munich
4 oz. Belgian Aromatic
8 oz. Special B

Single Infusion Mash:
120 degrees for 30 min.
150 degrees for 45 min.
Sparge at 170 degrees

Boil:
7 gal beginning volume and we should boil off two gallons or so
120 min. boil
Add 1 lb. Dark Belgian candi sugar at the beginning of the boil
1/2 oz. Irish moss added at 60 min.

Hops:
60 min:
1/2 oz. Saaz (3.5% AA)
30 min:
3/4 oz. Hallertauer (4.4% AA)
1/4 oz. Saaz (3.5% AA)
15 min:
1/4 oz. Saaz (3.5% AA)

Yeast:
1 Day starter of White Labs "Trappist Ale" yeast (WLP500) was pitched into one carboy with 5 gallons of wort.

Predicted Original Specific Gravity:
1.063

Notes:
2/13/07 I tried it today and it's not sour and there's no bad, off flavors or aroma so I may have escaped any contamination disaster. But, it was a bit too light in color. So, I added another 1/2 pound of the liquid candi sugar straight to the keg. I hope it'll add some color and a little extra sweetness. We'll see how it shapes up in the next month or so.

Pillage & Plunder Meads

Holy Honey. Sara and I purchased 60 lb of Florida Wild Flower honey on Saturday! and Sunday we brewed up 10 gal of two different varieties of Mead. We made two batches of "Braggot" to be exact (mead with malt). Since this is the stuff Vikings used to drink, I had to come up with a suitable name for them... so the first one is called "Pillage" and the second one is "Plunder." Here's the basic recipe and the differences below:

Fermentables:
10.5 lb. Honey
1 lb. Light DME
1/2 lb. Wheat Malt Extract

Single Infusion Mash:
DME was boiled for 45 min before adding honey and bringing the total volume up to 5 gal. A handful of coriander seeds was also added to the boil.

Yeast:
1 Day starter of ... I forget.

Predicted Original Specific Gravity:
1.098

Notes:
Ok, two batches were brewed up, 5 gal each. For one batch we added about 4 handfuls of Crystal 120 and two handfuls of Special B to a mini mash which was added to the honey before bringing the volume up to 5 gal.

For the other batch, we left it as is, but after about a month of fermentation we plan to add some citrus fruits, probably a lot of peach with some lemon, orange and possibly some grapefruit. I'll edit the post when we do this and specify exactly what we add when the time comes.