March 15, 2009

The Bachelor (Belgian Single)

What a great day. We had a bunch of folks over starting at 9 am through around 6 pm. People stopped by, helped with the brewing, drank some beer, ate some food, played with my dog and we ended up with 10 gallons of, what I think will be, some excellent summer belgian style beer. We hit all our numbers dead on and I think everyone either had a good time, learned a lot or both. We'll have to do something similar again... maybe we'll have a keg tapping party next time!

For an 11 Gallon Batch:

Grain:

89% Belgian Pils (16 lbs)
5.5% CaraVienne (1 lb)
5.5% Rolled Oats (1 lb)

Single Infusion Mash:
Saccharification rest at 66 degrees C (150 F) for an hour.
Sparge at 75 C (166 F).

Boil:
90 min. boil

Hops:
1.5 oz E.K. Goldings added at 60 minutes.
1.5 oz E.K. Goldings added at 30 minutes.
1 oz E.E. Goldings added at 15 minutes.

Yeast:
2 vials of White Labs (WLP530) Abbey Ale Yeast pitched into 5.5 gallons.
2 vials of White Labs (WLP550) Belgian Ale Yeast pitched into the other 5.5 gallons.

Predicted Original Specific Gravity:
1.048 (at 77% efficiency)

Notes:
Ferment at 20 C (68 F) for one week or until primary fermentation dies down, bump the temperature up to 22 C (72 F) for another few days and let it finish off. Then keg it up.

They both taste pretty good. The WLP530 is definitely more spicy and similar to Russian River Redemption while the WLP550 is much more fruity, but certainly not over the top. Oh, and the lacing isn't bad either. Check out the pic.

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