Belgian Triple or Golden Strong?

[jengum]

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Has anyone arrived at a recipe they like for this style? I'm thinking of trying this in a few weeks; it's from a Beersmith forum post. It seems to hit the main points for style. I might bump up the hops to around 35 IBUs, possibly back off the alcohol by a point or two. I'd scale it up to yield 15 or 20 gallons, depending on how many friends want a cornie.

Jamil's It's All In The Details
Submitted By: bbrodka
Batch Size: 5.00 gal
Style: Belgian Golden Strong Ale (18D)
Boil Size: 5.70 gal
Color: 3.6 SRM
Bitterness: 25.2 IBUs
Boil Time: 60 min
Est OG: 1.087 (20.7° P)
Mash Profile: 149/90
Est FG: 1.005 SG (1.3° P)
ABV: 10.9%

Ingredients
8.32 gal water
10 lbs 16.0 oz of Gambrinus Pilsner Malt (1.6 SRM)
2 lbs 16.0 oz of sugar - White Sugar/Sucrose (0.0 SRM)
2.3 oz of Czech Saaz [3.5%] - Boil 90 min
4 pkgs Wyeast 1388-Belgian Strong Ale

[Roadie]

I want to brew a tripel as I've never made one before. I put together a recipe that's a cross between Jamil's Strict Observance Tripel and Gordon Strong's Alison. I don't have my recipe in front of me but believe it has around 35 IBU and is a little over 9% ABV and uses WLP 530 yeast.

[kal]

Jamil's recipe from Brewing Classic Styles ( http://www.theelectricbrewery.com/Brewing-classic-styles ) looks pretty solid. It's a fairly simple recipe at the end of the day... think of a really strong Blonde Ale, using Belgian yeast to give it that slightly spicy flavour. It's actually on my 'to brew' list. Got 6 vials of WLP530 sitting in the wings...

Kal

[kal]

Jamil's recipe from Brewing Classic Styles ( http://www.theelectricbrewery.com/Brewing-classic-styles ) looks pretty solid. It's a fairly simple recipe at the end of the day... think of a really strong Blonde Ale, using Belgian yeast to give it that slightly spicy flavour. It's actually on my 'to brew' list. Got 6 vials of WLP530 sitting in the wings...

Kal

[Roadie]

Just looked at my recipe. Straightforward list of ingredients but I HAVE NOT brewed this yet.

For 5 gallons:

12 lbs. Dingeman's Pilsner
2 oz. Aromatic Malt
3 lbs. Table sugar
1.25 oz Sterling at 60
1 oz Saaz at 10
Appropriate starter of WLP 530
68% efficiency

Step mash
Sugar is boiled with a little water and added to fermenter around day 3.
OG: 1.080 and FG: 1.010ish
IBU: 29.1
4.5 SRM
9.3 ABV

[jengum]

I'm going to make 15 finished gallons on Sunday. Triangulating with a couple Gordon Strong recipes, Brew Like a Monk, and some good Beersmith podcasts on the subject, I'm zeroing in on something along these lines:

83% Belgian pilsner
13% sucrose
3% dextrin malt (cara-pils)
35 BUs from noble hops
Four step mash
Chimay yeast (WLP500)
64f for a day then allow to free rise for a week or two, until it's below 1.010

Most sources talk about the importance of bottle conditioning, and CO2 volumes in the 3-5 range. I'd really like to avoid using bottles and want to go for 3.5 volumes (21 psi at 38f). I'm thinking of pitching yeast/sugar in the keg for CO2, holding warm for a couple of weeks, then conditioning cold for a couple weeks, before starting to serve.

Have any of you tried conditioning this style in the keg? Have you tried pouring anything at around 20 psi?

[Roadie]

I haven't but have a couple of regulators and just bought I think it was 21' of dispensing line for keezer just for that beer. I've debated about carbing naturally in keg but think i'll just force carb like all the rest of our beers and see how that goes simply because that's what I'm used to.

[kal]

Yeah, using sugar to carb in a keg doesn't make sense to me. All it does is get you sediment. CO2 is CO2.

@jengum: What 4 step mash were you thinking and why? I'm making a tripel on monday and was going to go for a simple single infusion in the high 140's for a good 2 hours or so to make something reasonably dry (1.010 - 1.012) but not insanely dry. SG will be about 1.080.

Anyone have any thoughts on water adjustment? Off the top of my head I was thinking something like: Ca=50, Mg=10, Na=16, Cl=70, S04=70

(Cl:S04 at a 1:1 ratio and fairly low - like a blonde ale or a belgian wit)

Kal

[kal]

Yeah, using sugar to carb in a keg doesn't make sense to me. All it does is get you sediment. CO2 is CO2.

@jengum: What 4 step mash were you thinking and why? I'm making a tripel on monday and was going to go for a simple single infusion in the high 140's for a good 2 hours or so to make something reasonably dry (1.010 - 1.012) but not insanely dry. SG will be about 1.080.

Anyone have any thoughts on water adjustment? Off the top of my head I was thinking something like: Ca=50, Mg=10, Na=16, Cl=70, S04=70

(Cl:S04 at a 1:1 ratio and fairly low - like a blonde ale or a belgian wit)

Kal

[Spike Innovations]

I brewed a tripel just under 2 years ago, one of the first batches on TEB. I remember I was targeting a 90 minute mash at around 149F, but had milled to fine and compacted the bed so hard it ended up being a 3+ hour mash just to get it going.

Mash ended up staying around the 125-135 range for almost 2 hours until I got it to start to flow, 40 minutes or so at 149F, and only got mashout up to 161F before just running off.

Recipe was:
12lb German Pilsener
4oz Aromatic
2lb Cane Sugar (added after fermentation had started)

2oz Tettnanger @ 60 (27 IBU)
.5 oz Saaz @ 10 (3 IBU)

WLP530 @ 65F
Boiled sugar in water and added to fermentation on day 2-3 (height of fermentation).

OG at end of boil was 1.071, with sugar addition should have bumped it up to around 1.087 OG.

After 12 days, (believe I raised temp towards end of fermentation into low 70s), gravity was down to 1.013. For whatever reason I stopped taking notes there and would imagine it finished in the 1.010-1.013 range. Beer had great complexity with very low higher alcohols for being 9.7%. Probably one of the best beers I've brewed that was not an IPA. Bottled a bunch of the keg and still have one bottle left.

No issues serving at a higher carb level in the keg, just make sure you have the correct length line to balance it at your temperature. I believe I only served mine around the 2.8-3.0 vol range.

[Spike Innovations]

I brewed a tripel just under 2 years ago, one of the first batches on TEB. I remember I was targeting a 90 minute mash at around 149F, but had milled to fine and compacted the bed so hard it ended up being a 3+ hour mash just to get it going.

Mash ended up staying around the 125-135 range for almost 2 hours until I got it to start to flow, 40 minutes or so at 149F, and only got mashout up to 161F before just running off.

Recipe was:
12lb German Pilsener
4oz Aromatic
2lb Cane Sugar (added after fermentation had started)

2oz Tettnanger @ 60 (27 IBU)
.5 oz Saaz @ 10 (3 IBU)

WLP530 @ 65F
Boiled sugar in water and added to fermentation on day 2-3 (height of fermentation).

OG at end of boil was 1.071, with sugar addition should have bumped it up to around 1.087 OG.

After 12 days, (believe I raised temp towards end of fermentation into low 70s), gravity was down to 1.013. For whatever reason I stopped taking notes there and would imagine it finished in the 1.010-1.013 range. Beer had great complexity with very low higher alcohols for being 9.7%. Probably one of the best beers I've brewed that was not an IPA. Bottled a bunch of the keg and still have one bottle left.

No issues serving at a higher carb level in the keg, just make sure you have the correct length line to balance it at your temperature. I believe I only served mine around the 2.8-3.0 vol range.

[kal]

Sounds like a great beer Mike! Your recipe's a lot what I'm targeting at doing. Take out of the 4 oz of aromatic malt and you pretty much have the recipe from Brewing classic styles. (I'd argue that 4 oz of of a 20L malt in a 5 gallon batch won't be noticeable anyway... ).

Kal

[kal]

Sounds like a great beer Mike! Your recipe's a lot what I'm targeting at doing. Take out of the 4 oz of aromatic malt and you pretty much have the recipe from Brewing classic styles. (I'd argue that 4 oz of of a 20L malt in a 5 gallon batch won't be noticeable anyway... ).

Kal

[jengum]

CO2 - I know taste perception is frequently 'colored' by beliefs, but most/all of the sources below specifically call out the flavor contribution of bottle conditioning, beyond the issue of higher CO2 volumes. I'd certainly rather just keg it per usual. With this 15 gallon batch, I suppose I could try both (forced and sugar/yeast).

Mash schedule (protein, beta, alpha, ?) in F - 131 for 10 mins, 140 for 10, 145 for 40 mins, 158 for 20 mins, 168 for 10 mins. This is from "Improving Your Homebrew", Gordon Strong, Zymurgy May/June 2015. This mash schedule is similar to his recipe in Modern Homebrew Recipes, which also has five steps. I understand about modern, well modified malts and I'd rather do it the simple way. I have heard this type of schedule echoed in related interviews (referenced below). And...in Brew Like a Monk (BLAM), Mr. Heironymus recommends both a single step in the upper 140s in his summary chapter ("...or consider a step mash such as at Ommegang.")...though he surely wasn't writing to brewers insane enough to build/buy your control panel.

Water adjustment - still new at this, apart from wirfloc. There's a reference table in BLAM (p 158) which has profiles for six Trappist breweries measured in the late 90s...but the numbers vary wildly between breweries.

Sources: apart from the books noted above, I've been listening to related interviews on the Beersmith podcast with Michael Mraz, Stan Hieronymous, and Dan Morey

[Roadie]

That's about the mash schedule I'm using. Mine is 131 for 10, 140 for 10, 145 for 40, 158 for 20 and 168 for 10.

[jengum]

Well, I brewed what should be 15 finished gallons of this style yesterday. It was a tough day, primarily for two reasons.

Step mash - 32 lbs of grain and all of that water is a lot of thermal mass. With the HLT set to 141, raising the temp on wert leaving the MLT from 130 to 140 took around 25 minutes. I considered a higher delta to move temps faster. But wert entering the MLT was on temp as soon as the HLT was on temp (relatively quickly), so for at least the top section of the mash, the temps were where we wanted to be, closer to schedule. With five steps, this meant either a much longer mash schedule or altering the schedule mid-brew, which we did. We held on 145 for close to 30 minutes, but then moved more gradually up to lautering temps over about 35 minutes. Next time I brew this style, I'll either try a gradual ramp up to achieve the rests, or simplify the mash schedule. An alternative would be to use the BK to add hot water to [more] quickly jump to each next step...kind of ironic given the sophistication of our systems, but it might be the most effective way to hit times and temps.

If any of you try a simpler schedule with Belgian/German malts and get really good attenuation, I'd love to hear about it.

Hot break - this batch contained the most suspended 'proteins' (kind of slimy, stranded particulates) that I've ever seen. My kettles have ports at the center bottom. I'm using a custom 24" tall, 300 micron stainless hop-spider. I recirculate in to it through the boil. This was quickly coated with fine muck and overflowing, which meant a problem for hop additions. We cleaned it out once, then got the re-circulation rate low enough to make it through the additions/boil. I don't know if this resulted from the Belgian Pislner malt, dextrin malt (cara-pils), something related to the grain bed or what...but it made this phase difficult..and distracting from cleaning and fermenter prep. The rest of the day went well enough. Does anyone know what can increase the amount of these solids?

@Kal - if you're brewing this style today, I'd love to hear about how your process goes, and of course, about the results when it's ready to drink.

[kal]

So far so good! Almost done sparging.

I did:

Protein Rest: 131F for 10 mins.
Beta Rest: 149F for 90 mins. (probably overkill but whatever)
Alpha Rest: 155F for 30 mins.
Mashout: 168F for 10 mins.

Were you recirculating *during* the boil? If yes, I wouldn't worry about all that at that time. Once you add some whirlfloc or similar near the end of the boil the stuff will clump up well. Hot (or cold) break in the fermenter isn't really that bad either. Some will say it even helps.

For faster ramp times, consider two heating elements in the HLT. The 50A control panel for 30+ gallons is popular for this reason even on smaller volume setups.

Kal

[kal]

So far so good! Almost done sparging.

I did:

Protein Rest: 131F for 10 mins.
Beta Rest: 149F for 90 mins. (probably overkill but whatever)
Alpha Rest: 155F for 30 mins.
Mashout: 168F for 10 mins.

Were you recirculating *during* the boil? If yes, I wouldn't worry about all that at that time. Once you add some whirlfloc or similar near the end of the boil the stuff will clump up well. Hot (or cold) break in the fermenter isn't really that bad either. Some will say it even helps.

For faster ramp times, consider two heating elements in the HLT. The 50A control panel for 30+ gallons is popular for this reason even on smaller volume setups.

Kal

[jengum]

Great to here that your brew day went well.

I recirculate during the boil to keep 'fresh' wort going into the hop spider. Hops utilization goes down with hop concentration in the wort, so I want lots of exchange in the spider. I don't mind the solids/proteins so long as they don't clog the spider, which is the problem I had on this beer. Previous brews were fine.

I'm currently using your 50 amp, back-to-back panel. I couldn't add another heating element without upsizing the circuit on the electrical panel, potentially thicker wiring to the room (in a newly renovated house), and adding control for the element. I suppose I could install a second element in the HLT and run it from the BK side of the the panel. I'd need a workaround for the PID/thermostat control.

Smaller batches (than 15 gallons), shifting rest time to transition between rests, and simpler schedules would likely help.

[huaco]

I've started a thread here: http://www.theelectricbrewery.com/forum/viewtopic.php?t=28589 to address the option of adding another element but only use 2 elements at one time.