Belgian Tripel Update

After reviewing the process and ingredients list (and a side-by-side comparison to New Belgium's Tripel - mine won :) next time I'm going to

Switch the 1 lb candi sugar for 1 lb honey
Try to make the LME all DME
Add cloves (giving it a taste more like Delerium Tremens or Goose Island's Sofie)
Add more priming sugar (to give the somewhat flat tripel a bit more head and effervescence)

I'm also going to make an English Dark Chocolate Ale, with a bit of black patent (just a bit) to get that dark, bitter taste, and a lot of chocolate grains, though I'll finalize that recipe later.

I'm also going to make a beer for my wife - a basil ale. To that end I picked up 3 of the Rogue beers - their chocolate stout, their nut brown ale, and their chipotle ale - the last being the most helpful when attempting to add an odd ingredient. I'm not sure if I'm going to make and IPA or a regular ale, but I'm interested to find out.

Gumballhead Clone Bottling

I bottled the Gumballhead clone tonight - it had an SG of 1.012. I had to use granulated sugar instead of dextrose (corn sugar), so I will have a slightly more cider-y flavor when this is carbonated than usual.

The Belgian-style tripel is overly sweet, and tastes like it needs another few months, but time is working against me here, and I am attempting to purge bottles in favor of getting a corny keg. Hopefully that works well and occurs soon.         

Family Time (Bottled and Brewed)

Belgian-style Tripel Update
I took a final specific gravity reading and the tripel ended up at 1.020 - so the OG was a little low (the kit said it should be between 1.083 and 1.086. The alternate tripel recipe I have has an OG of 1.080 - 1.084, and an FG of 1.016 and 1.022, so it's right in between that, which is comforting.

I'm concerned about the two 80 degree weather days we had in the last month, and I hope they don't turn the taste. As its getting into summer, I'm going to move everything down to the storage unit after brewing. This will keep temperature down and stable, especially in the hot summer months.

The tripel spent 9 days in the primary ,and then another 25 days in a secondary before bottling, and the bottles are going to end up down in the storage unit as well to age.




Gumballhead Clone
I brewed the Gumballhead clone - I had 1 lb of Caravienne grains that I needed to crush myself. I started with a rolling pin, until I realized that pushing that hard imprinted on the pin, and my wife would kill me if I started breaking her good kitchen utensils. So I got out a spoon. A teaspoon. That worked better than the rolling pin when crushing the gains, but had a slightly diminished volume it was able to crush at a given time. Finally, I stumbled across my wife's food processor, and having already crushed a separate pound at my "Local Home Brew Supply" (LBHS) store, and compared the two - the food processor did just as good as a manual crushing apparatus.

I was a little slow on the straining, and forgot to get the sieve in place for the first half, so I didn't get all the trub out. It's supposed to sit in the primary carboy for a week, and then strain and transfer to a secondary where its dry-hopped. I've never dry hopped before especially not with pellets, but I'm going to put the last ounce I have in the secondary and let it sit for another week before bottling.  As soon as I make sure that fermentation has started with this clone recipe, I will pull this 5 gallon tub in the basement as well.


Bottling
So we've actually turned bottling day into a family event - I sanitize everything, ensure the beer is in the carboy with tap, set up the tube and wand, then my wife fills the bottles (usually - we keep a stock of towels nearby), and I cap. This all goes on while we watch a movie or TV show, but it's surprising how this draws my wife (and sometimes my whole family if we need to get something from the kitchen and are bottling while my son's still up) into the beer making process. This led her to brew a batch with me, and now I'm brewing a batch for her specifically - hopefully this one comes out well.

Belgian-Style Tripel Ingredients and Procedure

Fermentables
3.3 lbs Light LME          Briess CBW Golden Light
3.3 Amber LME            Briess CBW Sparkling Amber
3 lb Pilsen DME             Pilsen Light Spray Dried Malt
1 lb Light Candi Sugar
8 oz Maltodextrin

Specialty Grains
4 oz Aromatic                Crushed Aromatic Malt

Hops
2oz Bittering                   Kent Bittering Hops - 4.5% alpha acid
.5 oz Aroma                   Kent Aroma Hops - 4.5%  alpha acid

Yeast
1 Sachet                         Nottingham Ale Yeast

Specs
IBU's: 24 - 30
ABV %: 8.5 - 9.0
OG: 1.083 - 1086

Procedure
1) Sanitize everything - 1 carboy, 1 big plastic spoon, 1 airlock, 1 hydrometer (did not sanitize 7 gallon pot or thermometer)
2) Steep grains
I poured about 2.5 gallons of water into the brew pot and set burner to high. I poured the 4 oz of crushed 'aromatic malt' grains into grain bag and tied a knot at the top of the bag. When the water was at 150, I put the grain bag into the brew pot and reduced heat. I steeped grains for approximately 20 minutes and checked water temp about every 3 to 4 min, adjusting as necessary to attempt to keep the water as close to 150 as possible. Removed grain bag and set drain bag in a clean bowl. The water was then wort.
4) Start boil
I set the heat to high to bring the wort to a gentle, rolling boil. As this was heating, I tossed the grain bag, and poured the drained liquid back into the pot. I poured the dried malt extract (DME) - the 3 lb Pilsen Light Spray Malt and Maltodextrin - into a bowl and added that so I could just dump it all at once (as it tends to crust as it leaves the bag. Then I poured the LME - two cans of Briess CBW, one Golden Light and one Sparkling Amber - in and the Candied Sugar as the wort turned into a boil
5) Add hops
I then slowly sprinkled the bittering hops into the boiling wort. I did this extremely slowly as the initial addition of the hops causes a sudden foaming, that goes back down and allows the rest of the hops to be added without that foaming. I then boiled for 50 minutes after which I added the aroma hops and boiled for 5 more minutes.
6) Cool wort and transfer
I then filled my bath tub full of cool water and placed the brew pot in. After about an hour I poured the wort into a carboy, but will probably try to strain next time. I attempted to avoid transferring the heavy sediment (trub) from the brew pot to the carboy.
7) Add water
I then added enough clean water to the carboy to bring the total volume of wort to approximately 5 gallons, stirred, and took an initial specific gravity with the hydrometer.
8) Pitch yeast
I poured the yeast satchet in and stirred it up; capped the carboy, filled the airlock just under halfway with water, and stuck it in.

Monitor and record
9) Fermentation starts
 I left the airlock set up for the first day, and then began to monitor closely. As I suspected - the high specific gravity beers (by proxy, high alcohol beers), there is so much activity that it frequently reaches the airlock and can block or just build a significant amount of pressure. As I'd already had the Russian Imperial Stout explode on me, as soon as I saw the beer overflowing the airlock, I opened it up and pulled the top and inside of the airlock so that the gas could release straight out. As I heard a constant whistle, I had no worry that air was getting in and affecting the taste. This lasted for approximately two to three days, and I put the airlock back together when there was still very active fermentation so I didn't have to worry about oxidation.

10) Wait
I will bottle this as soon as my English Brown Ale is gone, and I have the larger bottles - especially with the bulk aging, the larger canister available, the better (in my experience).

SG Readings and Procedural Thingys

English Brown Ale
So while doing the English Brown Ale, I wasn't pleased with how long it took to get back up to a boil. I did something stupid and put the lid on the huge brewpot. It took just seconds for it to overflow. I think that also removed several of the good fermentables, because there is almost no krausen buildup on the edge of the primary. I think that also might be because of the gas release valve setting - I put it deliberately low after having the Russian Imperials Stout literally explode all over my dining room. Oh well. I am going to siphon now, using the water-in-tube method suggested by Papazian.

The OG was 1.040, and the SG now - moving to secondary - is just over 1.010. Assuming that's relatively stable, the ABV% is going to be about 4% ((1.040 - 1.010)*131.25)

Belgian Tripel
While brewing the Tripel I cut some of the recipe out. I did not wait for the wort to come to a boil before adding the LME/DME/candi/maltodextrin and dumped it all in.

I must say, it was one of the coolest reactions ever to see the hops go into that. I put just a few at a time in because I knew it would cause major foam with the enzymes mixing, and that thing was bubbling like MAD for a good 5 minutes. It was pretty cool.

OG was 1.080 - this is gonna be a strong one! Hopefully it'll get down to about 1.010, making it just over 9%

This is a quick video of the airlock after just over 12 hours - there is a steady, but not huge amount of CO2 being released.

http://lh5.ggpht.com/_cqfWoGNslLQ/S78VT8qSGOI/AAAAAAAADFE/yCwSAXmqYnc/s128/Fermentation%20048.jpg


Next Up: Hard Cider

Impulse Buys and Second Tries

I headed out to the Brew and Grow two days ago and made an impulse buy. They have an expanded selection, so I purchased the planned English Brown Ale, but also saw and purchased a kit for a Belgian Tripel. Apparently, you have to age them for over 3 months, so I'm going to purchase a second carboy today when I go again, and try to bulk age it for the 3 months and then bottle it.

My buddy also pointed me out to a new site where I saw this:

http://www.northernbrewer.com/brewing/14-gallon-fermenator-f3-14-tri-clamp-fittings.html

So I have a 5 gallon plastic carboy, I wonder if there is a sanitary way for me to attach this to the bottom:

http://www.homedepot.com/h_d1/N-5yc1vZ1xmi/R-100079386/h_d2/ProductDisplay?langId=-1&storeId=10051&catalogId=10053

The most difficult would be the secondary nozzle for tasting, but I was thinking I could use to the one I already have with nozzle in it, not necessarily in the funnel. The nozzle at the bottom is easy, but sealing the two together - especially in a way that is known to be sanitary.

On another note, I also found that I had not been sanitizing my equipment properly, which I believe is the odd taste to my stout. I had been using the iodine sanitizer before the cleanser, and apparently you're supposed to do the opposite - the iodine sanitizes for human consumption those things the chemical cleanser removes/loosens from your equipment. Whoops!