Batch# 31 – Belgian Tripel

Recipe:

Found a very simple and straightforward recipe on brewtoad.com:
https://www.brewtoad.com/recipes/avec

Goals:

We have not had a lot of luck with Belgian styles  in the past.  A very early attempt at a saison (batch #1?!) was not great, and our Allagash White clone tasted like vinyl.  (Note: I have successfully brewed the Allagash clone from Extreme Brewing several times in the past, but only since the collaboration began with Ross and his anti-Belgian agenda have we had poor results.  Coincidence?  Because beer.)

So, this was a stab at a Belgian style that BJCP says was “Originally developed at the Trappist monastery at Westmalle.”  My favorite example is Unibroue’s La Fin du Monde, even though it’s not brewed in Belgium.

Brew Notes:

	OG	FG	ABV
Recipe	1.066	1.017	6.4%
Recorded	1.065	1.TBD	T.BD%

We BIAB’ed at Chris’s place using a large bag Ross fashioned from sheets of the typical mesh material.  This made mashing in easy and hopefully added to good temperature uniformity in the mash, since we didn’t just have an overstuffed teabag of grains bobbing around in water.

One mistake was turning the burners too low for a long hopping interval, during which we seemed to have lost our boil.  Oops.  I don’t know what this means for DMS, hop utilization, etc., but it can’t be too disastrous, right?  “We hope. (TM)”

Also, we darn near hit the target OG, but actually only put about 4.5 gallons into the fermenter, so our efficiency must have been a bit low.  The mash was 152F and it seemed like we held tight to that temp for 60 minutes.

Yeast:

Wyeast 3522 Belgian Ardennes Smack Pack

Starter:

Nope.

Fermentation notes:

Fermenting in Abbey’s office, hoping that it will be warm enough to stay in the happy range of the yeast.