AG#27 - Strong Dark Belgian Ale - With Pics (Chimay Yeast)

[floydmeddler]

***THIS IS MY FIRST PROPER STAB AT BREWING A BELGIAN ALE. MY SECOND CAN BE SEEN HERE: viewtopic.php?f=24&t=35516&hilit=+TYPHON ***

After a night on the Belgians a few weeks back I thought I'd have a go at brewing a proper one this time. Last was a little on the weak side

Belgian Dark
18-E Belgian Dark Strong Ale
Date: 16/02/2010

Size: 24.5 L
Efficiency: 76.0%
Attenuation: 75%
Calories: 298.95 kcal per 12.0 fl oz

Original Gravity: 1.089 (1.075 - 1.110)
Terminal Gravity: 1.022 (1.010 - 1.024)
Color: 26.97 (12.0 - 22.0)
Alcohol: 8.84% (8.0% - 11.0%)
Bitterness: 28.8 (20.0 - 35.0)

Ingredients:
5.0 kg Lager Malt
1.0 kg Maris Otter Pale Ale Malt
1.0 kg Munich Malt
1.5 kg Belgian Aromatic
800.0 g Candi Sugar Dark - TO BE ADDED AT SOME POINT THROUGH THE FERMENT
105.0 g Hallertau Hersbruck (2.5%) - added during boil, boiled 90 min
20.0 g Hallertau Hersbruck (2.5%) - added during boil, boiled 10 min
Cultured yeast from a bottle of Chimay Red

Obviously I can only guess the attenuation as I've never used the Chimay yeast before... which brings me on to the next bit!

Decided to culture some of this up



Y-E-A-S-T P-R-E-P-A-R-A-T-I-O-N

Sterilised a tomato sauce jar in a pressure cooker for around 20 mins





Flaming the bottle to kill any nasties



Stepped it up to a bigger vessel. This was it after around 2 weeks:



Doesn't seem like a lot and I was VERY wary about pitching. This yeast behaved very strangely. It took around 5 days before there was any realy signs of fermentation. On top of that, this starter refused to ferment below 1020. The only way I could build up yeast sediment was to add fresh wort every few days.

T-H-E B-R-E-W-E-R-Y

OK, so here is the brewery with ingredients all ready to rock n' roll. Trying out my latest (and hopefully last) false bottom today. Yep, it's a plastic circular chopping board with a thousand holes drilled. Handle hole is covered up with a piece of perspex held in place with 2 stainless steel screws.



Inside mash tun:



Inside my blue Thunderbird boiler



T-H-E B-R-E-W-I-N-G

HLT bringing the mash water up to temp



Mash temp moved around a bit actually. Went from this right up to 68c over 30 mins then equalised at around 67c



Kinda forgot to take pictures after this. My mate was brewing with me and we got on the beer early and forgot. However, loads of pics of my brewery in action are here viewtopic.php?f=24&t=29594 if you're interested.

Managed to get one of the boil though



OG was 1076. Haven't added the homemade Belgian Candi Sugar yet. Still not sure when to add. I feel that I should allow all the malt sugars to ferment out by themselves so that I can get an idea of the FG. Then I can add accordingly to up it to match my desired alcohol content. **Thoughts and advice very welcome!**

T-H-E F-E-R-M-E-N-T-A-T-I-O-N

Here's what I was greeted with at 6ish the next morning. Temp rose naturally to 26c!



And at 9am



I managed to tidy up the wires so that I could close my fermenter properly. Tried to seal it with candle wax but didn't work. Not a problem though. I've set the temp to 23.2c. This will keep it between 22.9c - 23.2c.



Gravity at 1062 (so dropped by 14 points) after 40 hours in the fermenter.

Will keep updating as this brew unfolds.

[adm]

Looks like fun - how did the false bottom work?

Some of those Belgian yeasts can be very slow to start up, so don't sweat it too much - it certainly looks as if it's going for it now....

[floydmeddler]

False bottom worked tremendously well. No grain bits got through at all apart from a few little dust bits which drained off in seconds. Very happy that it's now sorted.

[oblivious]

Nice work and great pics floyd

[WishboneBrewery]

Looks like a nice full malty grain bill. Hope its a good one.

[floydmeddler]

OK, so took another gravity reading this morning and it's 1060. 24 Hours ago it was 1062... Not a big drop. Should I be worried or is this normal? Temp still at 23c.

Cheers

[Barley Water]

I almost hate to post this because I know you don't want to hear it but, I would not recommend trying to grow up yeast from a bottle of high gravity beer then pitch it into a monster like a Belgian Strong Dark. First, I'll give you my fix then explain my thinking:

Go the the local homebrew store and get a tube of WLP500 (it's the Chimay strain). Wyeast also sells the same thing, I just don't remember the number off the top of my head. Make up a weak starter and let it get going for 24 hours or so then pitch it on top of what you have going now.

I think that it is generally a bad idea to harvest yeast from beer that has on O.G. greater than 1.050 because that yeast has already been through the wars. Additionally, you don't know for sure where that bottle has been, some of these stores do some downright sinful things to beer before it is sold to the public. Anyhow, between these two possible issues, it kind of looks like the yeast you ended up with is not in the best condition, otherwise is would ferment out. The other thing you have to consider is that less than great yeast is very likely to throw off alot more in the way of esters and phenols not to mention fusel alcholols which in a really big beer like you are brewing can easily get way out of control. My experience with that strain is that it goes off like a bomb assuming optimum fermentation temperature, good wort oxigenation and a pretty big yeast starter.

I use WLP500 for both my Blond and Dubbels and I have pretty good luck with it but it is pretty fruity and will also throw off alot of bananna unless the yeast is in good condition and everything else is as it should be. Hopefully you can get the batch you have now to attenuate because if it doesn't, the beer will be almost syrupy sweet and you will not be happy with it. As an aside, if you like Chimay Blue, see if you can get a bottle of Ackel Extra Bruin. I have only had the pleasure once because you can't get it over here but that stuff is "heaven on earth" in my humble opinion. Anyway, let us know how it turns out and if things end up going south on you, don't get discouraged and for sure try again with a nice big starter of fresh yeast. One idea that I have not tried yet is to make an Abby Single then use the yeast off that fermentation to do the big stuff. Good luck.

[floydmeddler]

Cheers. It's still bubbling away here (big gulps every 5-8 seconds) and there's still a good load of krausen on the surface. I suppose worst case scenario is adding some WLP500 which can only bring success. However, I'm going to leave it for another while before going down that route.

It did as you put it 'go off like a bomb' as you can see from the pic above. I've never seen a fermentation like it ever. It has dropped by around 17 points since pitching at 6pm on Tuesday. Is this figure, in your opinion, worrying then? How much would you have expected it to drop by this stage - 3 days later?

Many thanks for your thoughts.

[Barley Water]

Good, I'm glad it is still fermenting, hopefully the gravity will drop like you want it to. Some of those Belgian yeasts get pretty crazy but the all time winner is still the Weizen yeast WLP300, there is nothing you can do to keep that stuff from going absolutely crazy. I have cleaned up the inside of my fermenting frig. several times because of excessive blow off caused by that strain (but it's worth it).

As an aside, I was rooting around in my hobby room over the weekend and I noticed that I have a couple of empty cases of Belgian bottles, a very unsatisfactory state of affairs. I think maybe this time I will try doing a Triple, something I have never made. I have a bunch of books with some interesting ideas to try out and one book mentions a special sugar which can only be purchased in Asian markets. I think I need to get poking around a bit to see if I can find some of that stuff and make something really unique. I just love drinking beer from cork finshed bottles out of a chalace, it's almost like a religous experience (without the preaching).

[floydmeddler]

Today, full week later, there is still krausen and airlock is bubbling every 15 or so seconds. The gravity reading is 1045 (OG was 1076). Should I be worried or should I just let it do its thing? Was thinking about rousing the yeast?

Cheers

[Tony01]

Sorry if I missed this, but when did you add the candi sugar?

Great pics and looking lik a really fantastic brew!

[floydmeddler]

Hey Tony,

I haven't yet. I wanted the yeast to ferment out the malt sugars before adding the candi sugar. I hear Belgian yeast is quite lazy and will prefer to go for sucrose before anything else. Might not be the case but I didn't want to take the chance!

[Barley Water]

Well, I'm sorry to read that. My advice would be to go ahead and rouse it while at the same time letting the temperature increase a little (I don't think it will make that much difference but it won't hurt and who knows, stranger things have happened). While all thats going on, prepare to execute Plan B, see my previous post. I usually don't make beers that big so I have been lucky and not run into this problem but I have heard of folks that have. Some of these Belgian yeasts can be a little tricky and if they get too cold at some point they will sometimes just stall out, good luck.

[Tony01]

I'm liking the look of this a lot.... and might have to do one of these, have it conditioning out of the way somewhere until christmas!

I'm going to wait until you've finished though and steal all your wisdom/experience

[floydmeddler]

[quote="Tony01" I'm going to wait until you've finished though and steal all your wisdom/experience [/quote]

Lol... Don't know about that! This is my first Belgian experience. Luckily I'm in no hurry for this brew so it can take as long as it wants. I'll keep updating here, right until it's in a glass.