AG#22 - Belgian Strong Golden (Duvel Yeast)

[jmc]

Hi
Sunday's brewday primarily based on floydmeddler's brew AG#60 - Belgian Honey Beer (Duvel Yeast)

Recipe I used is very similar to Floyds, only I didn't use the grains of paradise.
I added 8 peppercorns to the recipe below.
(I also modified mash & sparge water volume to suit my kit.)

The night before water prepared. Just CRS added to reduce hard local water.
Yeast ready. Kit set up for underletting, grain weighed out and placed in mash tun.



Next morning (30/5) mash water added. Cool mash 63 as I wanted to maximise fermentables for low FG.
Mash extended to 2 hours to help this too.

New sparge set up. Last sparge arm poor because of inadequate head (and no pumps), so had simple sparge on to S/S wilkinson barbeque sheets tied together with copper wire. Odd but it worked.


34L of wort boiled for 90 mins. Fast boil as a bit too much wort and poor gravity (1044 pre boil & sugar addition)


20mins before end 1kg sugar, boiled in 1L wort added to brew. (No pic)
Last 10 mins coriander + small amount black pepper added. Orange zest for last 5 mins

Chilled to under 25C, left settle for 40 mins then poured into FV via strainer to aerate.



5.5 gal in FV. OG 1064, a bit low

I poured off 3/4 gal to demijohn from FV to allow some headroom.
Placed FV into fermenting fridge at 18C.
Next day in fridge after 18 hours, creamy 1-2cm head. few flecks krausen

After 30 hours, really going


Happy with colour and taste of brew, but a bit disapointed with OG of 1064, maybe not too bad as still to add honey.
Maybe mash tun temp was too cool
Really happy with yeast. Looks like its working overtime.
Intend to increase FV temp by 1C per day.
ATB John

[floydmeddler]

Brilliant! Nice to know I've inspired someone. That gravity is quite low. I've calculated your overall efficiency at 73% What do you usually achieve? I can't imagine it was down to the low mash temp as my efficiency didn't change because of this. When sparging, did you keep some wort above the grain bed? If not, perhaps channelling was to blame?

Looking great all the same!

[jmc]

Brilliant! Nice to know I've inspired someone. That gravity is quite low. I've calculated your overall efficiency at 73% What do you usually achieve? I can't imagine it was down to the low mash temp as my efficiency didn't change because of this. When sparging, did you keep some wort above the grain bed? If not, perhaps channelling was to blame?

Looking great all the same!

Hi Floyd

My normal efficiency is not great, 75-80% or so.
Your calc of 73% doesn't sound too far out then.

My mash tun is long and a bit big for 23L brew lengths so the grain-bed isn't very deep.
I used valentine arm to keep about 1/2" water over grain bed, but its possible I sparged too quick
Maybe I should revert to batch-sparging

Not a disaster though and its fermenting very well.
Did you top-crop yeast in first 24-48 hours?

ATB John

[floydmeddler]

It isn't a disaster at all. I didn't top crop. With regards to honey, that is quite a lot you're planning to put in. 1 jar of Rowse REALLY gave a cracking honey hit. I've used Tesco and Sainsbury's brand in the past and the results weren't great to be honest... Your choice though - just passing on my experience.

[jmc]

Hi Floyd

I based honey on 340g Tesco Value Honey jars I use in Turbo Cider.
2 x jars = 680g , a bit more than your initial recipe of 500g.
If you did this brew again how much honey would you use?

I plan to pasturise the honey like I do for TC as this seems to help fermentation and allows TC to clear bright.
I heat to 80-90C for 15 mins. If I pasturise, some of the subtle aromatics in a blossom honey may be blown away so do you think its worth using a premium honey?

To make honey less overpowering maybe I could reduce honey to 1 jar (340g), then either replace other 340g with sugar or skip other 340g & have a weaker brew.

I started at 18C, a bit lower than you. I raised it to 19C last night and planning on upping to 20C tonight.
Do you think that's raising it quick enough as it will take a while to reach 25C+?

Sorry about all the questions.

ATB John

[floydmeddler]

I ended up using a 450g jar of Rowse. I more or less do the same as you to pasteurise my honey. I heat to around 83c, switch off the heat, cover allow it and allow it to pasteurise for 15mins. I do think it's worth buying premium quality honey; yes it may be a little more on the pocket but the effect will be evident in every glass... well worth it! One 450g jar of Rowse will do the trick - honestly. I reckon you'll end up with a gravity of around 1004 - same as me. That's an 8.7% beer!

Barley Water is the man to talk to about temps. He knows his stuff. Perhaps you could keep it at 20c for around 5 days to keep down the fusel alcohols. I know people have frowned at me in the past for blasting it so high straight away. I did this because Duvel do it. However, they probably pitch a MASSIVE load of yeast too so it will ferment out super quick anyway... Perhaps you waiting 5 days to crank up the heat is equivalent to them waiting for 1 day!

I'm doing this brew again soon: viewtopic.php?f=24&t=35516&hilit=duvel+typhon and have just ordered the ingredients. I may keep the heat down for 5 days then crank it up. If I do this it may not turn out the same though... Decisions decisions!

Keep firing away with questions etc. Really want to follow this brew.

[Spud395]

Hi John, nice thread.
Re: the efficency, I devoloped a theory yesterday.
Normally I hit 75-80% like yourself, yesterday I brewed and was blown away with my efficency, I calculated 90%.
Now the only difference to my procedure from normal was that I raised to a proper mashout temperature rather than ignoring it as I normally do.
What temp do you mashout at? or am I off the mark with this theory?

[jmc]

Hi Spud365

Interesting - You might not be out.

I thought the main point of the higher mash out temp (72-75C grain bed?) was to stop further enzyme action so higher sugars / dextrins not broken down pre-boil.

I thought this not so important for home-brewers as for us its normally less than an hour from end-of mash to boil temp so I've not been too worried about it in recent brews.

I've been more concerned about overdoing sparge water temp and extracting tannins.
I did this for AG#2 with disasterous results

For your 90% efficiency brew, what temp sparge water did you have for mash-out and what grain bed temp did you get?
TIA John

[Spud395]

That was my thinking well, but I got to thinking why I wasnt getting better efficency, as a lot of guys on here seem to get.

So I tried this and now I have to figure my high efficency.
I remember reading also that the higher the water temp the easier sugar disolves in it, so I'm wondering if the higher temps just take out more sugar as they leave the grain?

I batch sparge, strike temp for mashout was a touch over 80C, maybe 82, I only use a spirit termometer.

Grain bed was around 75C

[jmc]

Hi Spud395

Thanks for info.

I might try a return to batch sparging in next brew.
In my garage setup, the flow of fly-sparge water to the mashtun is slow, (due to no head room), so its probably cooling too much.

How many 'batches' do you sparge with?
When I last batch sparged I did the folowing
1) drain mash tun
2) add 1/2 sparge water and drain after say 10-15mins
3) add balance of sparge water at mash-out temp, and drain after 10-15mins

Do you do something similar?

TIA John

[Spud395]

Very similar, only this time I upped the temp to mashout on 1st sparge and kept it the same for the second.

Just on the side, I measured gravity on the very last of the 2nd runnings, I never done this before.
I got a reading of 1.010, which Iguess is around as low as you want anyawy.
I took from this that I had extracted all the sugar I wanted, unfortunatly I had never taken a reading of my 2nd runnings before, so I dont know if I was leaving sugars in there before.

Sorry about the tangent but I guess it's all in the cause of good beer

[jmc]

Hi spud395

Thanks for the tangent! Very useful info.

ATB John

[stringy]

Awesome stuff, love belgian beers.

Out of interest, where did you get that massive Duvel swingtop from? Thats seriously cool, would love to get me one of them!

[jmc]

Awesome stuff, love belgian beers.

Out of interest, where did you get that massive Duvel swingtop from? Thats seriously cool, would love to get me one of them!

Hi stringy

Sorry the swingtop is a bit of a con.


Like with the milk-bottle next to it, I just used the Duvel bottle labels on it to remind me what yeast it is.

Swing bottle is an old Cornish Cider growler

ATB John

[gnutz2]

Cool pics thanks for sharing, i bet it turns out to be a belter even with the lower than expected OG.

Thats a super clear cold break you have going there, does it get that clear after the 40 min rest or as soon as you get below 25c?

Thats a good idea using a strainer to airate, how effective is it?

Cheers Baz.