rochefort files 19-05-09

[delboy]

Have the water heating for this at the moment.
20litre recipe

A few edits buts this was the final recipe.

MO 4.8Kg
Special B 0.5Kg
Belgian aromatic 0.3Kg
Belgian Biscuit 0.2Kg
Carafa-1 0.1Kg
golden syrup 0.45Kg
unrefined cane sugar 0.5 Kg
Mash 65 C for 60 mins
Boil for 75 mins

50 g of stryian 75 mins
20 g " 30 min
10 g of " 5 min


Fermenting with 2.5 L starter of rochefort yeast ranched from two 6s and and an 8.

[DarloDave]

You'l have to let me us know how this turns out, AS its something I have in mind at some point, is this a clone of the 8?

[delboy]

You'l have to let me us know how this turns out, AS its something I have in mind at some point, is this a clone of the 8?

Yeah its an attempt at an 8 clone based on what i have in the cupboard I'll let you know if its any good or if its a pants effort.

[coatesg]

Good luck with this one (love the name by the way )

[delboy]

Just had a taste of the starter to make sure it wasn't bugged, i have to say its the best tasting starter i've tasted, every other one is a swill round the mouth and thats it, the rochefort was actually nice
Looks like its a yeast worth culturing.

[delboy]

Managed to hit the 20L mark was pretty chuffed until i realised the immersion chiller had been leaking into the boiler hope it hasn't turned it into TCP, feck but i hate that peice of sh*t H&G old style immersion chiller.
Thats my next peice of DIY, put proper lengths of copper on it so that it doesn't have to actually sit in the boiler along with the hose and outlet, or alternatively i might sling that peice of tat as far as i can see it and start again.

[delboy]

Getting some amazing floral/rose aromas coming from the fermenter, SWMBO thought it was the air freshener and commented on how nice it was

I want to bottle this batch (maybe fill a 9L cornie as well) the tough part will be deciding when to bottle ie somewhere in between creating bottle bombs and the yeast pooping out (had this happen to me on a kwak clone, bottles never carbonated )

Any suggestions from the experienced bottlers out there??

[Barley Water]

What I would do is go ahead and ferment the beer all the way out until it is flat. Then, once you have conditioned it to your liking, add sugar and reyeast with a neutral ale yeast like WLP01 (or maybe use one of the dry yeasts of the same strain) and just bottle it normally. That way, you can control the level of carbonation and at the same time avoid the dreaded bottle bomb. Since the primary yeast has had to work pretty hard to ferment the higher gravity brews, this ensures that you are dealing with fresh yeast for the carbonation phase. I have a bunch of Belgian 750ml bottles with the appropriate corks and wire cages, you can carbonate pretty agressively with them since the glass is so thick. It seems to work pretty well and looks very artesianal (whatever the hell that means). I really don't like to keg my higher gravity beers as it is way too easy to just pull one more pint if you know what I mean. Also, with the bottles, it looks pretty cool at parties to whip out your corkscrew to open one of these things. Also to complete the moment, you need a chalace to drink from and you can turn the whole thing into a semi-relgious type ritual, what fun.

[delboy]

What I would do is go ahead and ferment the beer all the way out until it is flat. Then, once you have conditioned it to your liking, add sugar and reyeast with a neutral ale yeast like WLP01 (or maybe use one of the dry yeasts of the same strain) and just bottle it normally. That way, you can control the level of carbonation and at the same time avoid the dreaded bottle bomb. Since the primary yeast has had to work pretty hard to ferment the higher gravity brews, this ensures that you are dealing with fresh yeast for the carbonation phase. I have a bunch of Belgian 750ml bottles with the appropriate corks and wire cages, you can carbonate pretty agressively with them since the glass is so thick. It seems to work pretty well and looks very artesianal (whatever the hell that means). I really don't like to keg my higher gravity beers as it is way too easy to just pull one more pint if you know what I mean. Also, with the bottles, it looks pretty cool at parties to whip out your corkscrew to open one of these things. Also to complete the moment, you need a chalace to drink from and you can turn the whole thing into a semi-relgious type ritual, what fun.

How exactly do you go about that BW, should i transfer the beer to a bottling bucket along with the required suagr and a packet of rehydrated S05 (same as wlp01). Is a packet too much? or too little for what im asking it to do?

I have some swing top grolsch bottles inmind for this not as nice as the corks and cages you mention but should still give a satisfying pop.
I've already dropped a few hints to swmbo that gifts of belgian beer chalices would be gratefully received.

[Barley Water]

Yes, that is exactly what you do. I have found that one package of yeast will get the job done. Just rehydrate it like you normally would to brew, add it to your bottling bucket along with your sugar then fill your bottles with a bottling wand and stopper them (just like the old days before cornie kegs). Just make damn sure that you get the priming sugar properly disbursed in the total volume of beer you are going to bottle otherwise you will end up with uneven carbonation between bottles. You will of course pick up a little oxigen that way but the yeast in the bottles will take care of that. The only downside to the whole deal is you have yeast sediment in the bottom of your bottles but frankly, I think that adds to the "charm" if you will.

By the way, I don't know if you do Heffeweizen but I pretty much do the same thing with that style. I usually serve Heffe from kegs but I also do a few bottles for competition. What I do is prime the beer with wheat DME (I usually don't bother to add yeast because this is a normal strenght brew so it is not as critical) and I run the whole batch right into the cornie keg. I then fill a few bottles straight out of the keg before the beer has a chance to carbonate then let everything sit around at room temperature for two to three weeks to carbonate. This turns out to be just like a poor man's krausening procedure but the advantage is you can control the level of carbonation. I just hate to try and fill bottles of Heffe after they have carbonated with a counterpressure filler, no matter what you do the stuff foams all over the place. The great thing about Heffe is that it is actually to your benefit to get a little more yeast in the bottle, it helps with flavor and is very authentic.

My next project is going to be an Alt bier but after that I may do a Dubbel as I am still trying to get one to come out right. Anyhow, I will for sure bottle the whole batch and that is the procedure I will use.

[delboy]

Thanks for the info BW

[mysterio]

I like the sound of this recipe!

I have the same trouble getting the bottling just right. I've been using champagne bottles and plastic corks. First time I used them the batch got infected and the bottles didnt carbonate. Second time I used them I baked the bottles because I was paranoid of infection, I don't know WTF happened but some of the bottles seemed to smell burnt and a few of the bottles took on a horrible taint that tastes like burning rubber. Add to that and I overcarbonated the bottles, some of the corks came flying off of their own accord and the ones that survived came out like bullets

.....WHY can't I get it JUST RIGHT?!

BTW you don't need a whole pack of the dried yeast. I think a quarter to a half will be more than enough. I remember hearing that Sierra Nevada, after filtration, add the equivalent of a tube of white labs yeast per 5 gallons batch (scaled up) when they bottle condition. So what BW suggests makes a lot of sense.

[delboy]

Going to be bottling/kegging this in the next few days, samples from the fermenter taste good, much better than my last attempt at a belgian (Kwak, was like clove rock). Even swmbo thought it tasted good out of the fermenter and she can't normally face them until they've been carbonated.

[DarloDave]

Sounds good Del, while i was having a crap earlier reading "brew like a monk" I was wondering how this was coming along.

[delboy]

Sounds good Del, while i was having a crap earlier reading "brew like a monk" I was wondering how this was coming along.

Thats a lot of information I would say the key to this brew is definitely the yeast, i think both whitelabs and wyeast sell their version of it for those a bit wary of yeast ranching.