Belgian Yeast American Hops

[TheMumbler]

So I'm hoping to finally get my single out of cold conditioning this evening. The plan has always been to re-use the yeast for a trippel.

My general idea was to do something along the lines of houblon chouffe which is a belgian interpretation of an American IPA. However a couple of days ago I had some La Rulles at lancssteve's house and it was really good. La Rulles is more restrained than Houblon Chouffe but still a little more bitter and hoppy than I would expect for a trippel and with a characteristically american hop flavour.

So my yeast will be wlp550 and my idea is to use the amarillo and simcoe that I have in (100g of each). I have plenty of dingemans pale ale malt, some jaggery (900g) that I was thinking of putting in there to thin it out a bit.

Any tips or suggestions?

[richc]

I've got something that's just about to come out of the fermenter that's a similar idea.

Pale, Vienna, Biscuit malts with a touch of crystal, then Nelson Sauvin Hops all very late. Fermented with WLP500.

Started at 1.056 and has stopped at 1.016, tasted great but hasn't completely cleared yet.

[weiht]

I'd be glad to see how it turns out... US hops are very aromatic, n belgian beers are all about the yeast flavour... Who will win this battle??

[Spud395]

I've had a few Belgian IPA's lately, only just discovered the style.
I had a Flying Dog's, Raging Bitch that I thought was superb, far from subtle though.
I cant offer much in the way of help only to say, do it.

[barney]

Looks like you are going to be blazing a trail with this one Mumbler. I think you'll get the best of both worlds.

[TheMumbler]

Thanks for the replies, I finally got the pale/single into the corny and a few 330ml bottles so the yeast is in a tub in the fridge awaiting further rinsing.

I've got something that's just about to come out of the fermenter that's a similar idea.

Pale, Vienna, Biscuit malts with a touch of crystal, then Nelson Sauvin Hops all very late. Fermented with WLP500.

Started at 1.056 and has stopped at 1.016, tasted great but hasn't completely cleared yet.

What sort of IBU did you go for with that rich?

I've had a few Belgian IPA's lately, only just discovered the style.
I had a Flying Dog's, Raging Bitch that I thought was superb, far from subtle though.
I cant offer much in the way of help only to say, do it.

I have tried that too, nice beer. I think my favourite is the La Rulles one which is more towards a tripel but still has that american thing going on. So I think I'll be trying for a decent chunk of hop flavour and aroma but hope to avoid being overly bitter. I'll post up some kind of preliminary recipe for people to have a look at in the next day or so.

[Barley Water]

Well, here's an idea for you, why not try the Belgian/IPA thing and save back enough yeast to do a more traditional Triple? I did a Helles this weekend and had to move some of my beer around to give myself room in my fermenting fridge. While doing that, I kegged my Abby Single, it should be interesting by the way, tasted pretty dry but of course fruity, it will be interesting to see what I think once I carbonate it (I used WLP 550 on both beers, I think you'll like it). I've got my fairly traditional Triple still in secondary, pretty soon I'll need to over-yeast it and bottle to give myself some more room. Anyhow, if you make say a 1.065 or so IPA with Belgian yeast and American hops, you can test your concept and still have the yeast left over to do the traditional Triple. Remember, if you dry out the Belgian IPA with alot of jaggery, you will accentuate any bitterness. I would be interested to hear how that comes out, I would think that the hop flavor and aroma would seriously cover up the flavor notes from the yeast but I have not tried it so I really don't know how all that will end up tasting. Seems like I recently read a post where somebody on these forums recently did an American IPA with Belgian yeast but I can't remember who that was.

[TheMumbler]

The more restrained version below, I have 100g each of Amarillo and Simcoe. I guess I'll need to buy more hops if go for a more US IPA style as well. The other option would be to use any left over hops to do an american amber as I was quite impressed by Red Nectar by Firestone Walker on tap.

Brewlength 23.00 L
Estimated
1.077 OG
1.019 FG (likely to go a bit lower)
52 IBU (tinseth)
7.5% abv (likely to go higher)
Color 15°SRM, 38 EBC

Ingredients
6.50 kg Belgian two-row
0.90 kg Jaggery (add last 15 mins)

30.00 g Simcoe Whole 90 minutes
30.00 g Simcoe Whole 10 minutes
30.00 g Amarillo Whole 10 minutes
20.00 g Amarillo Whole 0 minutes

WLP 550 reclaimed from single

I'm tempted to up the hops a bit for this one tbh since I don't think I get the best utilistation on my system.

[richc]

Mine's only at 37 IBU but I did it with all Nelson Sauvin in the last 15 minutes so there is bundles of hop flavour.