Trappist brews on the agenda

[greenxpaddy]

Thanks to Barney who has got me thinking Dubel, Tripel, and kindly gave me a slant of Trappist yeast I'm guessing its White Labs WLP500.

Here's a couple of recipe's I've knocked up. what do you guys think?

PADDY'S HONEY TRAPPIST #1

Date:

Gyle Number:

Fermentable Colour lb: oz Grams Ratio
Dingemans Pils Malt 2.8 EBC 17 lbs. 10.1 oz 8000 grams 79.2%
Wheat Malt 3.5 EBC 1 lbs. 12.1 oz 800 grams 7.9%
Spanish Lavender Honey 30 EBC 2 lbs. 13.8 oz 1300 grams 12.9%


Hop Variety Type Alpha Time lb: oz grams Ratio
Hallertauer Hersbrucker Whole 2.9 % 90 mins 0 lbs. 0.9 oz 25 grams 27.8%
Hallertauer Hersbrucker Whole 2.9 % 5 mins 0 lbs. 0.9 oz 25 grams 27.8%
Aurora Whole 8.5 % 90 mins 0 lbs. 1.4 oz 40 grams 44.4%


Final Volume: 35 Litres
Original Gravity: 1.071
Final Gravity: 1.011
Alcohol Content: 8% ABV
Total Liquor: 48.6 Litres
Mash Liquor: 22 Litres
Mash Efficiency: 88 %
Bitterness: 24.89 EBU
Colour: 17 EBC


PADDY'S TRAPPIST DARK #1


Date:
Gyle Number:


Fermentable Colour lb: oz Grams Ratio
Munich Malt 20 EBC 11 lbs. 14.4 oz 5400 grams 48.9%
Special B 300 EBC 2 lbs. 13.8 oz 1300 grams 11.8%
Caramunich III 120 EBC 2 lbs. 6.8 oz 1100 grams 10%
Belgian Aromatic Malt 50 EBC 1 lbs. 8.6 oz 700 grams 6.3%
Flaked Wheat 0 EBC 2 lbs. 3.3 oz 1000 grams 9%
Tate and Lyle Golden Syru 30 EBC 2 lbs. 15.5 oz 1350 grams 12.2%
Biscuit Malt 50 EBC 0 lbs. 7.0 oz 200 grams 1.8%


Hop Variety Type Alpha Time lb: oz grams Ratio
Hallertauer Hersbrucker Whole 2.9 % 15 mins 0 lbs. 1.4 oz 40 grams 23.5%
Hallertauer Hersbrucker Whole 2.9 % 5 mins 0 lbs. 1.1 oz 30 grams 17.6%
Hallertauer Mittlefruh Whole 4.3 % 90 mins 0 lbs. 3.5 oz 100 grams 58.8%


Final Volume: 35 Litres
Original Gravity: 1.085
Final Gravity: 1.016
Alcohol Content: 9.1% ABV
Total Liquor: 49.5 Litres
Mash Liquor: 24.3 Litres
Mash Efficiency: 88 %
Bitterness: 25.95 EBU
Colour: 181 EBC

With the dark can I just throw all the malt into the mash or do I need to steep some separately?

[Swiller]

I personally chuck it all in at the start.

J

[MAF]

when do you plan to add the honey? boil or post primary?

[greenxpaddy]

Warmed honey will go in at 80C during the cooling process, then will prime with some pasteurised honey to bottle....

[GrowlingDogBeer]

Looks good, I'm currently reading Brew Like a Monk and it's tempting me to try some Trappist style beers.

[greenxpaddy]

i think I'm going to do a double whammy brew day between Christmas and New Year to get both done together, then I only need to make one big yeast starter

[Barley Water]

First of all, a great way to make a starter for all the big Trapist brews is to make an Abbey Single first. I used WLP550 when I made mine and I am very happy with it. I then used the yeast to do a Triple. If you are using WLP500 I would advise being pretty careful with the fermentation temperature. That particular strain can get extremely fruity if you don't keep the fermentation temperature under control. Of course, this problem will be exaserbated when dealing with a high gravity wort and oh yeah, make sure to pitch alot of yeast.

[greenxpaddy]

Many thanks Barley Water.

What temp fermentation would you do? What size initial batch do you think would give enough yeast to do a subsequent 70l.

[Barley Water]

Well, I do 5 gallon batches (or 19L) so I guess you can just scale it up. I made the Single using 1 tube of WLP550 and I made a small starter for that batch, say 1/2 a liter (by the way the O.G. on the single was 1.048). Once the single was done fermenting, I harvested all the yeast from that and pitched it into a Triple (O.G 1.085). I also added the honey after the initial fermentation was going pretty good, sometimes the yeast can get lazy and not bother with the harder to ferment sugars so I feed them "desert" so to speak last (like dealing with children in a way). I started fermentation at 65F and slowly dialed it up to 72F or so over about a week. The beer fermented all the way out and there are no "hot/solvent like" flavors so I was pretty happy about that. When things get rocking you want to be careful as besides getting too fruity, you can also get some off flavors which ain't good. By the way, I tell people it isn't a good idea to harvest yeast from a high gravity wort because they get pretty beat up doing high gravity beers which can be problematic for the next batch.

[greenxpaddy]

Many thanks again. I would never have thought of the pitching rates you mentioned. WYeast recommend doubling the normal pitching rate for my blonde and tripling for the dark. So I see what you mean! That's a lot of yeast needed. 900bn for the dark. 600bn for the blonde. I reckon I would need to do a full size batch single to get to those numbers. Thats pretty accurate because it would be a 10-15litre stir plate starter or 20-30l non stirred starter to get to 1.5 trillion cells normally.

Now I see where the name comes from!

OK Here's my single to start - I've noted your comments re lazy yeast so have not used any sugar in the single. I'll probably leave this one cloudy so no protafloc

BELGIAN SINGLE RAMMIE STYLE

Date:

Gyle Number:

Fermentable Colour lb: oz Grams Ratio
Dingemans Pils Malt 2.8 EBC 6 lbs. 9.8 oz 3000 grams 43.5%
Wheat Malt 3.5 EBC 4 lbs. 6.5 oz 2000 grams 29%
Munich Malt 20 EBC 3 lbs. 4.9 oz 1500 grams 21.7%
Belgian Aromatic Malt 50 EBC 0 lbs. 10.5 oz 300 grams 4.3%
Biscuit Malt 50 EBC 0 lbs. 3.5 oz 100 grams 1.4%


Hop Variety Type Alpha Time lb: oz grams Ratio
Whitbread Golding Whole 6.4 % 90 mins 0 lbs. 1.8 oz 50 grams 50%
Saaz Whole 3.3 % 5 mins 0 lbs. 1.8 oz 50 grams 50%


Final Volume: 35 Litres
Original Gravity: 1.048
Final Gravity: 1.011
Alcohol Content: 4.8% ABV
Total Liquor: 46.7 Litres
Mash Liquor: 17.3 Litres
Mash Efficiency: 85 %
Bitterness: 25 EBU
Colour: 16 EBC

[Barley Water]

Your Single looks interesting, I think you'll really like it. Mine was extremely simple, if I remember right it was 100% pils malt with say 4oz or so of bisquet. Mine ended up being basicly a showcase for yeast flavors since the grist was so simple. As it turns out, I have a German Helles on tap along with the Single, it is just amazing to me the difference yeast can make to a fairly similar grist. I'm glad to see you guys over there messing with the Belgian stuff, the techniques are not really all that different than British brewing but the results are certainly different and interesting (which I guess just figures since Belgian brewing was heavily influenced by the British back in the day). Your yeast handling will certainly improve when screwing around with this stuff since temperature and pitching rate make a real big difference which you will certainly taste. Interestingly, I find some of these Belgian strains behave in a very similar fashion to German Heffe yeast. That's one of the big problems with this hobby, there are so many really good styles to brew and only so much time and cold conditioning space. Once you get tired of messing with the Trapist stuff, try you hand with sours, it's really unbelievable what you can concoct using basicly the same techniques and a lot of patience.

[greenxpaddy]

Its mash on tomorrow night for this Single. I've decided to treat my water to the style of dry pale ale. My tap water is too soft I think for this style but I'll listen to any pointers on that.

I'll pitch at 18C and crank up like you said slowly. i would like this to ferment nice and quick so I can get the 100L of lager into the fermentation cupboard pretty soon!

[greenxpaddy]

They aren't wrong when they say these Trappist yeasts work fast....I was doubting the documentary I saw about the Chimay brewery. They reckoned the beer was fermented in under 4 days! maybe with O2 injection they may get there but I only managed 6 days. This yeast is a real good'un you gave me Barney. Ta.

It's gone from 1.051 to 1.010 in that time. Mash was 65c so will be on the dry side. I've moved temp up to 21c for a diacetyl rest for 3 days and will then move upstairs for a week or two to 18c before bottling.

[greenxpaddy]

Single bottled yesterday. I used the four arm bottler for the first time with real beer. The trial run with water was fine but this time of course it was a cock up. Lost some beer when the ball cock failed. However soon was reset. Still at a loss how to get the last few litres out. In the end I plumped for tilting the whole set up to one corner and use the one arm only but that still leaves 1.5l. I must say also getting the syphon effect going can be very frustrating with some of the arms....is it a design defect I don't know.

Anyhow, double brew day lined up for Sunday, provided the outside hosepipe isn't frozen.

[greenxpaddy]

Nothing better to do today so I started mashing the dark triple. The hosepipe s frozen solid but I can rinse in the kitchen if I am tidy!

Very cold garage faffed getting strike temp .... Lots of temp loss.

Not done a 10% brew before so the normal smaller MT was only just big enough for dough in. Now means I have to do a decoction to mash out to get up to 74c. Ah well. Will smell gorge though.

Mash ph bang on 5.2. Confirms that with lighter beers probably don't need to add carbonate.