Double Brew Weekend! Tripel & Belgian dark

[Wyvern]

Luck would have it I managed to fit in 2 brews into 1 weekend. Extending my foray into Maris otter based belgian style beers.

Belgian Tripel(ish)
20L batch
3.70 kg Pale Malt, Maris Otter (5.9 EBC) Grain 1 53.2 %
1.00 kg Wheat Malt, Ger (3.9 EBC) Grain 2 14.4 %
0.50 kg Oats, Malted (2.0 EBC) Grain 3 7.2 %
1.50 kg Candi Sugar, Clear (1.0 EBC) Sugar 13 21.6 %

25.00 g Hallertauer Mittelfrueh [4.00 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 5 10.7 IBUs
20.00 g Saaz [3.75 %] - Boil 25.0 min Hop 6 5.6 IBUs
5.00 g Hallertauer Mittelfrueh [4.00 %] - Boil 25.0 min Hop 7 1.5 IBUs
20.00 g Orange Peel, Bitter (Boil 5.0 mins) Spice 8 -
10.00 g Coriander Seed (Boil 5.0 mins) Spice 9 -
10.00 g Orange Peel, Sweet (Boil 5.0 mins) Spice 10 -
25.00 g Hallertauer Mittelfrueh [4.00 %] - Boil 3.0 min Hop 11 1.3 IBUs

O.G was 1.070 which was a little lower than I would have hoped, I think I will need to tweak the beersmith settings for my efficiency at it seems rather low (about 62%) pitched with half the washed yeast cake of WLP500 from my belgian blonde i did last week and is bubbling away as we speak. Tasted great after boil too.

Dark Belgian
19L Batch
5.50 kg Pale Malt, Maris Otter (5.9 EBC) Grain 1 74.8 %
0.50 kg Wheat Malt, Bel (3.9 EBC) Grain 2 6.8 %
0.25 kg Carabelge (69.0 EBC) Grain 3 3.4 %
0.10 kg Special B Malt (354.6 EBC) Grain 4 1.4 %

0.75 kg Home made Candi Sugar, Amber/dark (150.0 EBC) Sugar 5 10.2 %
35.00 g Saaz [3.75 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 6 12.6 IBUs
35.00 g Hallertauer Hersbrucker [4.00 %] - Boil 25.0 min Hop 7 9.4 IBUs
0.25 kg Candi Sugar, Dark (250.0 EBC) Sugar 9 3.4 % (not added yet, this is the bought stuff off malt miller)

Loosely based on the Chimay recipe on the candi sugar website with a couple of changes. This measured 1.074 before pitching the yeast although with this brew I removed about 1.5L of the wort and reduced it down by half and added the 250g candi syrup, this is now sitting in a bottle waiting to be added once the krausen has subsided. This is fermenting alongside the tripel at 20c which will increase to 25c over the course of the week.

Going to try a Wit next but going on holiday so doubt I'll get the chance before, still the others should be more than fermented by then.

[Wyvern]

Here is a pic of the home made candi syrup, I made it using the sugar + DAP nutrient method with a little muscovado sugar. Lovely toated fruit and caramel flavours.

[Petrovitch]

Very interested to see how these are going I've just racked a simple dubbel fermented with WLP500 to secondary, gravity is still a little high but it spent most of its time closer to 15C rather than 20C, so hopefully with another week or two it will drop a few points. Very interesting smells tho, banana and bubblegum have mellowed into a nice spicyness and subtle clove.

[subfaction]

rather jealous, I need to use up my US/UK hops so I can move onto some lovely strong Belgians... mmmm

[Wyvern]

So after 6 months the Belgian dark is starting to taste pretty good, I think I fermented too high and had some higher alchohols produced which gave it a harsh taste at first.

The tripel was a bit of a flop, I think the maris otter just isn't right for this style.

[Hanglow]

I did a tripel-ish with MO and it's excellent, I brewed it a few months ago

84% MO
10% sugar
5% wheat malt
1% caramunich

challenger 60min 30ibu
hallertau 20mins 5ibu

OG 1.080
FG 1.012
9.5%


T-58 yeast

Can't really taste the alcohol at all which is nice . It might not be the "correct" malt to use but I can't see how it on its own would make the beer not work

Like you I also did a dark belgian a week after it but let the fermentation temp go a bit too much, it's got a fair wack of banana and bubblegum which I didn't really want. So I'm letting that one age more, hopefully it'll improve a bit

[Wyvern]

That's exactly how the tripel turned out when you say you had the bubblegum flavour, although I also had a distinct breadyness to it too which didn't hit the spot for me.

Don't get me wrong, I have done plenty on American IPAs with maris otter and they've been great.