But, thinking I'd get a quiet day today I got cracking this morning with another version of my Belgian Pale, or Singel or whatever it is. The last version was superb and I drank it all young and used the yeast to brew a Trippel with. This time round, I'm planning to do the same thing, but use the yeast to brew a spiced Christmas Dubbel type beer.....
Anyway. On with the brew:
Grain Bill:
4.5Kg Lager Malt
1Kg Munich Malt
Nice and simple, with the Munch to add some malty character and a bit of colour
Hops:
50g East Kent Goldings 90 mins, 4.6% AA 24 IBU
30g East Kent Goldings 15 mins, 4.6% AA 7 IBU
15g East Kent Goldings Flame out steep, 4.6% AA, 0
Yeast:
A 2 litre starter of Wyeast 1214 Belgian Abbey Ale (Chimay?)
Here's the brew pr0n....
Grain
Mashing in. I had a bit of a surprise here.....despite having preheated my tun and using my normal temperatures, my mash temperature was down at 63.5 instead of 66. I think it must have been due to the grain being colder than usual as it was a bit nippy overnight last night. I had to add boiling water to bring it up to temperature, and settled for 65.5C in the end.
First wort hops. I went for all Goldings today just to try and use some up. Last version had Saaz for flavour and aroma.
First runnings. Another problem.....I had a stuck sparge. Not really sure what caused it, but maybe the grain was more floury than usual. A bit of faffing around fixed it though.
Steamy boil shot....
After half an hour, I drew off some wort to use to give the yeast a flying start
Nice break in the drawn off wort as it cooled.
More hops for the 15 minute addition
Running off into the FV
Close up of the wort running into the FV. If I just crack the valve, it seems to aerate it pretty damn well as it runs off.
Left over hops and trub.....I need to remember to wash my pots tonight.
Here's the yeast ready to pitch. I made up the original starter early last week and it was fermented out by Thursday so I stuck it in the fridge to settle out. Today, i brought it out, tipped off the fermented extract, brought it to room temperature and then added the cooled wort drawn off earlier. Looks like the yeastie beasties were hungry as they went off like a rocket.
Some of the first wort out of the boiler
And with the foam removed.....
I ended up with about 23L at 1051 which should give a nice 5.2% or so ABV....however the original batch of this went down to 1008 or so, so who knows!
I pitched the yeast at 25C and I'll ferment it as 21C (so it should be a bit hotter internally for the first couple of days), then I'll ramp it up a bit to 24C or so to compensate. I'm hoping to get lots of bubblegum and spice notes.
