Thanks Saq... BLAM is about the only book I have *not* read yet. Good information.
Revised, here's my plan:
60% Belgian Pils
40% 2-row, toasted ~5 min at 350*F for some color/nuttiness
1.5# dark Candi Sugar per 5 gal made using the yeast nutrient/boil method
1# Table Sugar per 5 gal
OG 1.090 (including late sugar addition to fermenter with 1 qt of water)
FG 1.011 (target, 87% AA)
Mashin at 146*F for 60 minutes, then slowly ramp to 158*F. Boil two hours. Mt Hood for bittering and finishing to 30 IBU. Sugar goes in a few days into fermentation along with Fermaid-K at which point I boost the temp from room temp to 80*F until attenuation is reached. 3 weeks primary rousing yeast until FG achieved, 5 weeks secondary. Repitch at bottling time with a pack of fresh, rehydrated S-04 yeast, bottle condition ~3 volumes, let most of it age for a few years...
Looks like a good plan Saccharomyces, you going to go with your own fermentation schedule even though Brother Joris from Westvleteren spilled the beans on the fermentation schedule for this beer? I think some experimentation with reproducing this beer would be a good but this is the one step we know the most about.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Brother Joris the head brewer of Westvleteren
Fermentation begins at 68f and then rises to 82-84f (even in the winter). After apparant attenuation reaches 76-80% he begins cooling the beer to 68f.
The dark beers spend four to six days in primary before lagering to clarify (crash cooling at 50f), with Westy 12 taking 8-10 weeks.
Bottle conditioning occurs at 79f and takes 12 days.
Obviously we will need to adapt it to our equipment, but this seems easy to duplicate.
Is Brother Joris using the term "lagering" correctly? Can the Westmalle yeast actually survive and function at 50f? I'm guessing he just meant crash cooling because they talk about clarifying with it.
Looks like a good plan Saccharomyces, you going to go with your own fermentation schedule even though Brother Joris from Westvleteren spilled the beans on the fermentation schedule for this beer? I think some experimentation with reproducing this beer would be a good but this is the one step we know the most about.
Obviously we will need to adapt it to our equipment, but this seems easy to duplicate.
Is Brother Joris using the term "lagering" correctly? Can the Westmalle yeast actually survive and function at 50f? I'm guessing he just meant crash cooling because they talk about clarifying with it.
Brother Joris's English is probably colored by the other languages he speaks, but they are using an ale yeast and cold conditioning for a period of time. The yeast is not active but in literal terms they are storing, or lagering, the beer.
Ok, after some google-fu, searching on this forum, and lots of time with a calculator and beersmith, I think I've figured out how to get the Westy 12 and 8 the traditional way, from the same mash, partigyle style.
preamble: 2/3 of your sugars are taken out of your mash with the first half of your runnings, and as I batch sparge, I figured the calculations for this, with an efficiency of 70% (which is what I normally get for slightly bigger beers). So assuming this, you take 2/3 of 70 and you're left with 47% and 23%, about. It has been said that the amount of beer made from one mash is mostly 12 and a bit of 8, I toyed with the volumes, and here is the result.
12.75# Pale Malt (Bel)
12.75# Pilsner Malt (Bel)
Mash at whatever you use (judging by the darker color and toastyness, a decoctation is probably needed), then add enough sparge water in order to collect 7 Gallons of wort. Once drained, add enough sparge water to collect another 4.13 Gallons, then let drain.
hop additions as discussed, 120 min boil, etc. This should leave you with (accounting for 20% boil off):
5.5 Gallons of 1.080 Wort (This will become the 12 after sugar additions)
3.25 Gallons of 1.066 Wort (This will become the 8 after sugar additions)
You can add the sugar whenever you want, boil or at high krausen (what I'm probably going to do) sugar is as follows (12 then 8)
1.5# (one jar) D2 syrup, .25# Amber Sugar. (This will leave the 12 at OG 1.090)
1# Dark Syrup, 3oz Amber Sugar. (This would leave the 8 at OG 1.078)
Disclaimer: I could be wrong, I'd love for bob to come in here and see what he thinks, or someone else more qualified than me.
__________________ Primary:Russian River Redemption clone, Kelly's Melomel, Graham's English Cider 22-23 Clearing:Apple Wine Aging:Public House Dry Stout, Procrastination Porter, Mr. Brown Ale, Westvleteren 12 Clone, Mead, Duvel Clone, Graham's English Cider 6-21, Belgian Draak Strong Ale, Fig Melomel, Acerglyn, Restorative Tonic Metheglyn
Excellent work Freeze. One thing they don't go into very much in BLAM is how they mash, just that they get the 12 and the 8 from the same mash.
We know the 12 and the 8 both use the same proportion of belgianpils and belgian pale (Dingemans specifically), we know they both use sugar, the IBUs and SRMs, and the westmalle yeast.
We know the fermentation schedule and temperatures.
What we don't know very much about:
1: The mash
2: The sugar
3: Hopping amounts (we know the hops though)
4: Carbonation level
Lets see what else we can find out about these. Input anyone?
Good information.
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