What to do with a Tripel that finished too dry

I know I'm posting this right next to the guy asking for help drying out his tripel. So I used Jamil's Tripel recipe and mashed at 149.

6.5kg Pilsner
150g Aromatic

I added 1kg of sugar after a couple days of fermentation. Feremented with wy3787 trappist high grav. OG was 1.076 (with the sugar). I checked it today and it's down to 1.005!

I'm guessing my thermometer is bad. The other issue is that ferm temp went up to 78 degrees by the last couple days of fermentation.

But in the meantime, is there anything I can do to add back a little malt character to the beer even though it's done fermenting? Could I steep some aromatic and add the "tea" to the fermenter?

93% apparent attenuation is what you want in a Tripel. You will still get a really nice malt profile from the pils. I don't think you have a problem that needs fixing.

Finishing temp of 78 is within the temp range for that yeast so no problem there. I think you are going to have a very nice Tripel.

I agree should be a very nice tripel. They should dry out to make them digestable as the Belgians say.

Thanks guys

You'll just need to give it some conditioning time. It might taste a bit thin/hot at first but with time the flavors will meld. As long as you pitched a healthy amount of yeast, you should be fine.

Just opened up my first bottle of this 1.005 tripel. It's great. It has waaay more body than I would have expected. I gave some to my wife and she said "it's really sweet." That's kind of a surprise for a beer with no crystal/cara that finished so low. I'm really enjoying it. All 9.4% of it.

Culbetron said:

Just opened up my first bottle of this 1.005 tripel. It's great. It has waaay more body than I would have expected. I gave some to my wife and she said "it's really sweet." That's kind of a surprise for a beer with no crystal/cara that finished so low. I'm really enjoying it. All 9.4% of it.

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I hate it when I'm right! The pils just has this amazing grainy sweetness and you get this silky mouth feel that belies how dry the beer is. God I love Belgians!

Culbetron said:

Just opened up my first bottle of this 1.005 tripel. It's great. It has waaay more body than I would have expected. I gave some to my wife and she said "it's really sweet." That's kind of a surprise for a beer with no crystal/cara that finished so low. I'm really enjoying it. All 9.4% of it.

Click to expand...

See, we told you so..........

I have a similar issue with my tripel. I'm hitting 86% attenuation for WLP500 which should only be 75-80%. Recently I've been oxygenating more and pitching a higher yeast cell count. I think I read somewhere that some trappist breweries underpitch their yeast for more ester production. Thoughts on this?

I wouldn't really bother messing around with underpitching. It's too variable. There are other things you can do to control attenuation that are more reliable and predictable.

I'm actually really happy with my tripel. It's got just the right amount of body. I'm glad it attenuated down so low. I don't think I would change my process or ingredients next time.