Winter Seasonal Beer Trappist Christmas (2011 NHC Madison Regional: 1st Place)

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CastleHollow

Well-Known Member
Joined
Dec 27, 2010
Messages
655
Reaction score
102
Location
Midlothian
Recipe Type
Extract
Yeast
WLP500 Trappist Ale
Yeast Starter
Yes, approx 1 cup
Batch Size (Gallons)
5.5
Original Gravity
1.070
Final Gravity
1.011
Boiling Time (Minutes)
90
IBU
24
Color
24
Primary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp)
1 week @ 70-72
Secondary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp)
2 weeks @ 68
Tasting Notes
National BJCP remarks: \"Complex yet subtle blend of spices. Gorgeous beer!\"
Have been brewing this beer as my Christmas Ale every summer since 1995--something always changes year to year: one year it's the hops, next time I adjust the spices, or swap out the yeast... Haven't bothered to convert it to AG, it's just easier to brew as an extract.

Entered this version in the 2011 National Homebrew Competition (Madison Regional) and it placed 1st with a score of 46/50. Enjoy!

4# Light/Pale Malt Extract Syrup
3# Amber Malt Extract Syrup
1# Amber Dry Malt Extract
12oz Honey
8oz Caramel/Crystal Malt -120L
5oz Crystal 60L
4oz Biscuit Malt

Steep specialty grains, then boil extracts in 6.5 gallons of water for 90 minutes. Add honey with 10 minutes left in boil.

1/4 oz Northern Brewer (8.0% AA) at 80min, 45min, 30min, and 15min
1/2 oz Saaz (3.5% AA) at 15min
Add Irish Moss/whirlfloc and Spice Blend at 10min

Spice Blend:
1 tsp allspice
1/2oz orange peel, sweet
1 cinnamon stick
1 tsp coriander
3/4oz ginger root​

After 3 days in the Primary:
8oz Belgian Candy Sugar, Dark (boil 2 cups of hot water, melt in candy while warm, cool, pitch)

In the Secondary:
1 tsp cloves
1/2 oz orange peel, sweet
1 cinnamon stick​

Dry hop with 1/4 - 1/2oz Saaz for 7 days

Bottle with 3.5oz dextrose and 1 tsp vanilla extract. Condition for 4-6 months.

This beer can mature well for 5+ years, if cellared properly.

TrappistLabel.jpg
 
That sounds like a great Christmas ale. I may have to try this, but with my own little modification; clear candi and no 120L, just to keep the color lighter. Well what I should do is brew one of each and compare.
 
I only have a 5 gallon pot. Do you think I could do a 3.5 gallon boil and top off to 5 gallons and still have a somewhat close flavor?
 
I only have a 5 gallon pot. Do you think I could do a 3.5 gallon boil and top off to 5 gallons and still have a somewhat close flavor?

Absolutely, I would recommend increasing the bittering hop amounts to maintain the same relative IBUs.
 
Just brewed this last weekend. Furious fermentation, had to clean off the top of my fermenter a few times due to overflow from the airlock. Did Perle instead of Saaz (didn't have any Saaz on hand... bad planning on my part) and Wyeast 3787 which appears to be a similar yeast. Smells fantastic, can't wait to see what it looks like when I transfer. I used a hop bag for the spices to make them a bit easier to segregate when I transfer.

Thank you for sharing!
 
I see the addition of the spices in secondary -- I'm assuming you treat them like dry-hopping, in terms of removal.

But what about the spices that go in with the boil -- do we keep them in during primary fermentation, or are they spent after the boil?
 
I see the addition of the spices in secondary -- I'm assuming you treat them like dry-hopping, in terms of removal.

But what about the spices that go in with the boil -- do we keep them in during primary fermentation, or are they spent after the boil?

Not sure about the OP but I left them in through primary. The taste was NOT disappointing. I should have done something similar in secondary, but kind of hoping the orange peel and so forth sinks to the bottom.
 
I want to brew this one soon now that I am finally freeing up secondaries, and soon primaries. But with regards to the orange peel, I had a tripel I left in secondary nearly 6wks on orange zest that sank just fine and also I've done orange strips, cinnamon, allspice, and coriander in primary that eventually sank too. Or at least I don't remember them floating. Are you having issues with these ingredients floating? IMO, wouldn't it be better to have this stuff float so it's not buried in the trub/yeast?
 
I see the addition of the spices in secondary -- I'm assuming you treat them like dry-hopping, in terms of removal.

But what about the spices that go in with the boil -- do we keep them in during primary fermentation, or are they spent after the boil?

I use a double-mesh strainer that filters out most of my hops or the bulkier spice additions from the brew kettle, but I don't imagine it would hurt anything to leave those in during fermentation. I kept the secondary spice additions loose and everything except the cinnamon stick eventually sank.
 
This looks amazing!!!
can you help me with how long and at what temp you steep the specialty grains? (very new to brewing)
are all the spices dried varieties or is it fresh pealed orange and freshly grated ginger?
and is it possible to get around the start seeing as i dont know how to do this yet?
when bottle conditioning: at what temp?

sorry for all the questions. This just looks awesome and dont want to jack it up.
thanks again
 
Grab some fresh ginger at the local Asian market, and sweet orange peel at your LHBS. I generally steep my grains in the 160F range for 90mins. In my experience longer is better than less ( you're already investing 4hrs what is another 25min? ). Dry hopped with pellets as my LHBS doesn't carry many varieties in whole hop form.
 
can you help me with how long and at what temp you steep the specialty grains? (very new to brewing)
are all the spices dried varieties or is it fresh pealed orange and freshly grated ginger?

Sorry for the delay--I steeped for about 30 minutes at 160. You can probably go as high as 170 or so without too much problem. All of the spices were the dried kitchen variety, except I used fresh ginger root.

and is it possible to get around the start seeing as i dont know how to do this yet?

Not sure what you mean by this, it's a pretty straightforward recipe. Are you asking if you can you avoid making a starter? Probably although you may be underpitching--the White Labs vials say that you can pitch directly into 5 gallons. I did it that way for years but now almost always make a starter just to get the proper quantity of yeast going. Fermentation will take a bit longer to kick off without it, and you'll probably stress the yeast but you'll still make beer.

when bottle conditioning: at what temp?

sorry for all the questions. This just looks awesome and dont want to jack it up.

Leave the bottles at 70dgF for at least 3-4 weeks. Try a bottle to see if you're getting proper carbonation, leave it longer if necessary. After that, you can store at cellar temps for an extended period.

Good luck!
 
Thank you all so much. planning on starting this on tuesday in hopes to have it ready by the holidays. I may have to skip the starter this go around but i will be looking around HBT to learn how to do this properly.

Thanks again for all your help. this site has helped so much
 
I might want to give this a shot. I hope I'm not to late.
What yeast did you use and do you remember fermentation temps?
 
Yeast: WLP500 Trappist Ale
Primary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp): 1 week @ 70-72
Secondary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp): 2 weeks @ 68
 
So I'm a few days late adding the Belgian candi. My LHB sells it in liquid form. Do I still need to mix it with the boiled water or can I just poor it straight into The carboy without The water?
 
I've seen those packs of Belgian candi syrup, haven't used them though. The boiled water was mostly to just melt the candi, so I guess since yours is already a liquid form, you can pour it right in.
 
So I brewed this yesterday and everything went well, except I measured my OG at 1.056. Is this because I have not yet added the Belgian Candi Sugar yet? Or should I assume I messed something up? Other than that, everything went well and it is fermenting pretty vigorously.

Thanks for the input.
 
So I brewed this yesterday and everything went well, except I measured my OG at 1.056. Is this because I have not yet added the Belgian Candi Sugar yet? Or should I assume I messed something up? Other than that, everything went well and it is fermenting pretty vigorously.

Thanks for the input.

Hmmmm....... im pretty new to brewing (this is my second batch of beer) i brewed last friday and my SG was 1.072. are you sure you used enough DME and LME? i ended up using 4lbs of Light/Pale LME and 4lbs of Amber DME (because my LHS didnt have Amber LME).

hope this helps
 
I used the proper amount of DME, but instead of 4lbs and 3lbs of LME respectively, I used 3.3 of each because that is what my brew store sells them in. I find it hard to believe that a difference of .4 lbs can account for that much of a difference. Maybe part way, then other things like boiling over and an inefficient steep (can those be inefficient?) make up the rest.

In the end, I'm not worried. I'll still make beer, but it would be nice to know why and learn from it.
 
do you just add the 3.5oz of dextrose and the vanilla to the bottling bucket then rack into it or do you have to boil water and the dextrose first?
 
Yes, dissolve the dextrose in about a cup or so of boiling water, dump it in the bottling bucket & rack on top of that. I just added the vanilla extract straight in.
 
CastleHollow,
I'm thinking about adding a cinnamon stick or two to the secondary of a batch of pumpkin ale in process. Did you just throw the sticks in the secondary (like a dry hop) or did you boil in water and make a "tea" that your poured into the secondary? Thanks.
 
First sample bottled approx 2mo ago - great carbonation and head retention. Tastes like bottled gingerbread! Can't wait til Christmas.

can i ask how carbed it is? i just cracked a bottle after about 2.5 weeks. not much head. a slight ring around the edge of the glass. it tastes great. just cant recall how much head a Trappist is supposed to have. want to let it carb enough then move to colder location for bottle aging
 
Carbonation is just right for the style. Think Chimay Blue label or similar. My house tends to stay around 78deg F in the summer so I don't really have a way to cellar things. Texas summers will do that.
 
Did a little research on the extracts to convert to AG, here is what I came up with (@ 85% efficiency)

9.25# Pilsen (or pale malt)
1.025# C 60L
0.684# Munich 10L
0.5# C 120L
0.25# Biscuit malt

0.75# Honey

I will brew the rest per the recipe.
 
So I brewed this yesterday and everything went well, except I measured my OG at 1.056. Is this because I have not yet added the Belgian Candi Sugar yet? Or should I assume I messed something up? Other than that, everything went well and it is fermenting pretty vigorously.

Thanks for the input.

I entered this recipe into BeerSmith and the estimated OG is 1.066 for a partial mash, which is inclusive of the honey and candy sugar. I am going to brew this in the next week and will post results.
 
Brewed this yesterday. Smells awesome. Not a lot of action going on right now in the carboy, blow off tube attached just incase. My question is with the bottling. I see it says to use dextrose and vanilla extract . Do you boil this just like you would with priming sugar? Let it cool and pitch into bottling bucket. Also do you boil the spices for the secondary to make sure they are sterile before adding.
 
I see it says to use dextrose and vanilla extract . Do you boil this just like you would with priming sugar? Let it cool and pitch into bottling bucket. Also do you boil the spices for the secondary to make sure they are sterile before adding.

You can add the vanilla extract when you boil the dextrose/priming sugar, but I always just added it to the bucket.

For the secondary spices, I just considered them a dry hop and never bothered with sanitizing them. Instead of boiling, however, you might consider adding them to just a bit of vodka and then dumping the whole mixture in.
 
You can add the vanilla extract when you boil the dextrose/priming sugar, but I always just added it to the bucket.

For the secondary spices, I just considered them a dry hop and never bothered with sanitizing them. Instead of boiling, however, you might consider adding them to just a bit of vodka and then dumping the whole mixture in.

Awesome thank you so much. It's sitting downstairs right now fermenting. Not a ton of activity , I think thats because I didn't do a yeast starter because I didn't have my flask:mad: . I will be getting the candy ready and pitching it tomorrow.
 
Transferred my batch today to the secondary. Added in the spices before hand just like you would for dry hopping. Added about half a shot of vodka to the spices just to make sure anything on it was killed. It is smelling phenomenal. Nice cinnamon aroma right now. Will let it sit for another week before adding in the 1/2 of Saaz leaves. Very excited for this beer. I'm going to bottle and let it sit until Christmas day. Also I'm going to hide 3 bottles in my cellar until next year. I'll have to make sure it's a good spot so my brothers don't nab them.
 

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