Belgium Tripel Fermentation???

I plan on brewing a belgium tripel extract kit tomorrow, the kit says nothing about fermentation times. I was wondering how long i should leave this brew in the fermentors? Thinking 3-4week primary another 3-4weeks secondary then bottle and forget about them for a couple months so at a minimum 4months before i drink it.

Your thoughts?

If it's well done, you should be able to drink it 2 months grain-to-glass. It will definitely get better with aging, but from my experience, good beer becomes great beer with aging, and mediocre beer only gets a little better with aging.

I don't know about Belgium triples, but I can tell you lots about Germany Hefeweizens and England bitters. I brew an America IPA every now and again, too.

Sorry, I couldn't resist. No offense meant.

Anyway, a couple week in the primary ought to be enough. Standard wisdom around here tells that you have a good plan with the 2-4 week in each before bottling, though the secondary may not even be necessary. Given the recent interest around here in improving English ales by altering the fermentation schedule (basically, shorter fermentation times and earlier crash coolings to prevent the yeast from cleaning up so much) to give a better malt and ester profile, I wonder if some Belgian ales wouldn't benefit from this kind of treatment as well. If you're wanting to stay on the safe side, just do as you were planning, and your beer will turn out fine. If you're feeling adventurous, think about crash cooling and transferring to a secondary for a bit as soon as you are nearing FG. Let us know how things go in any case.

Gordzilla, I personally base my fermentations on density rather than time. Take samples and test with a hydrometer rather than just basing it on time IMO.

Did your kit include at what final gravity the tripel should be?