El Cheapo Trippel - EXTRACT recipe help!

Hey everyone,

I'm currently trying to make a good trippel on the cheap. I'm going to make my own candi sugar (http://kotmf.com/articles/candisugar.php) and want to minimize hop and DME additions. I have some bags of Belgian aromatic, German munich, and grambinus honey malt lying around that I can use. Also have no problem with doing a mini-mash for 30 minutes or so at a constant temp -- trying to keep it as simple as possible (KISS).

I'll add much of the DME with 15 minutes of the boil left to minimize color and also increase hop utilization so I can use smaller amounts of hops.

I'll use good liquid yeast though! Ohhhhh, maybe I'll pitch onto a yeast cake -- Belgian Abbey II that I'm making a Leffe clone (a golden ale) with at the moment.

My thoughts so far:

No more than 6 lbs light DME
2 lbs clear candi sugar
1lb or so of brown sugar

I would really appreciate some suggestions, and reality checks as required!

Thanks!

You might find this episode of BasicBrewing Radio interesting...

March 13, 2008 - Belgian Sugar Experiment II
The Mad Fermentationist Michael Tonsmeire Leads us through the second round of his tasty experiments using different sugars in Belgian beers.

http://media.libsyn.com/media/basicbrewing/bbr03-13-08belgian.mp3

He talks about making his own candi sugars, and also using some other interesting ones...

His website is informative as well. http://madfermentationist.blogspot.com/

Thanks for that lead -- I'll listen to it tonight.

I dont mean to hijack the post, but humor me. I really am interested in makin a dubbel, and it looks like making candy sugar isnt rocket science. Are there any road blocks or needed expertise to make this beer ( as I am a intermediate brewer)

hey for color's sake why not use corn or cane sugar instead of brown? The brown will add too much sweetness, whereas a tripel should be drier. Since the clear candi is essentially cane sugar, why not just use the two lbs of candi? With six lbs of extract yo don't want to push the adjunts too far. Otherwise, steep about 0.5lbs belgian aromatic, use only bittering hops, and the rest sounds great. Make sure ferm. temps are mid-sixties, then, if you can, increase temp to around 70 when active fermentation is almost done. This will give the signature taste that belgian yeast is known and loved(by me) for, plus ensure a full fermentation to dry it out. Good luck Belgian Ale is royalty in the beer cooler.

Eamus, there a plenty of great dubbel recipes out there that are easy to brew. If you can get the book Brewing Classic Styles by Jim Palmer and Jamil K, it definately has an extract dubbel. In fact, the whole book is extract recipes, and they seem excellent. Jamil stresses proper yeast pitching amounts, and controlling the ferm temps to maximize yeast productivity and health. I've had great results with the few I've brewed so far, and it is an essential brewing companion filled with insightful tips and wisdom.

Funny enough I had come to some of the conclusions that you suggest. In particular I ditched the sugar and stick to 2 lbs of candi sugar.

Here is my recipe so far, I am very unsure on the hops as I know noble hops are required but I also need 20-25 IBUs from as few packages of hops as possible. I'll use beersmith to finesse the hopping rates once I get home.

Steeping grains:
2 lb. Wheat malt
3 lb. Belgian Pilsner ,malt
0.5 lb Belgian aromatic malt

2 lb. Belgian candi sugar
6 lb. Light dry malt extract
Hops: 0.75 oz. Warrior (15% AA, 60 min.) <-- this hop type worries me, haven't really seen it in tripels much
1 oz. Perle (8% AA, 60 min.)

Anyone have more appropriate hops?

Are you mashing those grains? If not that seems to be a lot, especially for a tripel. It will be extremely thick and sweet with 5+ lbs of steepers. An extract tripel could do maybe a pound total for steeping grians, but even that is alittle high. Maybe steep 1/4lb of each? Your hops look good, though I've never used Warrior. You will need a solid bitterness to balance the tripel, and perle can work well for a tripel. Maybe only use half an oz of warrior plus the full oz of perle for the bittering addition. You should try to calculate IBUs though just to be sure.

Yup - I was planning on doing a partial-mash with those grains and replace about 2lbs of malt extract from the recipe.

I think I can mash up to about 8.5 lbs grain @ 1.25 quarts per pound to give me just over 2.5 gallons to brew. If I reduce the DME to 3 lbs then my OG will be about 1.083.



2 lb. Wheat malt
6 lb. Belgian Pilsner
0.5 lb. Belgian aromatic
Mash: 60% efficiency

Boil: minutes SG 1.167 2.5 gallons
2 lb. Belgian candi sugar
3 lb. Light dry malt extract
Hops: 0.5 oz. Warrior (15% AA, 60 min.)
1 oz. Perle (8% AA, 60 min.)


I will reuse my Belgian Abbey II yeast cake and add 2 lbs of the DME after 45 minutes to increase hop extraction efficiency to 20-22 IBUs or so.

Here is Jamil Z's recipe for a Belgian Golden Strong Ale (Duvel clone) for 6 gallons:

8.4lb Liquid Extract (Pilsner if possible)
3lb Cane or beet sugar
You can use about a pound of Pale malt (6-row) to make the extract more fermentable. (see note)

1.75oz Styrian Goldings (60 minutes)
0.5oz Saaz (15 min)
0.5oz Saaz (7 min)

Wyeast 1388 (Duvel)

Note: This recipe is available on "The Brewing Network". Click "Archives", "Jamil Show" and search for Golden Strong Ale.
The color is a bit darker than a true trippel, but if you replace the LME with DME, you may be able to keep it lighter (LME is 20% water, to calculate the amount of DME approximately 6,75lbs).

Edit: I bottle this about a month ago and it is still very young, but seems like it has the potential to be really good.

Ok good! sounds right on. I looked at the hop-character chart in Brewing Classic Styles today, and perle is very close to the profile of styrian goldings, which is the classic belgian hop. They fall between grassy/earthy and herbal. Waarior is actually right there too NICE