brewed a trippel today!

I brewed a trippel today using my new ML tun.
10lbs 2 row
1lb wheat
1lb carapils
1lb aromatic
1lb biscuit
1lb candy sugar

1 oz sterling at 7.8 aau 95min
.5oz tett at 4.0aau 10min
.5oz hallertauer at 5.1aau 5 min
Wyeast 3944 wit

mashed in at 170 or so and it instantly went to 162 (i was looking for 155) oh well. Mashed for 70 minutes. Fly sparged.
Pre boil and pre candy sugar took the gravity it was 1.034 at 128F (1.046)
Boiled 6.5 down to five gallons.
I forgot to check the gravity before i pitched the yeast but i think i got what i was looking for. Somewhere around 1.078 or so.

Ok lets hear some critiques and opinions

I like your grain bill, as it is simple and straight forward. These could be tweaked a bit next time.
I'd recommend a step mash next time. Shoot for 142f-144f, and then 151-152f for the second infusion.
What were your fermentation temps? That is what is really key.

Im going to ferment at 65 for the primary. As far as secondary i have no idea. This is my first time using this yeast and making a trippel.

I would try and get those primary temps up a bit. Try to raise to 73-77 deg after the yeast get going. This will help the yeast bring out those wonderful Belgian flavors.
Cheers, Gabe

Well it's NOT a trippel (IMO). Maybe a Belgian Ale? Looks like a tasty beer though. Too dark and malty to be a trippel and I don't think that is the type of yeast to use. Would love to know how it turns out though.

yea, that's not a tripel, according to bjcp guidelines and belgian tradition anyway. you need a pilsner backbone, lighter adjuncts, either a lower mash temperature or a step mash as pointed out above to make it more fermentable, and a different yeast strain.
that said, the belgians and their approach to brewing defy our obsession with style and classification. that looks like it will be a very interesting beer, whatever you wanna call it.

Henry covered it pretty well. Most tripels have a very simple grain bill and the yeast is crucial. That was a pretty high mash temp. Next time throw some ice in there and bring it down. Let us know where it finishes as it should be pretty high. Hope your belgian creation turns out tasty.

how would anyone change it to be more like a trippel. I had one last week from New Belgium that was tasty. I want to try one soon.

i'd go with mostly belgian pilsner, 10% sugar, a little wheat for head retention. ferment it with white labs 500 or 550 or wyeast 3787. you can add a little 2-row or aromatic, but the complexity of tripels generally comes from yeast, not the grain.
i just bottled one with these specs:
13# belgian pils
1# cara-pils
2# sugar
i did a step infusion mash that started at 146 and i took up to 152 (next time i'll take it to 158)
o.g. 1.083
f.g. 1.005
i fermented it at about 76 deg. on a cake of wyeast 3787 from a blonde that i had done the week before. it took it down to 1.007 in 4 days!

I have one in my recipe dropdown that came out nice. I have also done one that was a little sweeter, but this one was better.

yea, yours looks really good. i would have started mine out at 65 deg., but i live in south texas and don't have a counterflow chiller. my spare refrigerator is dedicated to lagers at the moment.
when i bottled mine last night, it was pretty good but had some detectable roughness - i think due to fusel alcohols from starting fermentation at 76 or the low f.g./high alcohol level combination. i'm hoping that aging and carbonation help it out. with that f.g. i think now that it could have used some munich. i had never used 3787, and i just didn't know how attenuative (is that a word?) it was. it took my poor blonde all the way down to 1.000.

tdavisii said:

Im going to ferment at 65 for the primary. As far as secondary i have no idea. This is my first time using this yeast and making a trippel.

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Let it start at that temp, and slowly raise it up to 70 over a weeks time. If you are still getting any activity in the airlock, raise it a degree or two more & leave it until it stops. With the high mash temp, you are going to want all the attenuation that the yeast can give it. I would also skip the secondary and just leave it on the yeast until you are ready to package it.

that's going to be an interesting beer. definitely not a tripel...not even really a golden strong ale, but hey! it's belgian...who cares

it looks good, the only thing i would have done is cut down on the aromatic...that's going to have some GIGANTIC malt flavor. i love malty beers, but i would never go more than 1/4 lb aromatic.

let it age, tho...it'll probably be great!

Ive been gone for a couple days. Sorry i couldnt respond. Thanks for the insight everyone. I think that i am going to let it raise to room temp. And yeah it will be super malty. We shall see how it turns out. Hopefully good.

I raised the temp to room temp two days ago. Im still having co2 come out every three seconds and im on my fifth day. Damn this thing is fermenting like crazy.

just an idea, but I think you could add some cane sugar that has been boiled that may take your fg down to the bone dry level that triples are known for.

You think i should ad it now in the fermenter? Maybe next time. Im not going to risk opening it up to infection but thanks for the suggestion. From the sounds of it i need a little help on the "trippel" recipe anyway. Although a belgian style beer i dont think i nailed this one as a trippel. Oh well theres always next time right??? I just cant beleive this beer is still fermenting like it is. Its down to a bubble every three seconds now that it is up to room temp. Has anyone had this happen before?

DeathBrewer said:

but hey! it's belgian...who cares

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+1 to that.

im definitly going thru a belgian phase. I just cant get enough of it in my system. It just seems to me to be the perfect beer. Great flavor and high ABV. Do you get any better?

tdavisii said:

im definitly going thru a belgian phase. I just cant get enough of it in my system. It just seems to me to be the perfect beer. Great flavor and high ABV. Do you get any better?

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been on it for a few months now, and just love em.

Hey z987k did you happen to see what i do for a living???? Looks like we might have a little in common.

Because I don't have adequate temp control yet I have been focusing on Belgians styles for the higher temp yeast tolerance. Good thing I like Belgians

1 1/2 weeks ago I did my first AG. I was trying for a Blonde but I came up just shy of the OG I needed (not enough boil off). I went kind of high on the hops too for a Blonde so I checked the styles to see what I had made. Hops and gravity matched the Saison style but my color was just a hair light (about 4.1 SRM). So I checked some more until I figured out I had a BLCP 2004 16E; a Belgian Specialty Ale. Looks like a good catch-all category-- your Trippel attempt sounds like it would work as that.

I tasted mine after a week and WHOA! Major bubblegum esters!

living here in south texas, i do british, american, and german ales in the winter and belgians in the summer. it works well and is fairly energy (both mine and environmental) efficient.
i think that belgians are good for the homebrewer because they offer so much potential for creativity. from what i've gathered through reading, they're more concerned with brewing good, "digestible" beer than being exacting about style parameters. if you don't have it, i'd highly recommend brew like a monk by stan hieronymus. and if you really get interested in belgians, the other brewers association publications, farm house ales and wild brews, will scratch many of the proverbial itches.

Ive been putting off buying those first two books for awhile now. As far as wild brews i havent really looked through those.

Ok its day six and my belgian is still bubbling every 3 to 5 seconds. Has anyone ever seen a beer go this long and still be going this fast?????? This is a first for me.

I brewed a 'tripel' (it was even further from the guidelines than yours) when I was real green that chugged away for about three weeks and still finished high. It was far darker than the guidelines but delicious anyway because of the Westmalle yeast.

tdavisii said:

Ok its day six and my belgian is still bubbling every 3 to 5 seconds. Has anyone ever seen a beer go this long and still be going this fast?????? This is a first for me.

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my quad went for like seven days, and it was pitched onto a yeast cake.

High gravity beers take longer to ferment and at higher temperatures the belgian strains go at em really good.

Cant believe that my belgian is still fermenting like it is. C02 every 4 seconds. I brewed this beer on 05-29-08. how much longer can it possibly go?

i don't know anything about that yeast, but the rye saison it did with white labs 565 on 5/25 weighed in at 1.020 today when i racked it. that particular yeast is notoriously slow. it's still bubbling, but i dosed it with some wyeast 3787 from the starter i had going for today's belgian dark strong. hopefully that'll get things moving a little faster.
have you checked the gravity?

I have not checked the gravity. I have heard that this brew and this yeast take awhile to ferment out and as long as its going every 3-5 seconds i feel like i dont need to check. This is uncharted territory for me. 12 days and going like crazy still.

yea, you're right, unless you have a deadline to meet, you don't really need to check as long as it's still bubbling away. but you asked, "how much longer?" as long as your sanitation is good, measuring the gravity wouldn't bother anything, and it would give you a ballpark answer to that question.

Day sixteen and still bubbling every six seconds. I think i generated a new freak of nature beer.

my dark strong ale must be at about 3 weeks now...i still haven't added the sugar

checked my belgian today after i bought my brand new beer theif. Its done at 1.008. That puts it at 9 abv. and it tastes awesome. This is by leaps and bounds the best beer ive brewed to date. Wish i could share it with all of ya.

tdavisii said:

checked my belgian today after i bought my brand new beer theif. Its done at 1.008. That puts it at 9 abv. and it tastes awesome. This is by leaps and bounds the best beer ive brewed to date. Wish i could share it with all of ya.

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*drool* yeah wish I could try it. Sounds great. Congrats!

I'm looking forward to doing a Saison soon.