Karmeleit klone - how long to ferment?

I made my 5th batch of beer last Sunday - and all grain Karmeleit clone. It is in a primary bubbling away right now. I know that it will stay in primary for probably about two weeks until the gravity starts holding steady. The OG is 1.067 and I am using wlp500 yeast. It is a Belgian tripel so I think it should go longer than most brews. Given there are no fermentaion/aging instructions with the recipe I butchered, I was hoping to get some guidance here on how long I should primary / secondary it. I am going to keg this when it is ready.

For a beer in that gravity range I'd give it 3-4 weeks in primary. If you absolutely have the desire to secondary, I'd give it another couple weeks there, then keg and let condition for another couple weeks. Or skip the secondary completely and go right to the keg to bulk age for about a month before chilling.

Personally, almost any beer I do under 1.080 sits in primary for a month, then goes to the keg where it sits for about another month at room temp, and then goes into the keezer for a few more weeks before it's ready to be served.

That doesn't mean your beer won't benefit from even longer aging, but that's the minimum time I'd give it.

Thanks for the response.

I have another beer that I have in secondary - it is a higher gravity Aventius clone that ended up at 1.115 OG. It was primaried for 10 days and then put in secondary on 5/25/10. I am thinking of putting it in a keg but I am unsure if it will benefit from a longer secondary. The recipe call for a 2 - 2 1/2 month secondary and then 2 weeks of bottle conditioninng. I plan on kegging this. Should I wait until July 25 to keg?

With high gravity beers like these should I definitly cold crash for a week before kegging?

whats your current gravity reading? 1.115 and only 10 days in the primary sounds fishy.. removing it off the yeast cake that early is bound to have hurt your fermentation before it could reach the desired gravity level.

Though if your gravity is down to where you were wanting it and fermentation has completely stopped then you can keg it whenever. Secondary ferments imo should really only be used for fruit beers or dry hopping. Most people that do secondarys only use it as a clarifying stage, but a good month in the primary and problem should be solved.. as long as you had a good healthy pitch of yeast in the begining.

Patirck said:

I made my 5th batch of beer last Sunday - and all grain Karmeleit clone. It is in a primary bubbling away right now. I know that it will stay in primary for probably about two weeks until the gravity starts holding steady. The OG is 1.067 and I am using wlp500 yeast. It is a Belgian tripel so I think it should go longer than most brews. Given there are no fermentaion/aging instructions with the recipe I butchered, I was hoping to get some guidance here on how long I should primary / secondary it. I am going to keg this when it is ready.

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It depends on the temp. I highly suggest you ramp up the temp as soon as you see the fermentation slow down. This beer really needs to fully attenuate to be good. The Belgian yeasts will stop working if you don't keep them warm. I like to start in the mid 60's and raise it slowly to the mid 70's over the course of 10 days. It probably needs 10-14 days to fully ferment. An extra week will not hurt. Then go straight to the keg. IMHO There is no reason to secondary.

Patirck said:

Thanks for the response.

I have another beer that I have in secondary - it is a higher gravity Aventius clone that ended up at 1.115 OG. It was primaried for 10 days and then put in secondary on 5/25/10. I am thinking of putting it in a keg but I am unsure if it will benefit from a longer secondary. The recipe call for a 2 - 2 1/2 month secondary and then 2 weeks of bottle conditioninng. I plan on kegging this. Should I wait until July 25 to keg?

With high gravity beers like these should I definitly cold crash for a week before kegging?

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DO NOT pull your beer off the primary until it's finished fermenting. 2-2 1/2 months in the secondary is silly. At this point your fine to go to the keg.

but if it was me, I'd keep it in the primary until it done fermenting and then go straight to the keg. It's done fermenting when it reaches it's finishing gravity & the yeast has settled to the bottom. It will further age and condition in the keg. Consider the keg your secondary fermenter. But don't keg too soon or you'll end up with tons of yeast in the keg and the beer won't finish quite as clean.

Patirck said:

I made my 5th batch of beer last Sunday - and all grain Karmeleit clone. It is in a primary bubbling away right now. I know that it will stay in primary for probably about two weeks until the gravity starts holding steady. The OG is 1.067 and I am using wlp500 yeast. It is a Belgian tripel so I think it should go longer than most brews. Given there are no fermentaion/aging instructions with the recipe I butchered, I was hoping to get some guidance here on how long I should primary / secondary it. I am going to keg this when it is ready.

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At the risk of going off-topic, could you post the recipe? Thanks...

This may not be exactly Karmeleit - after I was boiling - I discovered that I was short on both coriander and orange peel. I added a little orange blossom water to make up for the orange peel so we'll see how it turns out. Below is the ingredient list and the notes from my brew day. It came out a little darker than the real thing but I think it will be tasty.

Karmeliet Klone?
Category Belgian Strong Ale
Subcategory Belgian Tripel
Recipe Type All Grain
Batch Size 5.5 gal.
Volume Boiled 7 gal.
Mash Efficiency 72 %
Total Grain/Extract 15.75 lbs.
Total Hops 2.5 oz.
Calories (12 fl. oz.) 318.0
Cost to Brew $35.48 (USD)
Cost per Bottle (12 fl. oz.) $0.60 (USD)

8 lbs. German 2-row Pils
.5 lbs. Belgian Cara-Pils
3 lbs. Belgian Wheat Malt
.25 lbs. Belgian Aromatic
2.0 lbs. Cane Sugar
2.0 lbs. Oats Flaked
2.0 oz. Tettnanger (Pellets, 4.0 %AA) boiled 60 min.
.5 oz. Czech Saaz (Whole, 5.00 %AA) boiled 4 min.
0.5 teaspoons Coriander, crushed 15 min (not included in calculations)
0.5 teaspoons Coriander, crushed 4 min (not included in calculations)
2.0 ounces Sweet orange peel (not included in calculations)
1 tablet Whirlfloc (not included in calculations)
1 teaspoons yeast nutrient (not included in calculations)
Yeast : White Labs WLP500 Trappist Ale info

Predicted Belgian Tripel Compliance = 100%
Original Gravity 1.080
Terminal Gravity 1.012
Color 6.00 °SRM
Bitterness 27.9 IBU
Alcohol (%volume) 8.9 %

All-Grain Option: Mash 13.75* lb. Belgian two-row pilsner malt and the specialty grains in 5.5 gallons of water at 150° F for 120 minutes. *** *** ***

Sparge with 4 gallons of water at 168° F.

Preboil volume of 7.4 gallons. SG of 1.0671

The total boil time is approximately 120 minutes. I measure volume with a graduated stick and when it got to about 6.25 gallons, I started the 60 minute timer and added the first hops.

60 minute hop addition 2.0 oz tettnanger
15 minute added .5 oz corriander seed
10 minute added 2lb sugar
4 minute add 1.0 oz sweet orange peel and .5 oz whole leaf Saaz
Added 5 oz orange blossom water at 2 minutes

SG of 1.086 while cooling (adjusted for temp)
OG - 10757 after aeration before yeast (adjustet for temp)

Waiting to picth yeast until it cools more will pitch several hours after cool down - wort in bucket with lid/airlock

Wort seems darker than it should be - more like gulden drak then karmeleit

Pitched wlp500 into 80* wort after 5 hour cooldown on July 4 at 9:00pm

As far as how long I plan on letting this go - I think I will wait a few weeks until the primary is done with the Karmeleit - at that point I'll do a bit of musical fermenters/kegs and put the Aventinus in the keg and the Karmeleit in the glass carboy. I will have three Kegs of beer at that point (Coffee Chocolate Kahlua sweet stout and Pom saison) so I won't have a keg to put it in any ways. It can sit in the glass carboy until I have an empty keg to put it in.

Should I put the Aventinus in the fridge for a week or so before I keg it? It is currently at 67* but I can get it down to the low 40s if I put it in the fridge.

IMHO a keg makes a far better brite tank than a carboy.
Built in handles!
Built-in diptube
Unbreakable
You can carbonate in it (naturally or forced)
You can serve from it
Closed transfer possible/easy
Easier to purge w/CO2
No light intrusion
Smaller footprint than bucket/carboy
Same(ish) price as carboy
Bigger aperture than carboy (for dry-hopping, cleaning, etc.)

If only I could go back in time and not get the starter kit from the lhbs! I think I would have gotton a few plastic buckets with spigots and the rest would have been corney kegs!

944play said:

IMHO a keg makes a far better brite tank than a carboy.
Built in handles!
Built-in diptube
Unbreakable
You can carbonate in it (naturally or forced)
You can serve from it
Closed transfer possible/easy
Easier to purge w/CO2
No light intrusion
Smaller footprint than bucket/carboy
Same(ish) price as carboy
Bigger aperture than carboy (for dry-hopping, cleaning, etc.)

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+1 on all counts. Wish I'd figured it out sooner than I did.

OK -so I just put the Karmeliet Klone in a glass carboy. If I had another corney it would have probably gone in there but since there is no room in the kegerator anyways, I am going to let sit in glass until I have a free corney keg. I will DEFINITELY cold crash for at least 3 days if not a week. I cold crashed an Aventinus clone for a week and kegged that one right before I put the Karmeliet in the same carboy and man did it come out nice. Almost clear for a dark wheat beer.

Another note - after two weeks in the bucket it went from 1.076 to 1.009! I think it must be the sugar in the recipe.

I kegged the Karmeleit about a week ago and started carbing with a stone for the first time. It took a while (a lot longer than I was hoping) but the carbonation level is just about right. It is very tasty. The only thing is that it is STRONG. I had about two and a half of these the other night and man did it knock me out. It looks just like the real thing.

Patirck said:

I kegged the Karmeleit about a week ago and started carbing with a stone for the first time. It took a while (a lot longer than I was hoping) but the carbonation level is just about right. It is very tasty. The only thing is that it is STRONG. I had about two and a half of these the other night and man did it knock me out. It looks just like the real thing.

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You should buy a bottle of the commercial version and do a blind tasting. See how yours stacks up.