Question on instructions in Strict Observance Tripel

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TTodd

TTodd

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I have the book "Brewing Classic Style" by Jamil Z and am interested in brewing the Strict Observance Tripel.

Under the Fermentation and Conditioning instructions it states "Pitch the yeast at 64 and let the temperature rise slowly to 70 over the course of 1 week. When finished, carbonate teh beer to approximately 3 to 4 volumes and allow to lager for 1 month at 45 to 50".

I'm plan to do a 10 gallon batch and not sure at this point if I'm doing 2 kegs , or 1 keg and bottling the rest. So I'm a little confused about the carbonating *before* the lagering.

So if I were kegging - would I simply transfer to a keg and hook the CO2 up to it and let it refrigerate at 45 degrees for a month?

And if I were to bottle - after the fermentation - would I prime and then bottle it right away and then store the bottles in the fridge at 45 for a month?

Pretty confused at this point - would appreciate some insight.

Thanks!
 
You got it, although for bottling you could also lager first (in bulk), and then prime/bottle with some fresh yeast.

That's the rarely mentioned "secret" of people who serve their beer out of kegerators: They all secondary their beers, and they all lager them (all while drinking the beer as well). The keg becomes the secondary and bright tank (secondary) as well as serving vessel.
 
ArcaneXor said:
You got it, although for bottling you could also lager first (in bulk), and then prime/bottle with some fresh yeast.

That's the rarely mentioned "secret" of people who serve their beer out of kegerators: They all secondary their beers, and they all lager them (all while drinking the beer as well). The keg becomes the secondary and bright tank (secondary) as well as serving vessel.
Click to expand...

Really no different than leaving bottles in your fridge for weeks before serving.
 
If I were to carbonate and then lager for 1 month - Could I just hook it up to my CO2 for a few days at high pressure, then disconnect and put it in the fridge at 44 or so without any gas hooked up to it? Not sure that I have room in my kegerator (where my co2 tank is) for them to sit there for 4 weeks so I was hoping to be able to store them without being hooked up to the CO2
 
One thing to keep in mind. A tripel is a sort of beer that should improve with age and aging / cellaring is generally better at higher temps (range is 55-65 F) so, if you were to keep it at 45, you're going to have to age it a bit longer.

But for the kegging, yeah that's what I do. I keep it in the carboy until I absolutely need that carboy so at the 4 week mark, I generally have to free up a carboy so I'll rack to the keg, purge O2 and then you can just stick it in a cool area and let it sit.
 
I made this in the Spring and it's in thick bottles now carbing to 3.75 vol CO2. I usually never secondary but did so for this beer and cold conditioned in bulk for a month before bottling. There was a thin layer of sediment after that month that I was glad wasn't going into the end product. One reason for cold conditioning is to drop sediment that the carbonation bubbles may nucleate on.
 
DSmith said:
I made this in the Spring and it's in thick bottles now carving to 3.75 vol CO2. I usually never secondary but did so for this beer and cold conditioned in bulk for a month before bottling. There was a thin layer of sediment after that month that I was glad wasn't going into the end product. One reason for cold conditioning is to drop sediment that the carbonation bubbles may nucleate on.
Click to expand...

So just to be clear on the steps - after the primary fermentation, you put in secondary and had that "lagering" for a month? I would assume that it's simply uncarbonated, just a normal secondary fermentation done at a lower temp. Is that correct? His instructions said to carbonate it first and then lager it. Is the carbonation not that important? Also - what temp did you cold condition at?

Also - you mention the thick bottles. Is that pretty much a necessity because of the gravity\carb volume? If so - I think that maybe I want to go the route of kegging this - really don't want any explosions.

Thanks!
 
I looked at the recipe and it does say to cold condition after carbonating. I cold conditioned in a secondary carboy at 45F for a month prior to bottling. It was in primary for about 6 weeks and definitely not changing gravity (1.008 FG).

Here's a link to the Westmalle brewing process, similar to the method I did with conditioning before bottling and natural carbonation:
http://www.trappistwestmalle.be/en/page/lageren.aspx

The BCS recipes for lagers say to lager prior to carbonating so I guess it's not exactly he same process... The Jamil show on Tripels has some information about settling sediment for better appearance & carbonation.
 
OK - So I am planning on brewing a 10 gallon batch of this tomorrow. I have a temperature-controller for an old fridge - so I'm going to use that for fermenting this. Couple questions on this:

1) Fermenting - from reading the book - it sounds like this will ferment in a week. Does that sound right? Instructions say " "Pitch the yeast at 64 and let the temperature rise slowly to 70 over the course of 1 week. When finished, carbonate....". From that - I interpret that it should be done fermenting in a week - but maybe he's just saying that the temperature increase period is a week. I know that I ultimately have to wait until the Gravity remains unchanged - just wondering about how long I should plan on that taking.


2) Conditioning - I plan to just keg this. I want to make sure I do this right. So it sounds like I could just put it in my kegs, hook up the CO2, purge all the air out of the keg and fill it up with CO2. From a previous post - it sounds like once the O2 is purged and it is filled with CO2, I could disconnect it from the CO2 tank and just lager it in my fridge at 45 degrees for a month. Question is - how many PSI should I fill it with? When I loaded the recipe in Beersmith - it says ~ 20PSI. Does that sound right?


Thanks!
 
TTodd said:
OK - So I am planning on brewing a 10 gallon batch of this tomorrow. I have a temperature-controller for an old fridge - so I'm going to use that for fermenting this. Couple questions on this:

1) Fermenting - from reading the book - it sounds like this will ferment in a week. Does that sound right? Instructions say " "Pitch the yeast at 64 and let the temperature rise slowly to 70 over the course of 1 week. When finished, carbonate....". From that - I interpret that it should be done fermenting in a week - but maybe he's just saying that the temperature increase period is a week. I know that I ultimately have to wait until the Gravity remains unchanged - just wondering about how long I should plan on that taking.

2) Conditioning - I plan to just keg this. I want to make sure I do this right. So it sounds like I could just put it in my kegs, hook up the CO2, purge all the air out of the keg and fill it up with CO2. From a previous post - it sounds like once the O2 is purged and it is filled with CO2, I could disconnect it from the CO2 tank and just lager it in my fridge at 45 degrees for a month. Question is - how many PSI should I fill it with? When I loaded the recipe in Beersmith - it says ~ 20PSI. Does that sound right?


Thanks!
Click to expand...

1. Definitely not finished fermenting in a week. Fermentation should significantly slow in a week and the raise in temperature helps the yeast to finish with high attenuation (low mash temp, yeast starter per www.yeastcalc.com). I left my beer in primary for 6 weeks, transferred to a smaller secondary carboy for 4 weeks of cold conditioning. 4 week primary and skip secondary with 4 weeks bottling is my standard ale timeline - this Tripel is about twice that.

2. Can't comment on this, only bottle.
 

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