Tripel

So im going to brew up this Tripped Ale this weekend, this will be my first recipe post, wanted to see if I should tweek it a little, ok here it is
5 gallon batch 68% eff. 75min boil

6lb Pilsner. 42.9%
5lb Pale Malt 35.7%
8oz Wheat. 3.6%
8oz Aromatic 3.6%
2lbs Invert Sugar. 14.3%

Northdown 8.5%alpha 1oz 75min
Mt. Hood 6%alpha 2oz 0 min

WLP500
EST. 1.079OG
EST. 33.4HBUS
EST. 5.0SRM

Thanks for takin a look, other hops in stock are merker, northern brewer, cascade, centenial, crystal and I think somethin else but cant remember, and i have a few other grains on hand to play with thanks again for any posts

I think it looks fine, but if you want a critique, I believe that tripels have a very basic grain bill. I just made one that was 97% pilsner malt and 3% caravienne. The pilsner provides more of a grainy flavor that you can't get in pale malt. Because pilsner is so light it wont take much for specialty grains to overwhelm it. Aromatic is really good for this style though! With any pilsner malt as your base grain I would also boil for 90 min instead of 75 to prevent DMS. In mine I put table sugar into the carboy as fermentation slowed so it was sure to attenuate well. I think that the whole invert sugar thing is not necessary IMHO, but of course it won't hurt to use it. For hops I believe that noble hops are preferred, but if you want to give those a try...go for it. Post how it turns out!

Most things look ok. For a Tripel, you are going to be at the lower end for your gravity, I would probably add another pound or so of Pilsner. Also, you might want to make the boil a little bit longer to get rid of the added DMS with the Pilsner malt, I usually will bump it up to a 90 minute boil. 75 minutes might be fine, I just personally have always gone 90, was just ingrained in me from some podcast early on. If you want to make it easier, I would just swap the pale malt for more pilsner as well, there really isn't much of a need for the pale.

Make a big starter for Tripels as well, you will only benefit with the bigger it is.

As far as your hops. I've never seen someone use that combination for a Tripel, but the Mt. Hood would likely be a great choice being a domestic version of Mt. Hood essentially. I've never used Northdown, so I have no clue what to comment on that.

Good luck!

Also, just to let you know. Be ready to wait for it to age. I brewed my tripel at the end of December/early January and it is still a little bit hot in alcohol, but with every couple weeks, it's getting better and better.

Edit: A bit late on my post, but after reading post above it reminded me. I also did what trevor did with adding my sugar in after fermentation starts to slow a little bit, this helps it ferment out much better by not straining the yeast on the sugar instead of the malt right off the bat. I think I waited 4 days before I added my sugar. And also, table sugar is just fine, no need for candi sugars or syrups, inert, etc.

Looks pretty good. I prefer my Tripels very simple so I might consider dropping the wheat and the aromatic,but they are low enough that you can leave them. A good base tripel recipe is 80% Pilsner, 20% sugar. But anywhere in the 10-20% range for sugar works.

The IBU's might be a little high. Shoot for a BU:GU ratio of .38. Avoid the C hops. I prefer Saaz, Styrian Golding or Hallertau in my tripels. Never used Northdown so I am not familiar with the flavor profile.

Good luck. I love a good Tripel and always have a few different ones around.

Don't mean to hijack, but when you add sugar after primary fermentation slows down, do you boil it in some water first, or does it go right in?

flyingfinbar said:

Don't mean to hijack, but when you add sugar after primary fermentation slows down, do you boil it in some water first, or does it go right in?

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Boil it up in a small amount of water, cool, and dump it int fermenter. It is a good technique to gte the brew to finish slightly lower. I usually add after fermentation slows, about 4-5 days in.

What beergolf said. Funny things happen when you introduce a whole bunch of nucleation sites (sugar crystals) to a solution with dissolved gas (beer).

absoluthamm said:

Most things look ok. For a Tripel, you are going to be at the lower end for your gravity, I would probably add another pound or so of Pilsner.

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Technically he is in the lower half of gravity range for tripels, but he's almost exactly in the middle. The BJCP standard says 1.075-1.085.

flyingfinbar said:

Don't mean to hijack, but when you add sugar after primary fermentation slows down, do you boil it in some water first, or does it go right in?

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At first I tried boiling it in water then cooling it down, but it turned into a wet 2.5 lb brick of sugar. I could have added more water to dilute it into more of a syrup, but I had the fear that it would dilute my beer as well. I just added it dry, half at a time, slowly. It did not rocket out as I expected, but it did crawl up my blow off tube. When it settled and I added the second half.

Looks fine.

Mash low (148 - 150 F), and long.

Cut the Mt. Hood at least in half.

Ferment warm, about 75 F.

Thanks guys!
Using the four malts i got from PIKE Monks Uncle Triple, enjoyed it. They used organic though im not tryin to clone just thought it would be a good jump on point

With all the responses I bumped Pilsner to 64.3% and the Pale down to 12.5% and the Aromatic up to 5.4%. Ill will go with a 90 min boil doesnt sound like it is worth taking the risk ive had one batch with DMS luckily it was a 30 shilling so i didnt feel so bad dumping it.

Fermenting Im going to go with white labs suggestion I like earthy so I think ill start around 63 and send the little yeasties to hopefully 68 in the first four days then take your guys advise and add the suger at this point then hopefully get them up to finish at 72

Ok this is way down here in the reply, but when adding the suger in the fermenter did you drop it down a beer thief to reduce splashing or aeration or is this beside the fact because of the suger addition thanks ill attempt to post results along the way

I just pour the sugar solution in and give it a light stirring. There is active fermentation yet so you don't have to worry too much about oxidation.

onthekeg said:

I just pour the sugar solution in and give it a light stirring. There is active fermentation yet so you don't have to worry too much about oxidation.

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No need to stir, the yeast will find it. Yes, just pour it in.

I brewed today with a couple minor changes only had 6oz wheat so I went with 10 oz aromatic and 2lbs pale, every thing went well considering i forgot my spread sheet, so i sparged the livin hell out of this beer so i would have enough for the longer boil probably around 8.5 gallons worth for some reason 120 min boil was in the back of my mind. I had to use 2 kettles to get the job done boiled down for 40min then started my first hop addition. I wimped out and put the suger in the boil. But to my shgrin my starting gravity was 1.088 at 71 degrees and i didnt want to add water to it so i think i will add suger when fermentation slows to bring it up to about 1.100 to make it a quad, and i decided not not exceed 68 degrees ambient temp because right before i pitched my starter i stuck my nose in to get a whiff and it smelled amazing so sense i keep my house right about 68 thats what im shootin for, I just hope it will still attenuate well since I was to worried about pitchin the sugar during fermentation, pretty stoked if I end up with somethin close to *Stoic Quad by Deschutes* Brew On!

Cool, hopefully it turns out well. My one comment would be that I've never heard of a blonde quad. Quad is generally just a term for a dark strong ale that's not monastic in origin. Obviously the beer will probably still be good, though.

Yeah I have only had the deschutes offering as there products are some of the most readily avalible in my area. It wasnt quite blonde, but didnt see any ingredients on there website just that they barrel aged in rye whiskey and wine barrels, they said belgian-style quad that sounds pretty vague

chuckstout said:

Yeah I have only had the deschutes offering as there products are some of the most readily avalible in my area. It wasnt quite blonde, but didnt see any ingredients on there website just that they barrel aged in rye whiskey and wine barrels, they said belgian-style quad that sounds pretty vague

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Well, to be fair, I suppose "dark" strongs only have to be a minimum of 12 SRM (BJCP), which is pretty light (It's definitely darker than a tripel at ~5 SRM though.).

EDIT: I just looked it up...it's definitely dark enough to be a dark strong.

Checked gravity today, down to 1.012 going to let it go for another week and check it again, i think it might finish around 1.010 i ended up fermenting about 63-64 really good just a slight alc. note which i was goin for really happy with the performence of wlp 500

Going to bottle this weekend, wlp500,

final reading 1.009 at 61 degrees flavors have blended very well

I cold crashed for a few days then pulled out for a day back up to 65 then bottled on saturday, didnt add yeast during bottling so i hope it will still get conitioned

I'm on week six in the bottle with my tripel and the carbonation is still low. I didn't add any yeast to the bottling bucket either so just keep it above 70f and it'll carb.

chuckstout said:

Checked gravity today, down to 1.012 going to let it go for another week and check it again, i think it might finish around 1.010 i ended up fermenting about 63-64 really good just a slight alc. note which i was goin for really happy with the performence of wlp 500

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How much yeast did you use? How did you aerate your wort?

3ft of Gravity through stainless mesh, 1l starter with a stir plate, the bottles look somewhat cloudy, so thats a good sign. Im going to try and wait a month before opening a bottle. I drank at least a pint before bottling was mighty tasty!

For the future is there a dry yeast you know of that can handle about 11% to use for carbing

I did a month long primary for a tripel, and it's been in bottles for 2 months...popped one yesterday, and that sucker was fully carbed and f'ing DELICIOUS! No hot alcohols, no sharp flavors in any way, just well rounded, warm, tripel-y goodness. She came in at 8.5 percent ABV, so it's definitely not as hot as some tripels, but it came out pretty, pretty awesome.

flyingfinbar said:

I did a month long primary for a tripel, and it's been in bottles for 2 months...popped one yesterday, and that sucker was fully carbed and f'ing DELICIOUS! No hot alcohols, no sharp flavors in any way, just well rounded, warm, tripel-y goodness. She came in at 8.5 percent ABV, so it's definitely not as hot as some tripels, but it came out pretty, pretty awesome.

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Sweet! Wait Oh no two months! I may just have to hide it somewhere tell the fall

I just pitched some smoked stout on the yeast cake, im eager to see what this yeast can do with the dark malts and a lot more hops
Cheers!