Belgian Tripel

I tried my first belgian tripel and I have a few general questions. For taste, should I age this for an extended period of time? Also, your thoughts on how long I should leave in the primary. Should I leave it or should I do a secondary. Any information or personal experiences would be appreciated.

Technically you leave it in the primary until you reach you FG. But Leaving it longer will make it age and improve the beer. A triple is usually a beer that need some time to come on it's own and the longer you wait in the primary and/or bottle the better the result will be.

I believe my only concern is with conditioning. If I leave it in the primary over a month it seems like I will need to pitch some more yeast to help with bottle conditioning.....

I 30 day primary everything I brew most of the time leaving it an extra week or so just cause I forgot. Have never had any problem with bottle carbing any of mine yet. If it is a real concern run your auto siphon across the trub when you start yo rack to bottling bucket to get some yeast in suspension

well if the gravity was high and for a triple it probably was I would do 3 weeks primary 1 week secondary room temp then 2 weeks cold conditioning. at that point I would re-yeast at bottling. you should be ok without adding more yeast though...

search "belgian triple" on this forum, Revvy has a special graph for that same question.Cheers

I would be quite surprised if you need to re-yeast after only a month or two. There are plenty of posts here showing 6months or a year without adding more. I'm brewing a BDS on Saturday and plan to let it bulk condition in secondary for AT LEAST 6 months before I think about bottling.

You don't need to re-yeast.

I leave all my Belgians in the primary for 5-6 weeks and then after bottling, think months to condition not weeks.

Belgians are different than most beers and really do improve greatly with age.

I have never done less than 4 weeks primary. I have never re-yeasted at bottling and never had a bottle fail to carb. Of course I carry the fermenter up a flight of stairs from the brew cave to the bottling palace.

Rowdy said:

I 30 day primary everything I brew most of the time leaving it an extra week or so just cause I forgot.

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Yep, I'm doing longer primaries as well.

Most true belgians are reyeasted during bottling with either a top-crop of krausen, yeast from primary, or a new wort starter, again, this is true belgian breweries. I however have never added yeast at bottling. You can use it to introduce new flavors though by using different yeasts

I've brewed two belgian tripels with long primary + 6-8 week secondary. Neither had yeast added at bottling and both carbed up fine. They took a little longer to carb (1.5-3 months due to gravity), but your tripel won't taste all that great in that time period anyway. Better to wait at least 4 months before consuming and save some for 9-12 months.

I got trolled pretty heavily for saying this in another thread. But my experience, and that of the brewers that I learned from (many who are BJCP judges, own/run homebrew shops, and publish the local craft/homebrewing magazine) believe that the rule of thumb for tripels is that they benefit from 6 months to a year in secondary. Since they're high grav, and have a goodly amount of simple sugars in them, they kind of have a rocket fuel, rawness about them, that bulk conditioning rounds out.

As for priming them, if beer is in secondary for for anything over six months, we recommend you add a little fresh yeast on bottling day along with the priming sugar. It will help.

Revvy is spot on about the 6+ month aging, I just can't bring myself to wait that long, the most I made it was a little over 2 months, and they were far better than any of my other attempts on Belgians...due to my impatience, I have put brewing belgians on hold until I can truly give them the time they deserve

Calichusetts said:

Revvy is spot on about the 6+ month aging, I just can't bring myself to wait that long, the most I made it was a little over 2 months, and they were far better than any of my other attempts on Belgians...due to my impatience, I have put brewing belgians on hold until I can truly give them the time they deserve

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What you gotta do is brew one, and then immediately brew something else. Something with a quicker turnover. Get 1 or two things in the pipeline that involve immediate gratification, and just leave the big beers to do their thing.

Revvy said:

I got trolled pretty heavily for saying this in another thread. But my experience, and that of the brewers that I learned from (many who are BJCP judges, own/run homebrew shops, and publish the local craft/homebrewing magazine) believe that the rule of thumb for tripels is that they benefit from 6 months to a year in secondary. Since they're high grav, and have a goodly amount of simple sugars in them, they kind of have a rocket fuel, rawness about them, that bulk conditioning rounds out.

As for priming them, if beer is in secondary for for anything over six months, we recommend you add a little fresh yeast on bottling day along with the priming sugar. It will help.

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That is almost exactly what I did with my latest Dubbel and it turned out great.

Follow this, and you'll be fine.

TB

related noob question: Can I secondary in a 6.5 gal bucket, or do I need less head space?

AgentHubcap said:

related noob question: Can I secondary in a 6.5 gal bucket, or do I need less head space?

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You don't want that much headspace. Use a glass carboy, not a bucket. You'll get some co2 that comes out of solution to fill the small amount of space in the neck.

Revvy said:

I got trolled pretty heavily for saying this in another thread. But my experience, and that of the brewers that I learned from (many who are BJCP judges, own/run homebrew shops, and publish the local craft/homebrewing magazine) believe that the rule of thumb for tripels is that they benefit from 6 months to a year in secondary. Since they're high grav, and have a goodly amount of simple sugars in them, they kind of have a rocket fuel, rawness about them, that bulk conditioning rounds out.

As for priming them, if beer is in secondary for for anything over six months, we recommend you add a little fresh yeast on bottling day along with the priming sugar. It will help.

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I'm a rookie and in this exact situation as well and never added yeast post secondary. So, what quantity would you consider "a little fresh yeast"? My tripel will have been in secondary for 8 months before bottling.

Nswenso1 said:

I'm a rookie and in this exact situation as well and never added yeast post secondary. So, what quantity would you consider "a little fresh yeast"? My tripel will have been in secondary for 8 months before bottling.

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people usually mention adding a half packet of dry at bottling time.

Thanks, i'm glad i asked, i don't bottle for awhile, but would adding too much affect anything besides potentially more sediment in the bottles?

Revvy said:

people usually mention adding a half packet of dry at bottling time.

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I haven't seen dry Belgian yeast, using champagne yeast instead?

usfmikeb said:

I haven't seen dry Belgian yeast, using champagne yeast instead?

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Actually there is a pseudo dry Belgian, I think it's T-58? But yeah most folks add champagne yeast when doing it.

Revvy said:

Actually there is a pseudo dry Belgian, I think it's T-58? But yeah most folks add champagne yeast when doing it.

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Haven't seen that before, going to have to find and try it out.

usfmikeb said:

Haven't seen that before, going to have to find and try it out.

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It get's mixed reviews as a Belgian...I've never used it. But here's the PDF for it.

Thanks Revvy.

Apologize for hijacking the thread for a couple posts!

No apologies needed! Lots of great info!

I add half a packet of US-05. I've also used S-04. It really doesn't matter much at all what yeast you add, since it's not going to add any flavors. All the character comes from the primary strain that did all the fermentation. Refermenting 3 oz or so of sugar per 5 gal in the bottle with any neutral ale strain is insignificant compared to the character derived from trappist strains taking care of 60 points' worth of sugar.

TB

BOBrob said:

search "belgian triple" on this forum, Revvy has a special graph for that same question.Cheers

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I kinda thought this remark would get the best advice out there... and it did. Cheers all

Calichusetts said:

Most true belgians are reyeasted during bottling with either a top-crop of krausen, yeast from primary, or a new wort starter, again, this is true belgian breweries. I however have never added yeast at bottling. You can use it to introduce new flavors though by using different yeasts

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I think you will find many of them are filtered too. Re-yeasting to ensure there is sufficient yeast in the bottle after filtering and to get consistent carbonation.

Nswenso1 said:

Thanks, i'm glad i asked, i don't bottle for awhile, but would adding too much affect anything besides potentially more sediment in the bottles?

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I've re-yeasted only once. That was because the primary yeast had reached it's alcohol limit and I wanted to ensure it carb'd. I've made hundred of beers and ciders, some left for up to a year before bottling, and not added any fresh yeast. Never had a problem with them carbing. Sometimes it can take a while due to the low number of yeast cells. Adding fresh yeast will speed up the process, but in my experience, it is not necessary.

usfmikeb said:

I haven't seen dry Belgian yeast, using champagne yeast instead?

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T-58 is supposed to be a good bottling yeast. I've never used it. You need to be careful which yeast you use. Higher attenuating yeasts might over-carb the beer by eating some of the sugars that primary yeast could not handle. Champage yeast is a good yeast to use as it only consumes simple sugars (priming sugar) and will notwork on the more complex sugars.

Calder said:

T-58 is supposed to be a good bottling yeast. I've never used it. You need to be careful which yeast you use. Higher attenuating yeasts might over-carb the beer by eating some of the sugars that primary yeast could not handle. Champage yeast is a good yeast to use as it only consumes simple sugars (priming sugar) and will notwork on the more complex sugars.

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In order to be at any risk of over carbing, you would have to use a yeast that's more attenuative than the Trappist strain you used in the primary. Priming with any neutral American ale strain is fine, and the beer will still taste and carbonate like you want.

TB