Help with Tripel recipie!

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Alefeb07

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Ok so here's the issue. I was was at my local brew store looking to pick up some malt extract for a tripel recipie I am ready to try. "11 pounds please," he returns from the back with a huge bag of crushed grains. I am new to this and have definitely never used grains as this, I mean I know the basic technique but that's as far as my knowledge goes. So I found a few conversions online using .6 to achieve the right amount. That being said, I adjusted the recipie and here it is. Please give me some guidance or advice on the recipie or the conversions. I really am stumbling around in the dark with this.

5 gallon batch

6.6 lbs Mashed pilsner grain
1.5 lbs Belgian candi sugar
.5 lbs light honey
1.5 oz tettnanger hops
1 oz saaz hops
.5 oz saaz

WLP - 500 Trappist yeast
Bourbon soaked wood chips
 
I believe your conversion is backwards... You would use more grains than extract. the .6 conversion rate you mention is for going from grains to extract. The other way around is something like 1.25 as much grain to replace extract in a recipe.

If you have 11 lbs of pilsner malt, I would use that entire amount. With the sugar and honey, you are right on track for a nice tripel.
 
I would go more like 12-14 pounds of pilsner. 11 pounds won't even hit the low end of the style guidelines unless you are getting 75%+ efficiency.
 
Ok so the original calls for 11 lbs of extract. So (11 X 1.25 = 13.75). 14 lbs of grain, is that a normal amount for grain recipie? I obviously don't know much but this seems like a very large amount to put in the normal 2 gallons of water for the wort. Am I going to need to add more water to the wort or stick with my normal routine of two cold in the Carboy and one cold after the wort? Again, thank you for your input thus far. You are definitely giving me a lot of confidence.
 
It is normal for a Tripel.


You would want to mash that with 4-5 gallons of water, and then sparge with another 4-5 gallons. All told you will need something like 10 gallons of water (the grain will absorb some when you mash) and then boil it down to 5 gallons.

If you don't have a pot big enough to do a full boil, I would recommend either doing a smaller batch, or maybe going back to an extract version.



One other thing, that is especially important for all-grain, is that if you are using pilsner malt, you will want to boil the wort for at least 90 minutes. Pilsner malt has high levels of SMM which can cause significant DMS (a cooked corn aroma/flavor) in your beer. Boiling it longer and more vigorously helps drive off the DMS.
 
Practice with a partial mash (Boil in bag). Use 5 lbs of grain (in the bag), add to 6 quarts of 160 F water, and hold for about 45 minutes (hold mix at at 148 - 150 F). Remove bag, drain, then sparge/rinse with 5 quarts of 170 F water in another pan. Remove and drain grains. Add sparge water and and drained fluid to main pot. You should have about 10 quarts of liquid.

Bring to boil, add hops as needed, add 7 lbs of extract, candi-sugar and honey near the end of the boil.

Extract, sugar, and honey can be boiled and cooled separately if you are lacking a large pot, and added to the fermenter after the wort.
 
It is normal for a Tripel.


You would want to mash that with 4-5 gallons of water, and then sparge with another 4-5 gallons. All told you will need something like 10 gallons of water (the grain will absorb some when you mash) and then boil it down to 5 gallons.

If you don't have a pot big enough to do a full boil, I would recommend either doing a smaller batch, or maybe going back to an extract.

Ok so I think I will be investing in a large turkey frying unit capable of holding around 9 gallons. My question at this point is after I sparge and am left with a very large amount of wort, do I start adding my ingredients (hops, sugars) or do I wait until it has boiled down to around 5.5 gallons. I would assume waiting until it has boiled down would be better as it won't over cook in the wort vessel. Once again thank you for all the help!
 
So he gave you 11 lbs of grain total? As in 11 pounds of pilsner? If that's right, then you may want to look at picking up some more if you want to fit into the guidelines for a Tripel. With what you have right now you'll probably be a few gravity points under the style, but that kind of thing really doesn't bother me when it comes to brewing.

What equipment do you currently have? If you have the ability to do a full boil, you're just about halfway to being able to brew with what you've got on hand.
 
So he gave you 11 lbs of grain total? As in 11 pounds of pilsner? If that's right, then you may want to look at picking up some more if you want to fit into the guidelines for a Tripel. With what you have right now you'll probably be a few gravity points under the style, but that kind of thing really doesn't bother me when it comes to brewing.

What equipment do you currently have? If you have the ability to do a full boil, you're just about halfway to being able to brew with what you've got on hand.

Hello, currently I have everything needed to brew extract and I am possibly purchasing a large 8-9 gallon turkey fryer today that I think would function well as a mash cooker. After that i will probably pick up a few 5 gallon buckets and fabricate a lauter-tun. For the wort chiller I will probably just use an ice bath for ease. In reference to the Pilsner, I will definitely pick up another pound or two today. Any thoughts?
 
Hello, currently I have everything needed to brew extract and I am possibly purchasing a large 8-9 gallon turkey fryer today that I think would function well as a mash cooker. After that i will probably pick up a few 5 gallon buckets and fabricate a lauter-tun. For the wort chiller I will probably just use an ice bath for ease. In reference to the Pilsner, I will definitely pick up another pound or two today. Any thoughts?

Well an 8-9 gallon kettle is basically a necessity if you're doing full boils, so we're good on that. What do you mean by mash cooker? Are you planning on doing brew-in-a-bag or follow the more "traditional" route of mashing and lautering? Unless you hold all of your grains in a strainer bag for the mash, you'll need some kind of false bottom or manifold in your tun to drain out your wort. For right now, if you want to keep costs down, look at BIAB. All you really need in addition to that turkey fryer is a paint strainer bag. I've never brewed that way before though, so I can't be of too much help in that aspect. If instead you feel like making a cooler MLT, I can definitely help you out there.

Also, I would suggest rigging up an immersion chiller. If you make it yourself, one can be had for about $30 or so, depending on the price of copper. I made mine out of 20' of 3/8" tubing, and it works well if the groundwater is below the mid-60's. An ice bath just isn't very efficient at cooling down a full 5 gallons of wort.

This may seem like a lot of stuff piling up really fast in making the jump to all-grain, but IMHO, it's very well worth it to make the change at some point in time.
 
For a grain bill that large I don't think you can do it all in one 8-9 gallon pot BIAB. You would need at least one more vessel.


My question at this point is after I sparge and am left with a very large amount of wort, do I start adding my ingredients (hops, sugars) or do I wait until it has boiled down to around 5.5 gallons. I would assume waiting until it has boiled down would be better as it won't over cook in the wort vessel.

First off I will say that based on your questions, I think you should put off brewing this beer until you have read up on how to brew a bit more, specifically about all-grain brewing, so you understand the process a bit better. If you don't own any appropriate books, and don't want to buy them, you can take a look at howtobrew.com and read the book for free online. Although, it is a bit out of date at this point, and I would highly recommend getting a newer edition of the book if you can afford it.

To answer your question specifically, the bittering hops would typically go in 60 minutes from the end of the boil. So what you need to do to understand when to add the hops is to estimate your boil-off rate. This is actually easy to figure out. Put, say, 5 gallons of water in your pot, bring it to a boil, and then wait for an hour. Then wait for it to cool down, and measure how much you have left in the pot. The difference is your boil off rate. You can then take that number and figure out how much wort you need to have at the beginning of a boil in order to end up with 5 gallons, or conversely, figure out how long you need to boil to get down to 5 gallons, given a starting volume.
 
Well an 8-9 gallon kettle is basically a necessity if you're doing full boils, so we're good on that. What do you mean by mash cooker? Are you planning on doing brew-in-a-bag or follow the more "traditional" route of mashing and lautering? Unless you hold all of your grains in a strainer bag for the mash, you'll need some kind of false bottom or manifold in your tun to drain out your wort. For right now, if you want to keep costs down, look at BIAB. All you really need in addition to that turkey fryer is a paint strainer bag. I've never brewed that way before though, so I can't be of too much help in that aspect. If instead you feel like making a cooler MLT, I can definitely help you out there.

Also, I would suggest rigging up an immersion chiller. If you make it yourself, one can be had for about $30 or so, depending on the price of copper. I made mine out of 20' of 3/8" tubing, and it works well if the groundwater is below the mid-60's. An ice bath just isn't very efficient at cooling down a full 5 gallons of wort.

This may seem like a lot of stuff piling up really fast in making the jump to all-grain, but IMHO, it's very well worth it to make the change at some point in time.

I am definitely going through the traditional mash and lautering route. As far as the lauter-run goes I was planning on constructing one out of a 5 gallon plastic bucket with 1/8 inch holes drilled into it allowing the wort to be drained into another container. As far as the wort chiller goes thats unfortunately out of the question for this brew, it is simply not in the budget or time constraints. I do however hope to build one for the next brew. Unfortunately for this system the mash-tun and lautering-tun will be separated containers. What would be the best method for transferring the mash to the lautering-tun? Is something that can be poured into each other?
 
For a grain bill that large I don't think you can do it all in one 8-9 gallon pot BIAB. You would need at least one more vessel.




First off I will say that based on your questions, I think you should put off brewing this beer until you have read up on how to brew a bit more, specifically about all-grain brewing, so you understand the process a bit better. If you don't own any appropriate books, and don't want to buy them, you can take a look at howtobrew.com and read the book for free online. Although, it is a bit out of date at this point, and I would highly recommend getting a newer edition of the book if you can afford it.

To answer your question specifically, the bittering hops would typically go in 60 minutes from the end of the boil. So what you need to do to understand when to add the hops is to estimate your boil-off rate. This is actually easy to figure out. Put, say, 5 gallons of water in your pot, bring it to a boil, and then wait for an hour. Then wait for it to cool down, and measure how much you have left in the pot. The difference is your boil off rate. You can then take that number and figure out how much wort you need to have at the beginning of a boil in order to end up with 5 gallons, or conversely, figure out how long you need to boil to get down to 5 gallons, given a starting volume.

I very much appriciate your advice but at this point i am fully committed to brewing this batch. I have a copy of "The Joy of Homebrewing" and have read the section on grain brewing. I just have a hard time making sense of some aspects without actually seeing it done or trying it myself. Once again I definitely appriciate the advice and help. Everyone has been very welcoming in this forum.
 
You might take a look at some videos on youtube, at least.


There are some subtle aspects of this that I don't think you grasp yet, that are going to make it tough to pull off with the equipment you have.
 
First off, I applaud your efforts for jumping into all-grain head first. While a Belgian Tripel is going to be a difficult beer to pull off even if you have your process down, let me throw out a few things for you to consider:

1. If you're doing Brew in a Bag (i.e. containing all your grains in a large, fine mesh bag during the mashing process) you will probably have a lower efficiency than anticipated. maybe somewhere in the 60% range?

2. When doing Brew in a Bag, you will be using your boiling pot as your mash tun. A tripel needs to be dry, so you will want to mash long and low, I like to do a 90 minute mash at about 147-149 depending on your anticipated O.G. What temperature you mash at is up to you, just be weary of mashing too high and denaturing enzymes as you will most likely have to apply heat to your mash at some point during the mashing process. Your turkey fryer pot isn't going to hold the mash temperature very well.

3. Make sure you have enough yeast to get the job done. A starter would be highly recommended in this case as I don't think there are any dry yeasts available that will give you tripel. Aerate/oxygenate the hell out of your wort prior to pitching.

YouTube is a great resource for all things brewing. BobbyM's videos, aka bobbyfromnj, taught me everything I needed to know about the all grain process. There are many others out there with good information as well.

All the best,

~snake
 
You might take a look at some videos on youtube, at least.


There are some subtle aspects of this that I don't think you grasp yet, that are going to make it tough to pull off with the equipment you have.

I agree completely. I plan on doing that most of the day tomorrow before I brew on Saturday.
 
I very much appreciate your advice but at this point i am fully committed to brewing this batch. I have a copy of "The Joy of Homebrewing" and have read the section on grain brewing. I just have a hard time making sense of some aspects without actually seeing it done or trying it myself. Once again I definitely appreciate the advice and help. Everyone has been very welcoming in this forum.

Since you are going all grain Let me make a few suggestions.
1) Get a larger brew kettle 15 gal is perfect size.
2) build a mash tun. The drilled buckets will be a big pina.
3) get beersmith!!
4) Reed all the stickies.
 
Ok so I took the advice from a few of you and am very pleased that I did. I purchased a 10 gallon stock pot and outfitted it with a ball valve and a metal false bottom. I also upped my yeast count with an additional vial of WLP 500, making that two total. I mashed at temps of 130, 150, and 158 for a total of around 90ish minutes. I then sparged with 170 degree water until the wort ran pretty clean and I had a total of about 9-9.5 gallons. Currently I am in the very slow process of boiling the wort down 6-6.5 gallons. I have calculated my boil down rate to be around 1/2 gallon every hour. This will definitely be a lengthy process but once again i really appriciate the help and advice given.
 
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