Belgian tripel

For our 10th batch this year, we used, as usual, a Brewer's Best kit. We have had excellent luck with these kits. This time we made a Belgian Triple. By comparison, this brew came out pretty sweet. Is that normal for a Belgian Tripel? I don't think we missed a step anywhere, but it seems pretty sweet. Thoughts?

Sweetness should be light, did it attenuate well? How long has it been bottled?

More info:https://www.homebrewtalk.com/wiki/index.php/Tripel

What was the OG and FG? Chances are you need to let this beer age for a long time before it will be really good.

I have done a Belgian Trip before, Triples should have some sweetness, but not over powering, and a floral/citrus nose. A good Belgian Trip IMHO should be ~9-10%abv, and be very carbonated, have a slight alcohol taste.

Thanks folks... it has been bottled for about 4 weeks. It doesn't seem overly carbonated but not flat either. It is interesting, sweet to my taste, but I am not used to beer that is on the sweet side. All of your comments reassured me that being sweeter does not mean I made a mistake in the process somewhere. The OG was 1.088, and the FG was 1.026... giving it around an 8.1 ABV I think. These numbers seem low compared to the comments above. Other comments?
fyi

I was just looking at a Belgian Tripel extract kit from Midwest and they recommended at least 9 months in secondary. So that could be a factor (though I don't know how long you had it fermenting for), especially given all the fermentables.

I pulled the instructions that came with our kit, and it only recommends 1 wk primary, 2 wks secondary, then bottle. This is what we did, and when we went to bottle, no action was apparent within the beer, so it seemed ready.

Wortdiver said:

. . . . . . The OG was 1.088, and the FG was 1.026... giving it around an 8.1 ABV I think. These numbers seem low compared to the comments above. Other comments?
fyi

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Yea that's not enough, you want a tripel to attenuate down to appx. 1.018 at the most which is sometimes hard for extract, this is why it is sweeter than normal.

How long was it at that FG? You may want to watch for bottle bombs.

Thanks for the tip. We will keep an eye on the carb, as we open a bottle now and then. So far, the fizz has been lower than with most of our other brews... Also, now that it has been in the bottle a while longer, the sweetness is less, and more of a variety of tastes are coming through. This is turning into a pretty interesting run.

borden said:

I was just looking at a Belgian Tripel extract kit from Midwest and they recommended at least 9 months in secondary.

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Although that might be preferred, it is not required. The very first brew I did was an extract Belgian trip. It turned out excellent. 1 week in primary, 1 week in secondary, and 3-4 weeks in the bottles. Kit was something like 12lbs of extract, and a couple pounds of candy rock sugar. My only complaint is it was not overly carbonated like a commercial Triple. That was several years ago though. Maybe I should revisit the Belgian Trip, since I have much more experience and skill now.

I'm currently enjoying a Dunkelweizen of my own recipe creation.

Thats the best part of this hobby is being able to sit back and say "Damn, thats a fine beer I made."

That's sounds like the Belgian Tripel kit I have in my primary now. It started at 1.092 and was at 1.022 last night, after a week. If it is still there today I am racking it to the secondary. It has a high alcohol flavor, and certainly needs some aging, but I think the overall taste is good. Based on my calculations, the kit had only about 75% of the priming sugar necessary to achieve the 1.9 to 2.3 volumes of CO2 that is typical for the style, so I am going to supplement before bottling.