All things Trappist

Williams 728
Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum

Help Support Homebrew Talk - Beer, Wine, Mead, & Cider Brewing Discussion Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Gregory T said:
I have 2 Tripel recipes I brew

one is more of a purist Tripel



7 lb German Pils
7 lb Belgian Pils
1 lb Vienna
0.5 lb Flake Barley
1 lb candi sugar


1 oz Challenger 60 min
0.5 Styrian Goldings 60 min
0.5 Styrian Golding 15 min
0.5 Styrian Goldings 0 min

.25 oz sweet orange peel

wlp 500 1.25 m/ml/plato

OG 1.078 IBU 28.73



the other adds some extra grains



6 lb German Pils
6 lb Belgian pils
0.5 lb carapilis
0.25 lb crystal 15L
0.5 lb flaked barley
2 lb candi syrup

.75oz chalenger 60 min
.75 Styrian 20 min
.5 oz styrian 0 min

0.5 oz orange peel

Wyeast 3787

0G 1.082 IBU 27.02

These are still a work in progress. Please feel free to comment on my choices

I like to do step mashes. I think they're fun. They give me better control over the fermentability and the taste/mouhfeel of the final product. I also pitch at about 1.25 and limit aeration. I try to read all things Belgian so if anyone has any books/articles to recommend, that would be appreciated as well
Click to expand...

I would keep doing what you’re doing.

A few observations:

1.) I like blending Vienna with Pils. For me it almost functions as a single base malt;

2.) I prefer German Pils. It’s more Pilsner-y.;

3.) To each their own but I don’t see the need for flaked barley or cara Pils;

4.) if you are looking for a light colored cara malt, try Weyermann CaraHell;

5.) I wouldn’t waste hops on flameout additions. A last charge at 10-20 minutes should be good. Hop flavor and aroma is not something these beers are known for. Although I do admit I use Cascade whole leaf hops as my aroma hop so maybe I’m TOMA!
 
I'm with RPIScotty on this one. Simplify that grain bill. Pils and Vienna should be more than enough.

You should only need two hop additions. I usually do a first wort addition and a 15 or so minute addition. That's it.

If you're looking for more foam you could add a little wheat. A little goes a long way without affecting flavor or clarity.
 
I recently revamped my 5 recipes around a Dark Tower theme and I’m now only using 5 malts, one of which is Sauermalz. I blend up to 3 base malts (Pils, Vienna, Munich I) and use Special B as my only specialty.
 
Any suggestions on fining/gelatin? Kegged my Westleveteren VI clone after 24 hour cold-crash (whirlfloc at the end of the boil) and I'm still seeing a lot of yeast in suspension. Any issues with using gelatin in anyone (and by that I mean @RPIScotty) to speed the process, or should I just wait it out? Keg is in the keezer right now.
 
mirthfuldragon said:
Any suggestions on fining/gelatin? Kegged my Westleveteren VI clone after 24 hour cold-crash (whirlfloc at the end of the boil) and I'm still seeing a lot of yeast in suspension. Any issues with using gelatin in anyone (and by that I mean @RPIScotty) to speed the process, or should I just wait it out? Keg is in the keezer right now.
Click to expand...

Wait it out. Gelatin is vile.

Take a look at your favorite Trappist beers. They never fully clear and that's okay. They still taste delicious.
 
Last edited:
RPIScotty said:
Wait it out. Gelatin is vile.

Take a look at your favorite Trappist beers. They never fully clear and that's okay. They still taste delicious.
Click to expand...
While I'm gonna disagree about gelatin being vile I do agree that it isn't necessary. Gelatin isn't really needed unless you absolutely need clarity quickly. Given how many Trappist beers need a good amount of time to age there's no real benefit.

If I was trying to make a crystal clear IPA with some quick turnaround then I'd probably use it though.

To the OP:

TL;DR don't use gelatin for these beers. Just be patient.
 
Comfort_Zone said:
Given how many Trappist beers need a good amount of time to age there's no real benefit.
Click to expand...

I question this for the real beers and the homebrew versions I make.

The commercial beers are good young IMO. Homebrew versions that "require" aging either have too high of an ABV or too many undesirable fermentation byproducts.
 
Thanks for the responses, @RPIScotty and @Comfort_Zone. I am going to let it settle some more, but the first couple of glasses had noticeable yeast still in full suspension. In retrospect I probably should have crashed it longer before kegging. Always learning new things.
 
mirthfuldragon said:
Thanks for the responses, @RPIScotty and @Comfort_Zone. I am going to let it settle some more, but the first couple of glasses had noticeable yeast still in full suspension. In retrospect I probably should have crashed it longer before kegging. Always learning new things.
Click to expand...

Do you have a way chill the keg close to 32 F for a bit?
 
Gelatin coats my teeth with a funky film. I’ve tried beers made by others using it. I had the same result. I’ll never use it again. They told me I was nuts, but it was there.
 
Dog House Brew said:
Gelatin coats my teeth with a funky film. I’ve tried beers made by others using it. I had the same result. I’ll never use it again. They told me I was nuts, but it was there.
Click to expand...

Clarity is not worth it if it means you have to put that stuff in your beer.
 
I am not exactly sure how it fits in with this discussion, but I have been making my way through the back catalog of BeerSmith Podcasts, and this one with Charlie Bamforth on Yeast is very good: http://beersmith.com/blog/2018/01/2...th-dr-charlie-bamforth-beersmith-podcast-164/ Charlie has been an icon in brewing for as long as I can remember.

I am looking forward to learning some things from this thread. I am a huge fan of Belgian beers. I brewed a Saison several years ago and I finally go around to brewing a Dubbel (5 gal split into 2 x 2.5 with WLP500 and WLP530...seemed like a good warm up before moving on to a Dark Strong/Quad). I just kegged a Belgian Pale Ale (sorta) fermented with harvested WLP500. I was planning on focusing on hoppy beers this year and making a deep dive into Belgian beers next year...but I wanted to get my feet wet with a few yeasts this year.
 
CascadesBrewer said:
I am not exactly sure how it fits in with this discussion, but I have been making my way through the back catalog of BeerSmith Podcasts, and this one with Charlie Bamforth on Yeast is very good: http://beersmith.com/blog/2018/01/2...th-dr-charlie-bamforth-beersmith-podcast-164/ Charlie has been an icon in brewing for as long as I can remember.

I am looking forward to learning some things from this thread. I am a huge fan of Belgian beers. I brewed a Saison several years ago and I finally go around to brewing a Dubbel (5 gal split into 2 x 2.5 with WLP500 and WLP530...seemed like a good warm up before moving on to a Dark Strong/Quad). I just kegged a Belgian Pale Ale (sorta) fermented with harvested WLP500. I was planning on focusing on hoppy beers this year and making a deep dive into Belgian beers next year...but I wanted to get my feet wet with a few yeasts this year.
Click to expand...

Here’s the tricky part: Define Belgian.

Red and brown sours? Lambic? Kriek? Gueuze? Saison? Stella? Regional Pale Ales? Trappist? Abbey? Duvel? Chouffe?

It’s a broad term when it comes to beer.
 
RPIScotty said:
Here’s the tricky part: Define Belgian....It’s a broad term when it comes to beer.
Click to expand...

I agree...and part of what has scared me away from Belgian beers. There is a lot of variety and many of the beers are less about ingredients and more about the process. My love is less for the sour/lambic/fruit side of things and more for the Saison/Farmhouse, Single/Trippel/Golden, Dubbel/Quad/Dark Strong beers. One of these days I would love to pull off a St. Bernardus Abt 12.

The Dubbel I recently bottled is based of this recipe: https://beerandbrewing.com/dubbel-entendre-recipe/ (I swapped out the Riverbend Heritage malt for a mix of Vienna and Munich. It seems like a decent beer, but the recipe does not have much of an authentic feel to me. I wimped out and kept my fermentation cool (66F for 3 days of fermentation...after a 2-3 day lag time...then finished out fermentation at 73F). The beer is still too young to tell too much.
 
CascadesBrewer said:
I agree...and part of what has scared me away from Belgian beers. There is a lot of variety and many of the beers are less about ingredients and more about the process. My love is less for the sour/lambic/fruit side of things and more for the Saison/Farmhouse, Single/Trippel/Golden, Dubbel/Quad/Dark Strong beers. One of these days I would love to pull off a St. Bernardus Abt 12.

The Dubbel I recently bottled is based of this recipe: https://beerandbrewing.com/dubbel-entendre-recipe/ (I swapped out the Riverbend Heritage malt for a mix of Vienna and Munich. It seems like a decent beer, but the recipe does not have much of an authentic feel to me. I wimped out and kept my fermentation cool (66F for 3 days of fermentation...after a 2-3 day lag time...then finished out fermentation at 73F). The beer is still too young to tell too much.
Click to expand...

the second beer I ever made was an extract version of a tripel. It wasn't going to win any awards, but it was really good. everybody loved that beer. I made the mistake of writing down what the ingredients were supposed to be instead of what they actually were. I chased that unicorn for years..lol also when I learned about the importance of note taking if you want to duplicate

nothing to be afraid of. the monks are gonna step mash that is true, you don't have to. as has been mentioned here it is mostly about yeast and fermentation
 
I was looking for raw sugars suitable for use in Trappist style ales today, and I saw Demerara, Turbinado, and Sucanat sugar at an Amish bulk foods store we were visiting about 25 miles from my house. Does anyone know the nominal SRM colors traditionally assigned to these raw sugars, and if one of them would be considered better than the others for Trappist ale? Sucanat was definitely darker than the others, but I'm not sure there is much visual difference between Turbinado and Demerara (at least at a small Amish bulk foods store).
 
I did some research and found that (despite often being labeled as "Raw" sugar) both Demerara and Turbinado are for the most part these days made from sugar with molasses added back into it after it has first been high speed centrifuged off. They are both about 99% sugar by weight, vs 99.9% for white table sugar.

Sucanat is pure and raw sugar cane juice that is evaporated, leaving everything in the cane juice to begin with still present sans for the water. It is only 88% as sweet as table sugar on a "pure" white cane sugar basis, weight for weight. It contains cane residue, minerals, and whatever else was in the cane juice to begin with. It appears to be the only 100% natural sugar product on the market today. There is no centrifuging done for Sucanat. Only evaporation.

The sources did not list nominal SRM's though.
 
Silver_Is_Money said:
I did some research and found that (despite often being labeled as "Raw" sugar) both Demerara and Turbinado are for the most part these days made from sugar with molasses added back into it after it has first been high speed centrifuged off. They are both about 99% sugar by weight, vs 99.9% for white table sugar.

Sucanat is pure and raw sugar cane juice that is evaporated, leaving everything in the cane juice to begin with still present sans for the water. It is only 88% as sweet as table sugar on a "pure" white cane sugar basis, weight for weight. It contains cane residue, minerals, and whatever else was in the cane juice to begin with. It appears to be the only 100% natural sugar product on the market today. There is no centrifuging done for Sucanat. Only evaporation.

The sources did not list nominal SRM's though.
Click to expand...

Florida Crystals Turbinado is made from their raw cane sugar and is not just table sugar with molasses added back. It’s one of the 3 sugars I use along with D90 and D180 and is my go to “hard” sugar.
 
RPIScotty said:
Florida Crystals Turbinado is made from their raw cane sugar and is not just table sugar with molasses added back. It’s one of the 3 sugars I use along with D90 and D180 and is my go to “hard” sugar.
Click to expand...

Is it one of these two products:

https://www.floridacrystals.com/product/raw-cane-sugar-pouch
https://www.floridacrystals.com/product/organic-granulated-pouch

Or is it this one:

https://www.floridacrystals.com/product/demerara-cane-sugarpouch

And what SRM (or Lovibond) do you use for it?
 
RPIScotty said:
3787 is the most user friendly Trappist strain available.
Click to expand...

It's a great yeast, but I'd have WY3522 (Ardennes) slightly ahead (but then I generally prefer blonde styles over the darker styles). You can't go wrong with it! Both are definitely more robust than the chimay strain (which I also really like).

My experience with Belgian beers have led me to the following (all based on anecdotal evidence and what has worked, so take it for what it is).....

A 62/71C mash (144F/160F) mash gives a great balance of fermentablity, body, and foam.

Pitch at the cool end of the yeast range, let it free rise to the upper end.

Pitch at normal ale rates. No need for under or over pitching.

Don't leave beer on yeast for too long. I know this will be controversial, but I secondary most of my Belgians. After having a couple of mediocre Belgian style beers that sat on yeast for a few weeks, and reading that most Belgian brewers transfer off yeast ASAP, I started transferring to secondary with a couple of gravity points remaining then dropping the beer to cellar temps as soon as it was at FG, bottling or kegging a couple of weeks later. The results have been fantastic (but not done side-by-side with non-secondary). It's worth noting that I ferment in kegs and transfer under pressure though, so very little oxidation risk.

The next chapter of my Belgian style journey is in sour and funky styles, including lambic. Not really 'Trappist' (apart from Orval) but Belgian none the less. If anyone has tried the Orval method of adding Brett in bottles I'd be really keen to hear something of the outcome!
 
Thanks everyone for the tips.

Gnomebrewer said:
If anyone has tried the Orval method of adding Brett in bottles I'd be really keen to hear something of the outcome!
Click to expand...
Not the "Orval method," but I've added Brett at bottling with great results.

You're welcome to PM me or tag me on a new thread so as not to derail this one.
 
I went to my local WalMart and they were out of the Florida Crystals brand Demerara, but there were enough "raw" sugars on the shelf for me to determine that I was quite wrong in presuming that Turbinado and Demerara are essentially two names for the same sugar. Demerara is noticeably darker than Turbinado. Demerara is roughly midway between Turbinado and Sucanat in darkness.

I passed and told them I'll wait for the Florida Crystals Demerara to be re-stocked, which they claimed will happen on Monday.
 
Silver_Is_Money said:
I went to my local WalMart and they were out of the Florida Crystals brand Demerara, but there were enough "raw" sugars on the shelf for me to determine that I was quite wrong in presuming that Turbinado and Demerara are essentially two names for the same sugar. Demerara is noticeably darker than Turbinado. Demerara is roughly midway between Turbinado and Sucanat in darkness.

I passed and told them I'll wait for the Florida Crystals Demerara to be re-stocked, which they claimed will happen on Monday.
Click to expand...

It’s the best stuff I’ve found. It’s dark enough to mix well with a dark syrup and be distinct yet still light enough for use in Pale Trappists.
 
I have no idea if RPIScotty knows what he's talking about - I've never tasted his beers. BUT, he frames his discussion in a manner that speaks to me - scientific in nature and keeps his recipes fairly simple, driven by proces. Too many posts revolving around styles on this forum end up at "you must do this" or "you do (or don't) want that in your beer" or "that's not in that style" - very off-putting to me.

The one thing I do know - my next Trappist brew will use his process and I'll find out for myself.

Thank you RPIScotty!
 
Last edited:
brownni5 said:
I have no idea if RPIScotty knows what he's talking about - I've never tasted his beers. BUT, he frames his discussion in a manner that speaks to me - scientific in nature and keeps his recipes fairly simple, driven by proces. Too many posts revolving around styles on this forum end up at "you must do this" or "you do (or don't) want that in your beer" or "that's not in that style" - very off-putting to me.

The one thing I do know - my next Trappist brew will use his process and I'll find out for myself.

Thank you RPIScotty!
Click to expand...

That’s what I’m here for!
 
RPh_Guy said:
Thanks everyone for the tips.


Not the "Orval method," but I've added Brett at bottling with great results.

You're welcome to PM me or tag me on a new thread so as not to derail this one.
Click to expand...

I’ve read some interesting things about the Orval method of adding Brett. Certainly should cut down on oxidation. I’m just a little afraid to invite Brett to my brewery
 
Gregory T said:
I’ve read some interesting things about the Orval method of adding Brett. Certainly should cut down on oxidation. I’m just a little afraid to invite Brett to my brewery
Click to expand...
Do you throw out all your equipment after using a diastaticus strain of Sacc? Hopefully not ;)

Brett can be cleaned and sanitized just like any other yeast.
 

Similar threads

Gadjobrinus
Russian Imperial Stout: WLP (Abbey IV) more or less = Wyeast 1762 (both ostensibly Rochefort)?
Replies
6
Views
409
Gadjobrinus
Gadjobrinus
Z
Refermenting a Belgian Tripel
Replies
4
Views
701
Jeroen79
J
S
100% WLP645 Brettanomyces Claussenii or co-pitch
Replies
5
Views
484
Shenanigans
S
J
New guy
Replies
3
Views
235
wallyLOZ
wallyLOZ
luckybeagle
Repitching slurry from lower gravity Dubbel to Quad
Replies
8
Views
727
DuncB
D
CornyKegs 300

Latest posts

Back
Top