Belgian Tripel extract

[smadaus]

So about 4 months ago, I brewed the Belgian Tripel extract kit from Northern Brewer. I just drank the first one of the batch and when pouring noticed that the color was off. It's darker than I expected and has an alcohol taste even though it came out to be only 7.5ish %. Is it possible that it just needs to age a little longer in the bottle? What can I do in the future to improve color and flavor?
Thanks.

 

[JBone120]

I'm no expert by any means, so I'll give you my guess, and maybe some other more experienced can chime in. If you can list your ingredients and procedure, it might help you get a clearer answer too.

I noticed when doing extract kits that whenever possible, adding extracts later in the boil helped to keep the color more accurate. This might be especially true if doing partial volume boils with top off water. If you were using LME, then removing from heat when stirring it in and making sure it is completely dissolved and mixed in might also help. Since it is a tripel, I would imagine that it is not hop heavy, so I believe the later boil malt additions shouldn't affect your hops much.

As for the alcohol flavor, I'm not sure to be honest, but I would probably let it age a bit more.

Hope this might help some, and if I'm just totally off, then we'll both learn something.

 

[ballsy]

Darker color is due to extract. Try and add at flame out to prevent it.
Hot alcohol flavor after 4 mths?? Likely from fermenting too warm. I had an extract triple I did few yrs ago that people loved, brewed in Sept and started drinking thanksgiving through Xmas. Big beers take longer but I wouldn't think you should still have that taste after 4 mths.

 

[smadaus]

I brewed a partial boil and did a water addition at the end. I used filtered tap water which I think might be part of the flavor issues. I plan to switch back to bottled water to see if I get a different result. I boiled for a little more than and hour (not much longer). I did the flame out when adding LME to prevent scorching. I did a cold water bath to cool and pitched a yeast starter. Primary for 2 weeks, secondary for 2 months 3 weeks, and bottled conditioned (added 5 oz. of priming sugar plus bottling yeast) for 3 weeks. Everything I am hearing is too let it age for a lot longer than 3 weeks but I figured it would look and taste a bit better after it was fully carbonated.

What do you guys think about the filtered tap water? I have not had my water tested so I was just hoping that filtering it would help.

 

[JBone120]

So far, I've only used tap water. I haven't really studied water chemistry and all that. I do use a Campden tablet though, as it will remove chlorine and chloramine (so I'm told) and i"m not sure what's in my water.

Most of my beers have turned out pretty good, and the couple that haven't, I can pinpoint errors in my process, so I guess I might be lucky with tap water.

From what I've learned, a healthy yeast pitch and controlled fermentation temps are great places to start, if you're looking to take your brewing up a notch. Yeast starters can be made easily (lots of threads here about it) and there are some great ideas for easy DIY fermentation chambers. I think once you have your fermentation down (temp and pitching rate), it makes sense to start looking at things like your water, assuming your water doesn't start off tasting like a**.

Check out mrmalty.com to get great info on yeast starters and pitching rates.

 

[dand]

For the darker colour, like others have said, try to add most of your extract at the end of the boil, or else it will generally be darker.

For the alcohol taste definitely let it age and see. The tripel I made was around 9%, so it won't be quite the same, but it was just like you are describing at first, and it took a good 8-10 months to age and mellow out, but it went from "I can drink it" to being something that I keep a bottle in the fridge at all times to show off because everyone who tries it likes it.
If you fermented it on the warm side you could also be getting some of the alcohol snap from the yeast as well. Either way, put it away somewhere and forget about it for a few months and it might surprise you how good it turns out.

I also use filtered tap water (brita with a new filter) and I haven't had any trouble with off flavours (that I can detect anyway).

 

[Light80]

So about 4 months ago, I brewed the Belgian Tripel extract kit from Northern Brewer. I just drank the first one of the batch and when pouring noticed that the color was off. It's darker than I expected and has an alcohol taste even though it came out to be only 7.5ish %. Is it possible that it just needs to age a little longer in the bottle? What can I do in the future to improve color and flavor?
Thanks.

I am in the process of brewing this exact same extract, it's been sitting in the secondary for a little over two weeks now. I noticed that the color was darker than originally expected but I compared the color to Adelbert's Triple B (Bad Boy Brew) and it's inline with it. So I am not overly concered about the color as it may have been misrepresented on the Northern Brewer website.

Hopefully your flavor will even out as it ages.

 

[d3track]

You still didn't give your fermentation temp. With higher alcohol, yeast strain, pitch rate, and fermentation temperatures become very, VERY important.

 

[mrgoodlife]

I agree with others that time in the bottle will help. I have a triple that's been in the bottle nearly a year. It started a little hot after it was first bottled but now is drinking really well.

 

[RM-MN]

I am in the process of brewing this exact same extract, it's been sitting in the secondary for a little over two weeks now. I noticed that the color was darker than originally expected but I compared the color to Adelbert's Triple B (Bad Boy Brew) and it's inline with it. So I am not overly concered about the color as it may have been misrepresented on the Northern Brewer website.

Hopefully your flavor will even out as it ages.

It is quite common for extract recipes to turn out darker than their all grain counterparts. Some of this will come from the process of making the extract and some will come from your boiling of the malt extract as the boiling itself will cause the wort to darken through the Maillard reaction. Adding a small amount of malt extract at the beginning of the boil when you add the bittering hops and the majority in the last few minutes will reduce this darkening. The beer will also look darker in the fermenter than in the glass as more light is absorbed. Northern Brewers picture is probably from an all grain batch and they wouldn't have a separate picture for extract batches.