Belgian Westy-Roche-quad

[LAXflyguy]

Longtime reader, 1st time poster noob...
After traveling to Belgium, I've been keeping notes for over a year on how to brew the best beer in the world right here at home in Oregon.
I'm pretty confident in the Basic recipe, but as a noob (who of course wants to climb Mt Everest right off the bat), I am still deciphering the differences between old school home brewer (Papazian) theory versus 'can't argue with results

 

[LAXflyguy]

...cont
...can't argue with results (Revvy) experience. Ie, I'm becoming convinced racking to 2ndary is not necessary considering O2 and contamination risks-- especially with a quad style where I want the Belgian yeast character and sweetness traditionally associated with leaving a beer on the yeast cake for extended periods.
My question has to do with clarifying techniques related to the timing of priming for bottle fermentation with added yeast. I'm considering cold crashing after a good long fermentation (2 weeks so far at 79-80deg room temp w/ WYeast TRappist pitched. Want to lv on cake until FG or stall, whenever that is). Assuming FG hit, I'm wondering if cold crashing for a day or two to settle & firm up the yeast/trub will work with THEN wanting to warm the beer up enough to prime/repitch/bottle.
Will the up, down, up, down (primary ferm, cold crash, bottle ferm, bottle conditioning) temp cycle harm the beer any way? Anyone see a better process or something I'm not thinkin 'bout? I don't care how technical or how many steps I need to do-- I'm climbing Everest after all. I just don't want to scale the wrong peak if possible.

 

[TNGabe]

You want to order Brew Like a Monk by Stan Hieronymous, it's about 12$ on amazon. If you've never brewed before, making a dark strong / quad isn't a good idea. You need a ton of yeast and fermentation temperature control or you will have an under attenuated beer with fusel alcohol and other off flavors. Maybe think about making a smaller beer first to practice and build up some yeast.

 

[kingwood-kid]

The ton of yeast thing is easy. To flesh out Gabe's point, 1 smackpack of yeast is the perfect amount of yeast to brew 2-3 gallons of a Belgian table beer like NB's Patersbier, Revvy's Leffe clone or http://ryanbrews.blogspot.com/2010/04/belgian-table-beer.html. You can just use part of the resulting cake to brew the Quad. Even better, it will give you something delicious and seasonally-appropriate to drink while you wait out the Quad. If you can start the Quad under 70 and keep it there 2-3 days, you should be okay. If you add your candi syrup after those 2-3 days, that would help smooth things out as well. Ideally, you'd bulk age your quad for several months, at the end of which you'd add a little fresh yeast and bottle.

Regarding your specific question about the temp cycle. The cycle itself shouldn't harm anything, but primary fermentation at 80 degrees will make your beer a lot hotter/harsher than it should be. If your room temp is 80 (in Portland? Really?), you'll have to add about 5-8 degrees for the effects of the yeast. Look around the forums for a swamp cooler to get your beer to the right temp.

 

[LAXflyguy]

Thanks guys,
BLAM is on order (of course). My brew bud & I are just trying to hit the ground running so we can end up with something quality sooner rather than later.
We've brewed 3 batches so far: extract Trippel (amazing result and cellar aging now-- IF I can stop having one every so often), a Scottish which people seem to like but lacks body to me (attributed to temp getting too high when steeping grains), and a LHBS made up Trappist extract/steep kit where I substituted/added 1lb D2 and dark Belgian candi sugar + some hops substituted for the Tettnanger I couldn't get (Liberty).
We came up with OG of 1.091 from an online calc. Hit 1.088 even though steeped grains too high AGAIN (buying a digital therm for next brew).
Pitched 2 packs of WY3787 (Trappist High Grav) instead of doing a starter. Set in temp controlled 72 deg room and no visible ferm until 4th day. Then went crazy. (I think our pitch temp was too cool due to 1st time immersion chiller use and adding cooled top off water). It's been 2 weeks now and still bubbling away with Krausen on top and room temp up to 79.
From what I've been reading, the Trappist/HG yeasts like higher temps and this one seems to just keep going in the warmer range.
Our plan is to check gravity once bubbles get to less than 1-5/min. If I recall, I think we're shooting for a FG of in the 1.008-.011 range. That would be about 8-11%ABV, right? (He's the math guy, I'm the chef).
Then we figured to skip racking to secondary, possibly cold crash for clarity after FG hit, pitch a small dose of harvested yeast (2 days after reviving it) & corn sugar for bottling. Then leave bottles in very warm room for 2 weeks again, and then cellar condition for at least 2 months before trying.
(Deeeep breath...)
One question that came up for me: since I know we didn't convert all (or many) sugars due to our high steep temp, there will be excessive starches in the finished beer. Besides for clarity (which isn't too big a deal in dark quads not entering in competitions), is there any treatment that can be done to fine out the starches? Or do I 'got what I got' now?