Hey all, just an update on this beer. I modified the recipe a little over a month ago, and submitted the results to the Iowa State Fair oenology competition. It was under the 20 - Fruit Beer category. Scored a 35 out of 50 for the BJCP score, and ended up getting second place! Here's the recipe:
2 1/2 gallons of water for the boil
Steep .20 lbs of Crystal 80 for 30 minutes, then bring to a boil.
7 pounds Muntons light DME (60 minute)
1 oz Columbus (60 minute)
1 oz Cascade (30 minute)
1 oz Amarillo (2 minute)
Cool, bring to 5 gallons volume in the fermenter. OG should be somewhere around 1.062 or so.
Add Wyeast 3787 Trappist High Gravity yeast.
Allow to ferment for about a week. I transferred when the gravity got to about 1.014. The Trappist High Gravity is super quick and an almost violent fermentation, so consider a blowoff tube. I was fine in the primary, but things got crazy in the secondary fermentor.
I bought ~3lbs of fresh apricots from the local grocery store. Washed them off, removed the pits, then pureed them up. Put the resulting puree in a pot, and brought the temperature carefully up to about 170F. Held it there for 10 minutes, then cooled using an ice bath. Once the temp was below 80F, I transferred the beer from primary to secondary and carefully poured the apricot puree in and airlocked the secondary. This was a mistake, because the secondary fermentation also became very vigorous. I'll just say a blow off tube is mandatory unless you have a lot of headroom.
I let this sit for another week, then bottled when the FG was about 1.012. Came out amazingly. Very heavy mouthfeel, and kinda similar to Blue Moon for density, but the flavors are very complex and delicious
Waiting to hear back what the judges comments were, so there may be some additional tweaking coming.
Full results of the Iowa State Fair can be found at:
http://iowabrewersunion.net/
