Belgian Tripel Belgian Trippel (2006 World Beer Cup Gold Medal: Dragonmead Final Absolution clone)

[zamo27]

I did this Thursday and made a starter from wlp 500
I hit my numbers spot on
One problem though
I used one vial for the starter
It's Mother's Day weekend and paddies day rolled into one so I have no way of getting more yeast till Wednesday if not Thursday (today is Saturday)

The beer sits nicely at 20*C but there is no movement in the air lock

What's your advice?

 

[fun4stuff]

I did this Thursday and made a starter from wlp 500
I hit my numbers spot on
One problem though
I used one vial for the starter
It's Mother's Day weekend and paddies day rolled into one so I have no way of getting more yeast till Wednesday if not Thursday (today is Saturday)

The beer sits nicely at 20*C but there is no movement in the air lock

What's your advice?

Did you really make a yeast starter? A starter is usually 1-2L of 1.040 wort started a few days ahead of time that is added to the main 5 gallon batch after it cools. You normally only use one yeast vial for starters.

Do you mean you just added 1 yeast vial to main 5 gallons of wort? If so, it should probably still work but is not optimal and may take lnger. Give it a couple days. Check SG after a few days if you still don't see bubbles in the airlock.

 

[zamo27]

Wednesday I took out the yeast from the fridge and left it outside at room temp

Thursday I did 1L of boiled water and some DME and got 1010
I added the yeast and started making the beer

Thursday very very late that night(11pm +) I pitched and went home
That's me doing a starter!
I know it's wrong I was feeling brave

 

[fun4stuff]

Wednesday I took out the yeast from the fridge and left it outside at room temp

Thursday I did 1L of boiled water and some DME and got 1010
I added the yeast and started making the beer

Thursday very very late that night(11pm +) I pitched and went home
That's me doing a starter!
I know it's wrong I was feeling brave

give it a couple days. then check sg if no airlock activity.

 

[mike-c]

Just finished boiling batch #2 of this. First batch was my favourite beer we've made so far (and one of my favourite tripels I've had). Highly suggested for anyone browsing that enjoys a Belgian doubel/tripel. I had to use Tettnanger at 30 and 3 this time due to store stock so I am interested if this will provide much different in flavour. It is such a well rounded beer that I imagine it won't be much different.

 

[ahariton]

I'm entering the all grain recipe from page 7 into beer smith and am only getting an estimated 24.1 IBU versus the estimated 35.3 from the recipe.

Anyone else have this issue?

 

[fun4stuff]

I'm entering the all grain recipe from page 7 into beer smith and am only getting an estimated 24.1 IBU versus the estimated 35.3 from the recipe.

Anyone else have this issue?

Not sure about the version posted on page 7 but the IBUs should be in low - mid 20s for FA.

 

[ahariton]

Finally got to try this beer last night.

In a word: AMAZING!

By far my favorite beer I've brewed to date.

Sadly I don't think my 5 gallon batch is going to last very long. Will definitely be making this again.

Thanks for the recipe and all of the discussion in this thread.

 

[HiImBrian]

DONE! Just read all 67 pages over the course of a couple days. If you read back 5 pages you should have most of your questions answered.

A few notes:
- Page 7 is the AG recipe
- Candi sugar can be homemade to save a few bucks. Some people add a few days after they pitch their yeast, but there's a respectful arguement on why not to do that in the first 20 pages somewhere. After going through every page in this thread I will be adding it at the last 10 mins of the boil.
https://joshthebrewmaster.wordpress.com/2010/11/27/how-to-make-belgian-candi-sugar/
- This beer gets better with age.
- Make a starter
- Saaz hops are supposably the actual hops used in the original Dragonmead
- Recommended to add some Cara Pils to give it some head retention and mouth feel.


Questions:
1) Where the heck are all my 10 gallon brewers at?! I haven't seen a single person brew 10 gallons of this yet! With this getting such good reviews and requiring some time to age, I will definitely be brewing 10 gallons!..assuming I can fit the whole grain bill in my cooler haha.

2) Starters...lots of people are talking about making a single starter for a 5 gallon batch. Any recommendations on what size starter I should be doing if I double?

 

[bluemoose]

Mr malty can answer that.

 

[HiImBrian]

^ Cool thanks! I actually used a Wyeast calculator online that was way easier than I had expected. Looks like I wanna shoot for about 18 million cells/ml and if I step up two packs twice I will land just about right on the money for an 11 gallon batch!

 

[ahariton]

My 2nd time brewing this. Unfortunately friends showed up early = started drinking too early in the brew day.

Good news: hit pre-boil volume exactly.

Bad news: Expected pre-boil gravity 1.072. Actual 1.052. WTF?

Whatever - added a little over 2 lbs of DME....moving on

Only when already had the chiller going did I realize two major errors:


1. Forgot to back out the :15 late addition 2 lbs of Simplicity candy syrup out of the Beer Smith recipe when calculating pre-boil gravity - that explains pre-boil gravity being so far off.

2. Forgot to add the 2 lbs of Simplicity as a : 15 late addition. (Actually it's probably a good thing I forgot the addition since I had already added 2 lbs of DME)

Oh well....Curious how this will turn out with the DME instead of the sugar.

Worst case scenario..I brewed beer.....

 

[HiImBrian]

I brewed this on 6/14 with an OG of 1.102. I just racked to secondary because I wasn't getting any action from the bubbler for days and my gravity is currently sitting at 1.050. Should I go ahead and pitch more yeast?

I brewed a 5 gallon batch and pitched two packs of Belgian Strong 1388 that I made a starter with and stepped up. I'm thinking I may have made some errors during the starter phase because I should have had way more than enough to rip through this beer.

 

[bolus14]

What size starter did you make? What temps are you fermenting at? May just need to raise them a little and gently stir the yeast up.

 

[HiImBrian]

I put two Smackpacks in with a cup of DME and qt of water, then pitched just the slurry into my 5 gallons wort. Fermented the first 5-6 days at like 74F then moved the carboy and was like 68F. It had a wild first few days then slowed down. I shook it once or twice.

 

[Br3wb1e]

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[bluemoose]

I agree!

 

[HiImBrian]

Uhh yes...On that note, I ended up adding another smack pack and moving this to a warmer spot and it seems to be bubbling again. I think I'm going to barrel age this in my bourbon barrel once it's ready.

 

[wallybangbang]

Thanks OP. Been trolling for a while and finally joined up. Brewed this three times now, turned out awesome each time!

 

[tloveland]

Just brewed this today. Starting gravity is 1.092

View attachment 1441657894427.jpg

 

[tloveland]

An interesting thing is happening...about 5 hours after pitching the yeast, I checked on the carboy and it looked like this. The small section on top is fermenting, while the rest of the wort remains inactive.

It's been about 4 hours now since I took the picture, and it still looks the same but maybe an inch deeper into the wort. Has anyone ever seen this type of separation of fermenting liquid in their wort before?

EDIT: Looked fine the next day. Still weird though.

View attachment 1441685359595.jpg

 

[tommybrew]

Sorry if this has been mentioned in the other 69 pages, but can someone quickly lay out when to add the malts? Should I add them all at once and bring to a boil or do they go in at different times? I'm new to brewing, I've done about 8 or 9 batches from kits with specific instructions, and this will be my first attempt at a 3rd party recipe that isn't completely idiot proof. Thanks in advance.

 

[bolus14]

Sorry if this has been mentioned in the other 69 pages, but can someone quickly lay out when to add the malts? Should I add them all at once and bring to a boil or do they go in at different times? I'm new to brewing, I've done about 8 or 9 batches from kits with specific instructions, and this will be my first attempt at a 3rd party recipe that isn't completely idiot proof. Thanks in advance.

Have you done all grain kits before? If not a tripel isn't the best place to start. Also, to answer your question the grains all get mashed together, not boiled, but if you've only done extract you haven't had to do that step and may want research all grain brewing a bit.

 

[tommybrew]

Have you done all grain kits before? If not a tripel isn't the best place to start. Also, to answer your question the grains all get mashed together, not boiled, but if you've only done extract you haven't had to do that step and may want research all grain brewing a bit.

He listed the extract recipe towards the bottom of the original post, so I was just going to go off of that.

Extract:
3 x 3.3lbs Pilsner Light malt extract LME
1 x 1lbs Amber DME
1 x 1.5lbs Belgian Candy
12.4 total pounds of fermentables

Hops: (IBU came out at 23 but you can range from 20 to 25)
2 oz. German Hallertau 3.8%AA 60min
1 oz. Styrian Goldings 3.4% AA 30min
1 oz. Saaz 2.8% AA 3min

Yeast:
2 x WLP500 Trappist Ale Yeast

 

[bolus14]

Sorry about that. Thought this was a different recipe when I replied.

 

[tommybrew]

No worries. I think it was originally an AG recipe and then later converted.

 

[HuRRiC4Ne]

No worries. I think it was originally an AG recipe and then later converted.

Sorry, the original post is locked for me. So I can't go back and edit and add more information ... Anyways, it was originally an AG that I did, then I converted it to extract to make easier. I had some very good results, and thought I came close to Dragonmead, since I lived closed to the place and was a big fan of it. I was just happy to nail down something simple that others could do, then shared it out.

A few post down when someone asked for the AG I had. But it was just a rough set of ingredients.

 

[stever1000]

deleted

 

[stever1000]

What size starter would be best from one vial of yeast?

Is 69F from the orig post "the" temperature for this beer? I have a ferm chamber to control the temperature, so what is the ideal temperature (or temperatureS) to get the most out of the yeast?
Thanks!

 

[slohiker]

What size starter would be best from one vial of yeast?

Is 69F from the orig post "the" temperature for this beer? I have a ferm chamber to control the temperature, so what is the ideal temperature (or temperatureS) to get the most out of the yeast?
Thanks!

So, I made this about a year ago, and while my recollection is hazy, I think I used a yeast calculator and went with about 2 quart starter made with one vial, which undershot the amount needed for 'probrewer' setting, as I figured two smack packs undershot as well.
For temp with wlp 500, I followed Jamil's rec's on brewing a triple, started at 65, and raising it to 72 (the highest recommended on white labs website) over one week. I aerated that wort like there was no tomorrow, and it fermented out pretty dry, with amazing fruit flavors. My brother in law lived near Belgium for a while and said it reminded him of Tripel Karmeliet, which he had a lot of. He said it tasted similar but with less banana aroma and flavor, and said it was better in his opinion (and he's been honest when my beers haven't turned out nearly as good).

All in all, a very solid brew, one of the best I've made to date.