mash questions for belgian triple

[Patirck]

I am about to start my 3rd AG brew. This is a Triple Karmeleit clone (I hope).

The recipe is:

8 lbs. German 2-row Pils
.5 lbs. Belgian Cara-Pils
3 lbs. Belgian Wheat Malt
.25 lbs. Belgian Aromatic
2.0 lbs. Cane Sugar
2.0 lbs. Oats Flaked
2.0 oz. Tettnanger (Pellets, 4.0 %AA) boiled 60 min.
.5 oz. Styrian Goldings (Pellets, 4.6 %AA) boiled 15 min.
.5 oz. Styrian Goldings (Pellets, 4.6 %AA) boiled 4 min.
.5 oz. Czech Saaz (Whole, 5.00 %AA) boiled 4 min.
0.5 teaspoons Coriander, crushed 15 min (not included in calculations)
0.5 teaspoons Coriander, crushed 4 min (not included in calculations)
2.0 ounces Sweet orange peel (not included in calculations)
1 tablet Whirlfloc (not included in calculations)
1 teaspoons yeast nutrient (not included in calculations)
Yeast : White Labs WLP500 Trappist Ale info


There are no instructions for this and I"m curious as to how I would guestimate mash temp and time and sparge temp and time. I'm not really sure how time/temp affects wort color/taste/head retention etc..

 

[944play]

Well, you have Carapils, wheat, and oats in there so the head should float a freakin' Krugerrand. I'd just do a single infusion @150ºF for 90min and maybe a mashout to 165. Boil for 90 too....

 

[Patirck]

I'm still getting the hang of this:

By single infusion - should I put all the water in at once - no sparge?
When you say mashout to 165, what does that mean?

I get the boil for 90 minute thing though.

 

[mrk305]

I'm still getting the hang of this:

By single infusion - should I put all the water in at once - no sparge?
When you say mashout to 165, what does that mean?

I get the boil for 90 minute thing though.

When you sparge you increase the grain temp to 165, so your sparge water should be around 175ish.

 

[BA_from_GA]

single infusion is bascially one consistent temperature for your entire mash. The mash out is raising the temp to 165 to stop/slow the enzymes that are converting starches to sugars once your mash is done (or conversion is complete). This is typically done by adding hot water to increase your mash temp. (check out www.rackers.org/calcs.shtml for a calculator to tell you how much water to add and what temp to add it)

I love the tripel karmeleit, its a fantastic beer. From that grain bill (assuming its a 5 gal batch) i'd be curious as to weather or not I'd reach a high enough SG to get the 8.4% abv that the tripel has.

let us know how it turns out.

 

[Gregscsu]

Mash @ 149-150 for 60 min.
Sparge at 168.
Boil for 70 minutes.
There is no real reason to boil longer as there is very little pils malt in the recipe and DMS should not be an issue.

Another note: Calculate your recipe so that you end with 4.5 gallons in the carboy, once fermentation dies down boil the 2lbs corn sugar in 0.4 gallons of water, cool, and add to the fermenter. This process will help to ensure that the yeast make it all the way through the fermentation and give you a nice dry fully attenuated belgian. Adding the simple sugars after fermentation is called a kicker.

 

[944play]

There is no real reason to boil longer as there is very little pils malt in the recipe and DMS should not be an issue.

58% of the grist is Pilsner! I'll spend the extra 20 minutes on a beer that might take 20 weeks of tank space myself.

 

[Patirck]

From that grain bill (assuming its a 5 gal batch) i'd be curious as to weather or not I'd reach a high enough SG to get the 8.4% abv that the tripel has.

let us know how it turns out.

According to beer calculus - I'm at 9.6% - a bit too high.

http://hopville.com/recipe/269254/belgian-tripel-recipes/karmeleit-klone

I still have to update the mash process.

 

[Patirck]

Using beer calculus - if I knock down the cane suguar to 1 lb, I get an og of 1.083 and an fg of 1.018. Not that I'm a slave to style, but the fg is still a bit high for a triple. How can get the fg down a bit?

 

[Malticulous]

With a 90 minute mash and 13% sugar the FG will be much lower than calculated.

I'd mash at 145 for 45 minutes, then 156 for another 30. That will produce a very fermentable wort.

 

[Gregscsu]

58% of the grist is Pilsner! I'll spend the extra 20 minutes on a beer that might take 20 weeks of tank space myself.

8 lbs. German 2-row Pils
.5 lbs. Belgian Cara-Pils

Missed that pils there.

Yea, you want to boil 90 minutes.

 

[Patirck]

Is there some sort of calculation for time versus temperature versus grain versus water volume?

 

[944play]

No, but since we all like our tripels pretty dry, we're not going to load them with crystal malts; instead we add simple sugar and mash low and long to get the maximum fermentability out of the grain.

Kaiser has done some experiments on the effects of mash parameters on fermentability:
http://braukaiser.com/wiki/index.ph...ity_and_efficiency_in_single_infusion_mashing

 

[Patirck]

Question about adding the sugar - should this be added to the grain when I mash or should I wait until the boil?

 

[Patirck]

OK - I"m going to make this in an hour or so and I want to make sure I got this right:

Adding 4.92 gallons at 163* strike temp to MLT
I then pour in the grains and stir to make sure there are no clumps
I let it do its thing for 90 minute occasionally stiring
I then drain and vorlauf (pour the runnings back over the grainbed)
Once I've done the vorlauf thing a few times I should see less stuff in the runnings - I then drain all that will come out to the boiling pot
I add 1.9 gallons at 175* to the MLT and stir
Wait 15 minutes then drain

I am unsure about the stiring part when I add the sparge water - this is my 3rd time dong AG and the first two may not have turned out so well so I am trying to improve my technique.

 

[944play]

Question about adding the sugar - should this be added to the grain when I mash or should I wait until the boil?

In the last 15 minutes of the boil or in the fermenter (boil the sugar into a simple syrup and add as kraeusen is falling). I prefer fermenter because I don't have to up my pitch.

 

[JuanMoore]

OK - I"m going to make this in an hour or so and I want to make sure I got this right:

Adding 4.92 gallons at 163* strike temp to MLT
I then pour in the grains and stir to make sure there are no clumps
I let it do its thing for 90 minute occasionally stiring
I then drain and vorlauf (pour the runnings back over the grainbed)
Once I've done the vorlauf thing a few times I should see less stuff in the runnings - I then drain all that will come out to the boiling pot
I add 1.9 gallons at 175* to the MLT and stir
Wait 15 minutes then drain

I am unsure about the stiring part when I add the sparge water - this is my 3rd time dong AG and the first two may not have turned out so well so I am trying to improve my technique.

Sounds pretty good, but I wouldn't stir occasionally during the mash. Just stir really well in the beginning, and then let it do its thing and it will hold temp much better. Do stir again when you add your sparge water, and vorlauf again before draining the sparge water.

 

[Patirck]

OK - so I am in the process of making it so far:

Mashed for 90 minutes at 152 with 5.5 gallons
Mash out for 20 minutes at 165 with 4 gallons

SG reading preboil of 1.065 which according to brewhouse efficiency calculator puts me at 79%!

A few notes - I messed up the calculations for amount of mash water - I was including the weight of the sugar so I added about 2.5 quarts too much. I made up for this by reducing the sparge volume by about that much - I know I probably screwed up the chemistry somewhere because of this.

I ended up with a bigger preboil volume than expected due to the above screw up - I got 7.4 gallons. I will probably end up boiling for longer than 90 minutes to make up for this. I am going to wait until the volume is at 6 - 6.25 gallons before I add my first hops.

 

[Patirck]

Sounds pretty good, but I wouldn't stir occasionally during the mash. Just stir really well in the beginning, and then let it do its thing and it will hold temp much better. Do stir again when you add your sparge water, and vorlauf again before draining the sparge water.

I didn't get the message in time - mash is done. I stirred twice during the 90 minutes but let it rest for the last 30 minutes.

I also volaufed but when it was time to put the wort in the boil pot I ran the hose from the mlt through a hop bag (fine nylon mesh). This seems to remove some very fine stuff and makes for clearer wort. I did this process for both the mash and the sparge.