dhutchings
Well-Known Member
On August 5th, I brewed the Westmalle Tripel clone from BYO's 250 clones recipe book. I did the partial extract with grains option as I'm not set up for AG just yet.
Bottled on August 25th, left in my cold room to bottle condition until today...10 weeks down the line.
I just cracked the first one.
It's definitely well carbonated - a decent sized head that dissipated after a minute or so that left a lot of lacing around the glass. I don't remember Westmalle's taste because it's been a long time since I've had a real one but this one has a bit of a yeasty, spicy nose to it, light amber in colour, almost orange. It's a bit sweet to taste but there's also a sharp tanginess to it from the spice flavour, possibly a bit of the alcohol - though there's not a real alcohol burn, it's a gentle warming. Very clean, dry aftertaste.
I'm heading to Buffalo this weekend (from Toronto) and apparently there's a great beer store near Amherst that's got Westmalle Tripel permanently in stock so I'm going to bring a few back over the border with me so I can A-B 'em. But so far I like what I'm tasting with my clone effort!
I don't know if it's cool to post the BYO recipe here, so if not...let me know and I'll remove it. But here's what I used:
2 lbs Pilsner Malt
3 lbs Light DME
3.9 lbs Light LME (a can and a bit)
2 lbs Light Belgian Candi sugar
1.9 oz Styrian Golding Hops
.75 oz Tettnang hops
.75 oz Saaz Hops
I got an OG of 1.070 (should have had 1.080 - but I did a 2.5 gallon boil and topped up afterwards so the numbers are a little screwy) and an FG of 1.014. If I use the recipe's stated OG, that puts me at about 8.8%ABV
Bottled on August 25th, left in my cold room to bottle condition until today...10 weeks down the line.
I just cracked the first one.
It's definitely well carbonated - a decent sized head that dissipated after a minute or so that left a lot of lacing around the glass. I don't remember Westmalle's taste because it's been a long time since I've had a real one but this one has a bit of a yeasty, spicy nose to it, light amber in colour, almost orange. It's a bit sweet to taste but there's also a sharp tanginess to it from the spice flavour, possibly a bit of the alcohol - though there's not a real alcohol burn, it's a gentle warming. Very clean, dry aftertaste.
I'm heading to Buffalo this weekend (from Toronto) and apparently there's a great beer store near Amherst that's got Westmalle Tripel permanently in stock so I'm going to bring a few back over the border with me so I can A-B 'em. But so far I like what I'm tasting with my clone effort!
I don't know if it's cool to post the BYO recipe here, so if not...let me know and I'll remove it. But here's what I used:
2 lbs Pilsner Malt
3 lbs Light DME
3.9 lbs Light LME (a can and a bit)
2 lbs Light Belgian Candi sugar
1.9 oz Styrian Golding Hops
.75 oz Tettnang hops
.75 oz Saaz Hops
I got an OG of 1.070 (should have had 1.080 - but I did a 2.5 gallon boil and topped up afterwards so the numbers are a little screwy) and an FG of 1.014. If I use the recipe's stated OG, that puts me at about 8.8%ABV