Pannepot (Old Fisherman's Ale) Clone Thread

[CSI - CandiSyrup]

Clear candi rock is totally pointless, just add granulated sugar (Since_Uuz_Up can back me up on this).

Absolutely, clear "Belgian" rock candi is only partially inverted and the net difference to table sucrose is minimal. Adding either table sugar or rock candy to beer is tricky. Too much and it can slow your attenuation. In medium or low gravity beers its effect isn't noticed as much, however, in high gravity ales, (like this group is becoming known for), initial fermentation times are key to the recipe. A slowed down yeast becomes ineffective but 4% rock sugar sounds well within limits.

 

[kappajoe]

I my experience... you don't have to worry about sugar until you get in the 15-17% or higher range.
Our 8-10% should not slow down the yeast in this brew...

I plan on adding the Piloncillo cane sugar at the beginning of the boil and the D-180 towards the end.

 

[CSI - CandiSyrup]

I my experience... you don't have to worry about sugar until you get in the 15-17% or higher range.
Our 8-10% should not slow down the yeast in this brew...

I plan on adding the Piloncillo cane sugar at the beginning of the boil and the D-180 towards the end.

Yes, agreed, however, we show some slowdown at about 10% pure sucrose. Partial invert (Belgian rock) should be fine up to 15%.

 

[Tall_Yotie]

So, is there any actual reason to add cane sugar? I think 2lb of candi syrup, mix of d180 and d90 should do it. Maybe candi sugar = syrup and can sugar = rock candi for what the label says?

If you can tell me a good reason to go with actual cane sugar, by all means please let me know.

 

[saq]

It just increases the level of attenuation of the beer, no flavor is added. For this beer I really don't think it is necessary unless we get some more specific brewing instructions from Urbain like he mashes at 160f and can only get his FG by these fermentables.
In any case candi syrup will increase attenuation just like cane sugar but it also increases flavor, so whats what I'm going with.
1lbs D90 and 1lbs D180 added at flameout for me.

 

[Tall_Yotie]

Hit up the LHBS today, got my ingredients. Here is my recipe:

batch size: 5.25g
OG: 1.100
FG: 1.025 (hopefully)

12 Belgian Pilsner
4 German Pilsner
1/2 Belgian Special B
1/4 Flaked Maize
1/8 Carafa II
1/8 Chocolate Malt
1/8 Pale Chocolate Malt
1 Candi Syrup D180
1 Candi Syrup D90

2.0 oz Kent Goldings 45min
1.0 oz Hallertau 45min

spices added @2min:
5.0g fresh orange peel
3.0g cracked coriander
1.0g cracked cinnamon stick
1.0g dried thyme

T-58 Yeast

Mash at 156F

Going with the 156F as I had a brew go from 1.112 to 1.030 with a healthy starter of WLP013 (London Ale Yeast) at 154F mash. So, wanting to make sure I don't dry out too much.

 

[CSI - CandiSyrup]

This will be our maiden recipe. We'll hopefully brew this Friday.

OG 1.100
FG 1.025
IBU 27
SRM 35

16.0 Dingeman’s Belgian Pils
0.10 Carafa II
0.15 Franco-Belges Kiln Coffee
0.15 Fawcett Pale Chocolate
0.50 Belgian Special B
0.25 Flaked Maize
1.50 D-180 Candi Syrup

2.0z Bramling Cross (45 min)
1.0z Hallaertau Mittelfruh (10 min)

(Spice tea in 8 oz water - 2 minute boil)
3.0g Cracked Coriander seed
5.0g Fresh Orange Peel
1.0g Cracked Cinnamon stick
1.0g Fresh Thyme

T-58 (4 packs)

Protein rest 15 min 122F. Mash at 156F 70 min.

 

[Tall_Yotie]

I brewed this up last night, and went pretty damned good.

Hit 75% efficiency, which I am happy with for a 17lb grain bill with batch sparging.

As for the spices; I measured them at work using a high precision scale so I know they are +/-0.005 grams. The blend of all the spices together smells AMAZING. It all blends together beautifully, and no single spice seemed to be dominant. 1g of thyme looks like a lot, but it is not, and as my wife reminded me there was a savory aspect to Pannepot. She has a great nose and is all about loose leaf teas, and she was really excited about it. Even if the spices end up being a bit heavy (no idea yet), it is a good thing.

The hydrometer sample for brew at this time usually just tastes grainy and sweet, not all that appealing (why then do I taste it? Force of habit probably). This did as well, but had some pleasant notes already from the candi syrup and the spices.

And for SUU's CandiSyrup.com's materials; seemed that just straight the d-90 has similar taste to the standard D2 Syrup you get at the LHBS. The D-180 had a similar flavor, but seemed to be a different type of sweet. Again, this is before it is brewed and in concentrated form, probably should have made a tea of it to really get a feel.

Beer Kid (as my wife calls it) is happily bubbling away at me when I woke up this morning.

My temperature control is going to be just blankets wrapped around the carboy unless I seem to be loosing the temperature ramp battle. Hopefully I can just let this guy ride, as doing temp control for me (for hot) is only doable with putting the carboy in my cooler mash tun with warm water, which is not good with a back that decided recently to have 2 re-herniated disks.

I will probably obsessively be updating on here regarding what the brew is doing in reference to Temp and SG.

So excited! Really looking forward to getting this finished up and sampled. Thanks again to Saq for the inspiration, Since_Uuz_Up for the syrup and being my recipe-buddy, my wife as my assistant brewer, the other fellows brewing this along-side us all with help on recipes and providing/receiving feedback, and last but definitely not least The Mad Fermentationist (Old Sock) for the original recipe, inspiration and source of insight and knowledge.

 

[Tall_Yotie]

Well, 20hrs later and the brew is from 66F up to 79F. Unwrapped the blankets around it, hopefully it won't try to heat up any more. If it does, I will just let it do its things.

SUU, you get up to brewing this last Friday?

 

[CSI - CandiSyrup]

Well, 20hrs later and the brew is from 66F up to 79F. Unwrapped the blankets around it, hopefully it won't try to heat up any more. If it does, I will just let it do its things.

SUU, you get up to brewing this last Friday?

Sadly we didn't. There was just too much going on to get to the fun stuff. We're shooting for next weekend...maybe Saturday It sounds like you're off to a great start. How many packs of T-58 did you pitch?

 

[Tall_Yotie]

Sadly we didn't. There was just too much going on to get to the fun stuff. We're shooting for net weekend...maybe Saturday It sounds like you're off to a great start. How many packs of T-58 did you pitch?

2 packs of 11.5g, re-hydrated.

The brew got up to about 81 last night, is back down to 79/78 this morning. That is according to a thermresistor taped to the side, so not terribly accurate (probably a little low), but a good guide. I am just letting it do its thing. The blow off is driving my wife slowly insane, it can be heard everywhere in the apartment.

 

[Tall_Yotie]

Current Report:

00hr = 65F-ish; SG = 1.100
24hr = 81F-ish
48hr = 74F-ish; SG = 1.035

Been unwrapping bucket at the 80's, then wrapped back up. Shook the bucket around. Took an SG reading, and replaced the blow off with a standard air lock. I am at 1 bubble every 3 seconds. I figure that at that rate I should be able to easily get to the 10.030-1.025 FG range.

 

[CSI - CandiSyrup]

Current Report:

00hr = 65F-ish; SG = 1.100
24hr = 81F-ish
48hr = 74F-ish; SG = 1.035

Been unwrapping bucket at the 80's, then wrapped back up. Shook the bucket around. Took an SG reading, and replaced the blow off with a standard air lock. I am at 1 bubble every 3 seconds. I figure that at that rate I should be able to easily get to the 10.030-1.025 FG range.

Tall, that looks like very rapid attenuation. Do you think it's going too fast? What was your O2 treatment?

 

[Tall_Yotie]

My O2 treatment is the good ol' fashioned "pour it from up on high" method. So a tall pour to aerate it. Every 12hr or so I have given the carboy a good shake to rouse up the yeast. At some point I should get more advanced about this as I find myself brewing big beers more often these days.

I don't think it is going to fast to be honest. This means I will get some good yeasty esters, and as I mashed at 156F the yeast is flying fast so will barrel through a lot of the sugars. The hydrometer sample tasted amazing, which is rare for such a short time after pitching.

The brew, wrapped up in 2 beach towels and sitting on a third, has dropped to 72.5F this morning. I don't have a heater for it, and can;t do the warm water bath as moving around the carboy with 2 re-herniated discs is not a good idea. The bubbling has significantly slowed down in the past 8 hours, but I am not going to check the SG until the 96hr mark. I tend to just fire and forget, but for anything that I am pushing hard or have a specific FG target I tend to track the SG trend.

Blow-off action was really strong 8hr after pitching (3 loud bubbles a second), 24hr at about 2 per second, and at 48hr was 1 per 3 seconds, so switched over to the air lock. at 56hr (this morning) I am at 1 bubble every 10 seconds. Unless I over-strained the yeast from a fast attenuation and it is giving up the ghost early, I think this is working out just fine.

Hopefully it will happily drop those 10 SG points in the next 72hr, and then I can rack and cold condition.

 

[Tall_Yotie]

So, another update!

90hr (a little under 4 days); SG is at 1.029. Temp is at 69F. I figure in a few more days it will stop a few more points down.

Taste of the hydro sample: Amaaaaazing! (sung in the flaming manner) The spices are incredibly subtle, barely detectable. I think some carbonation and aging will bring out the spices to an acceptable level. It needs those fruity aromatics which come with age, but there is some signs of it in the flavor.

In a few days, probably at the 7 day mark, I will transfer and cold condition. Then you don't have to deal with my updates until it is bottling time!

 

[CSI - CandiSyrup]

I think we're off to a great start. We brewed a 10.75 gallon batch yesterday (Saturday) using Mad Ferm's tea approach to spice infusion. We used fresh English Thyme from a members organic garden, cinnamon stick, Penzy's coriander, and navel orange (all we can get here at this time of year). We mashed at 155F for 80 minutes and pitched at 68F. We pitched 6 - 11g packs of creamed T-58 after O2 blast for 100 seconds. It was alive after about 6 hours.

We can barely detect a slight orange and cinnamon back-palate but not too much of the Thyme. BTW, we did not split this batch between T-58 and Westmalle. We're shooting for a close-to-match clone. We'll update every 2 days or so.

 

[Tall_Yotie]

Glad to hear all is off well! I have the feeling you are going to be the high-tech approach (blasting with O2, temp control) and mine is the low-tech (high pouring for aeration and beach towel wrapping), so will be neat to see the differences.

For the thyme, I can detect it, but not so much as flavor as adding an aspect of savory. We used navel orange as well.

Good call on the 155F mash. I believe after 6 days my brew has decided that its FG is 1.029, and not wanting to go much further. For 4 points I don't want to risk the negatives of heating up the brew. I transferred to a secondary, letting it sit for 48hr at the ambient 68F, then going to toss it in 50F for 6 weeks.

So for me, next time I would mash at 155F, wrap it up in blankets, and let it do its thing. If it wants to get up to 82F, fine, I wouldn't unwrap it to cool it down like I did this time. Nothing ill seemed to have come from the higher temp.

 

[CSI - CandiSyrup]

We're 6 days in our Pannepot brew and it churned to krausen overflow the 2nd and 3rd day. We performed a sterile capture of the yeast and have just re-introduced it today. Gravity at 1.028 down from 1.102.

This Ale is really amazing. I'm told by my brewer not to get too excited yet but I've yet to taste a hydrometer sample this good. Now to invest in a 15 gallon White Oak Barrel or not...

 

[CSI - CandiSyrup]

After 8 days our Pannepot OFA Clone has reached its target of 1.025. We're racking this batch today at 60F for the next 10 weeks. It tastes better each time we sample it. Really looking forward to this.

 

[Tall_Yotie]

Nice on hitting the FG! What did you do for temperature profile during fermentation? Able to stick with the original schedule?

I hope mine doesn't turn out too sweet. I figured I could have dropped a few more points if I had been able to keep the temps up where I wanted it across the last days of fermentation.

 

[CSI - CandiSyrup]

We had a natural rise to low 80's (81-82F) through the 4th day and maintained 82F for another 2 days with temp control. We decided to let the gravity steer the duration. Recommend at least 3 11g packs of T58 on a pitch to 5 gallons. I think this was what gave us momentum on the target FG. We may drop below 1.025 before this is complete.

 

[CSI - CandiSyrup]

As suspected our gravity dropped another point to 1.024 and this Ale is better than we had envisioned. Even at this stage it's not cloying sweet in the least. Initially we thought the Bramling Cross might be a little funky but luckily that concern was unfounded. The Bramling Cross blends beautifully with the mild Belgian funk of the T-58 and marries-up with the spice infusion.

As far as critiques go we're at a loss. The spice percentages and boil times seem just about right. Our instinct to go easy on the Coriander lines up with the Rochefort Monks who advise to do so, (glad we did). We get no orange or spices up front but after the malt and Special B pass the orange and cinnamon waft onto the palate unexpectedly. Very magical brew. If this Ale gets better with time we'll submit it for some of the Fall competitions.

The color is lighter at this stage than the SRM specification, (definitely not SRM 30+). We have a dark chestnut colored ale. Has anyone else given this brew a try yet? It is well worth the trouble.

 

[Tall_Yotie]

Glad to hear it is coming along so well!

Our batch at 1.030 FG doesn't seem too sweet either, just rich. Luckily the Belgian styles can deal with a higher FG when spiced.

We do not have a Pannepot sitting around to compare to (the ones we do got soured a bit in a heat wave), but the spices are near perfect. I can only detect the thyme as I know it is there, and get that wonderful savory note from it. The other spices blended beautifully with the malt and sugar characters. Dark chestnut color as well.

This is at the 2 week cold conditioning mark. I am thinking 6 weeks rather than 8, and then letting it bottle condition for a couple months. Will be ready for the local County Fair.

So SUU, when all is done and moderately conditioned, are we going to do a hostage exchange?

 

[CSI - CandiSyrup]

Glad to hear it is coming along so well!
So SUU, when all is done and moderately conditioned, are we going to do a hostage exchange?

Absolutely!

 

[CSI - CandiSyrup]

We have a couple of very large HB supply houses in our delivery area and as we were delivering a restock of our Candi Syrup today we noticed they had a new display of Belgian ale's with the usual suspects, Orval, Rochefort, Westmalle, Chimay but buried in the back was a small cache of Pannepot Reserva 2008 for $8 each. We stocked up. We'll give it a taste test tomorrow afternoon and hopefully complement the Pannepot taste report.

 

[CSI - CandiSyrup]

Pannepot OFA Reserva 2008

Appearance
Visual estimation on this ale without using a PFXi 880-S Colorimeter is certainly above 20 SRM but not above 22 SRM. The color is medium chestnut brown. The ale is a little murky and opaque even after having settled and carefully poured but one can easily see light through the brown chestnut haze. Definitely a brown ale.

Carbonation
Medium carbonation with an initial and slight ¼ finger head that disappears almost immediately before you put the goblet down.

Nose
Nice caramel nose from the bottle but with a hint of old tangy chardonnay or Brett. Once in the glass the caramel nose increases as it warms. Strong presence of what appears to be a blend of Pale and Caramel malt.

Alcohol
The alcohol is well hidden in the ale. At 10% ABV you can hardy detect it. Certainly no hot or fusel alcohols. Very well brewed.

Body and Sweetness
The body is very, very chewy with a heavy nougat-like mouth feel. Medium to medium high on sweetness. I’d say somewhere between 1.022 – 1.025 possibly on the higher side of this range but the heavy mouth feel and mild hops deceive the palate.

Hops
Very subtle almost under-hopped for the gravity, (subjective). No pronounced bitterness. Very difficult to detect varietals.

Yeast
If I had to guess I would say T-58 was likely not the yeast strain, (at least not the Fermentis T-58 that we use). The yeast in this brew is very flocculation resistant (like T-58), but it has no spicey or peppery esters clearly found in T-58. I would guess a clean, less peppery strain somewhere closer to Bastogne possibly?

Malt, Spices, and Overall Palate
The malts were far more distinct. Clear Pale and Caramel malts with the slightest addition of a medium roasted malt on a Pilsner base. No strong chocolate malts whatsoever. Through the entire range of palate flavors from first sip to last remaining ester no spices were detected other than a slight hint of coriander and a slightly old Chardonnay flavor as if in a prior life the barrel was used to age a dry White wine. Had a finishing palate of mild Brett but I doubt Brett was used. No distinct oak flavors. No Belgian funk aroma or spicy esters whatsoever. Fairly sweet, high gravity, medium chestnut brown Belgian ale. Very nice.

 

[Tall_Yotie]

Thanks for the notes! Really well put together. If you want to have additional tasting notes from me, feel free to send one of those bottles you found....

As for your take on the FG, from the tasting do you think a higher FG (like my 1.029) will be far too apparent, or should meld in just fine?

Interesting take on the yeast aroma. I would be curious if the spices added affect how the yeast notes are perceived however.

 

[CSI - CandiSyrup]

As for your take on the FG, from the tasting do you think a higher FG (like my 1.029) will be far too apparent, or should meld in just fine?

I would guess that if the body is as heavy as this Reserva then it should be fine. The heavy body seems to hide the sweetness just enough to keep it from being cloying. I think they may have done some high decoction on this brew. Maybe 160F and even higher. No way to get this heavy a body without very high conversion(s).

Interesting take on the yeast aroma. I would be curious if the spices added affect how the yeast notes are perceived however.

Bottle refermentation and aging in high gravity produces some interesting flavors. Very possible.

BTW, is anyone else brewing this?

 

[Tall_Yotie]

So some good ideas for next time I suppose!

We are at the 4-week mark of cold conditioning come this weekend. Trying to determine if I should do 6 or 8 weeks. Our Westy12 recipes seem to say 8 weeks, but a Roch8 clone posted here I did with 6 weeks and it turned out amazing (after extended bottle conditioning of course).

 

[CSI - CandiSyrup]

So some good ideas for next time I suppose!

We are at the 4-week mark of cold conditioning come this weekend. Trying to determine if I should do 6 or 8 weeks. Our Westy12 recipes seem to say 8 weeks, but a Roch8 clone posted here I did with 6 weeks and it turned out amazing (after extended bottle conditioning of course).

We're thinking along the same lines. We're shooting for 8-10 weeks with 4 months bottle conditioning. BTW we just completed the bottling of our 7th version of the Westvleteren 12. It conditioned for 12 weeks this time.