Quad Extract/Dark Strong

[jslande01]

So with my last Tripel/Golden Strong "conditioning"... its time to start another.

Been digging the Boulevard Smokestack Quad/Bourbon Barrel Ale lately (its been cold here) and I figure if I start it now, maybe it'll be ready by this time next year.

Here's what I was thinking:

steep some aromatics (3# Biscuit/CaraMunich/Special B) for a bit

6# light LME
6# light DME
2# Dark Candi syrup (D90 or D180?) for the last 10 minutes of boil.

2oz Hallertau for 60min
1oz Syrian for 30min
1oz Saaz at flame out

2 smack packs of Wyeast 1762/Rochefort yeast in a 2 stage, 2 liter starter on my handy-dandy newly made stir plate to get to the 600M+ needed.

throw a bag or two of bourbon barrel oak chunks in with the yeast and let it rip for 4-6 weeks, bottle it and forget about it for a year.

Thoughts? Suggestions?

 

[WoodlandBrew]

Looks fine the way you have it. I would approach the pitch a little different. I would take 3lbs of the DME and a couple of gallons of water and pitch one pack of yeast into that. Let that go for two days, and then brew the rest of the wort with the remaining water and then add it to the fermentor.

See my article here on HBT for details:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/four-tips-making-great-beer-15-minutes.html

There are some other things i would do as well to reduce the brew day to 15 minutes, but that's just my two cents.

 

[flatlanderHQ]

Why not do a mini mash? There is a great article on BYO called "countertop partial mash". This method uses 4# of grain. I made a quad this spring using this method...awesome results. I've sampled a couple of bottles, but will wait a few more months yet.

One tip to really bolster the fermentation is to hold back some sugar which you will add later during primary fermentation. Mix up the sugar as you would priming sugar and add to the actively fermenting beer...just as high kreusen is subsiding. This really boosts the yeast and dries the beer out. You will get very good attenuation this way.


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[jslande01]

so if I was going to use 2# of Dark Candi syrup, hold out 1# or 1/2# and stir it in after a few days?

Will look up the mini-mash, always up for something new to try...

 

[IslandLizard]

+1 on the mini mash.
The Biscuit Malt is really the only one that needs mashing, the others can be steeped. Mash it with 2 pounds of Maris Otter at 148. Yummy!

Can you keep the temps tightly controlled? You don't want this to stall out at 1.030.

 

[jslande01]

not really... don't have a very sophisticated setup at my house (hoping to change that someday).

I can start it at around 62 and keep it cool for a week, then I can bring it up into the warmer part of the house and get it to 68-70 for a week... Then I'll throw the bucket belt on to warm it up to around 76-78 to finish.

That's pretty close to what I did with the tripel I just did, except it sat at 68-70 for two weeks before I warmed it up. I got a few more bubbles, but it didn't change the FG any. That one made it from 1.092 down to 1.015.

 

[jslande01]

ok, so I chickened out on the mini-mash, didn't want to try to bring any more equipment home until I make a few really good beers

so this guy started out at 1.100, I kept it cool for a week then brought it up into 70 degrees (added second 1# of D-180 and a bag of Bourbon barrel cubes) or so for a week, then added the bucket belt and raised it up to around 78 for a week.

Seems to have finished at 1.023, so pretty much right in line with a Belgian Dark/Quad. A tad over 10%.

Gave it a taste, and there's a little burn there, but damn its good.

Going to go straight to bottles (1/2L flip tops) this weekend and see if I can keep my hands off it for at least 6 months. Won't be easy... but I don't want to leave it in a secondary for aging and end up not carbonating like my first tripel.

 

[jslande01]

I do have one more question...

should I just put this thing in a secondary and let it mellow for a couple/few months then get another pack of 1762 and re-pitch a few days before bottling? I'm really worried about this, I do not want another flat beer. Seems like others that have made big quad types have re-pitched and had success.

 

[WoodlandBrew]

You could use less expensive yeast for bottle conditioning. The flavor impact will be minimal if you notice it at all. With the high OG and the long ageing time I would recommend pitching yeast when you bottle.

 

[jslande01]

yeah, I just want to avoid what happened with that cbc-4 "rescue yeast" crap and my tripel, it absolutely wrecked the flavor and didn't carb much, I assume it wasn't hearty enough to handle 9%... I suppose I could use a dry champagne yeast or something, that's only a buck and would certainly tolerate the high ABV.

Thanks for the input, I think I'll rack it to the secondary this weekend and let it mellow for a bit instead of bottling. I'll just want to drink it...

 

[flatlanderHQ]

Congrats on wha sounds like a successful fermentation! Don't go with champagne yeast...I would use something like S-05 or Nottingham. I had a quad in secondary for 4 months, then bottled with about 5-6 grams of NOTTY (rehydrated) and just racked the beer onto my priming solution and mixed the yeast in by gently stirring. Carbed up perfectly in about a month. FYI, most Belgian Abby breweries use a different yeast for bottle conditioning, Which you can read about in the book Brew like a Monk. Good luck!


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[jslande01]

Thanks flatlander, guess its time for a re-read...

Just checked my second Tripel that I bottled in November, no bubbles. Guess I'm going to be picking up a couple carbonator caps this weekend and a bottle of CO2. I'm going to start kegging soon, so its not like it will be a complete waste of time.

 

[fun4stuff]

Why not just skip the secondary and bottle after a month in the primary? It seems that is what most people are doing nowadays. Reason to have a secondary unless you want to add fruit or hops to it in the secondary.