Westvleteren 12 clone if you don't have much gear.

[Kharnynb]

I love the westvleteren 12 as brewed by the sixtus abbey, but since I tend to only be able to get a few bottles per year, i have been eyeing CSI's recipy ever since i joined here.

I had to modify it a bit since I have no access to the liquid yeast at this time and only have very basic equipment.

Westvleteren clone.

Brewday 19.4.2015

Ingredients
3 Kg Pale Malt.
3 Kg Pilsner
1 Kg Candi Syrup.
23.5g Brewers Gold
23.5 g Hallertau Mittlefrueh
24 g Styrian Golding
3x Danstar abbaye yeast.

- Make 18 liter strike water @ 74 degrees.
Simply boil, or use an electric kettle to help out a bit.

- Add grains in bag. stir.

- mash 90 minutes.

-Heat spargewater 8.5l @ 75 degrees.
This i did by boiling 7 litres of water in an electric kettle, into the fermenter
and adding 1.5 liters cold water(check that your fermenter is heatproof)
If you have a second kettle that is big enough, just use that.

-sparge grains.

no pictures here, as i was too busy with all things.
http://www.ikea.com/ca/en/catalog/products/50103755/ is very useful here, as you can just drop it over the kettle and rest the grainbag in it.

-bring to the boil. 90 minutes total.

-at 30 minutes add Brewers gold.
-at 60 minutes add middlefrueh.
-at 75 minutes add goldings.
-at flame-out, add syrup.

-strain into fermenter.

I cleaned the grainbag and put it inside the sieve to catch as much debris as possible.

-cool down fermenter to room temp.
Currently i have no fancy cooling gear, so it's outside to the last pile of snow for me

-meanwhile, rehydrate yeast.
Normally i don't bother, but this beast is a monster, so I took this step to ensure it works.

-Pitch yeast.


OG: 1.085 sg

 

[Kharnynb]

2 weeks in and the danstar abbaye has made short work of the sugars, we're at 1.008 and it tastes like beer ;D.

Fermenter brought to cellar, which is 50F and will be there for 2 more weeks before bottling.

 

[Kharnynb]

Updating this as i've tasted the first bottle, but forgot to take pictures.

First off:
Brauwland's candy syrup is NOT dark syrup, no matter what they claim. next time i will luckily have access to csi's syrup for a better test.

The beer is good, very good, and the yeast did a good job, the favours are closer to a rochefort 10 than a west-vleteren at this time, but 3-6 more months might make it better.

 

[brew_darrymore]

I also just bottled a batch of CSI's clone of Westy XII, but I managed to get some D-180 syrup. I tasted a sample at bottling time and although not quite a Westy, it does have a very similar aftertaste. What matters is that it's tasty. I'll open a bottle in 4-6 months to see how it ages, but it's more likely to get better some time next year.

Keep updating this post as I'm curious about how well your batch ages as well.