Ditto, but I just step-feed sugars right into the primary fermentor. This is a good way to give yourself the option of not adding more sugars if the fermentation is stuck. I'd rather have a lower ABV but well-attenuated beer than a high ABV and overly-sweet beer. That said, my brew did end up about 0.008 points high despite ramping temperature and step-feeding. Evidently, this brew takes a little finesse to get right!
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Ditto, but I just step-feed sugars right into the primary fermentor. This is a good way to give yourself the option of not adding more sugars if the fermentation is stuck. I'd rather have a lower ABV but well-attenuated beer than a high ABV and overly-sweet beer. That said, my brew did end up about 0.008 points high despite ramping temperature and step-feeding. Evidently, this brew takes a little finesse to get right!
jtp137
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How do you figure out the IBUs? Would it be the same if you added the sugar during fermentation
IBUs are figured out during the boil and wouldn't change significantly with the volume added by sugars. I figure out gravity points by measuring the final volume and summing up the post-boil OG and the gravity points from sugars.
eustacesk
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I made my own candy sugar, probably something around D-180 based on this thread: https://www.homebrewtalk.com/forum/threads/20-lb-of-sugar-and-a-jar-of-yeast-nutrient.114837/
Do you have a link? I could only speculate why they would transfer before final gravity is reached (maybe they take their time cooling down), but you definitely do not want to lower the fermentation temperature on this recipe before you get your target fg.
jtp137
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Thanks. The article does indeed seem to indicate that the beer is cooled down before it's finished. I'll have to read it again in the morning when I am drinking coffee instead of homebrew, since it doesn't make sense to me right now.
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jtp137
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This is pretty interesting also
jtp137
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Well just made my starter for this weekend only 5 gallon batch this time hopefully it will not get stuck. I am thinking about holding the sugar off until a couple days into primary. Looks like OG will be 1.074 before I add the 3 pounds of D-180. Website gives directions how to use sugar during fermentation. I am a little worried about the ester profile since OG will only be 1.074 three days into fermentation when most of the character is produced. But I did use this yeast for a blonde once and it had nice character
troglodytes
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I see your ready to try again, but I wanted to let you know, I used an active starter of wlp530 on my 6 gallon batch and I hit my target final gravity exactly. I followed the exact schedule from csi on page 2 of this thread and my product came out prefect. If you have a fermentation chamber and can control the temps within a degree I have to highly recommend doing that method and pitching into the full gravity wort. Just make sure you don't lose yeast to blowoff, and if you can aerate do so at pitch and then again a little later that same day. Also, I didn't skip the servomyces, it really worked. I had three separate blowoffs with 1.7 gal of headspace.
jtp137
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I have some wyeast nutrient that I plan on using and I do have a fermentation chamber. How much wort did you throw into your starter to get it going?
troglodytes
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I did a 1.5 L starter from a fresh vial, then after chilling and decanting. I did 1L of preboil, pre syrup wort vitality starter. If memory serves it was something like 1.074. I pitched that just prior to high krausen.
eustacesk
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I added 1 Lbs at the end of the boil and held off the other 2 lbs till secondary. This worked really well. My "FG" was 1010 when i racked to the secondary. I didnt even recollect the yeast. Just let it rip through all the maltose then added the rest of the sugar. I see a lot of people on here with stuck fermentation and i think this is the culprit. My LHBS guys really stressed not front loading so much sugar to where the yeast isnt as interested in the maltose. Lots of folks had success adding the sugar up front, but i chose to play it safe.
jtp137
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Did you follow the temp ramp fermentation instructions and what temp did you mash at? I would rather have a dry Belgian versus an under attenuated Belgian but is 1.010 too low?
eustacesk
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Yea i followed the temp schedule. I mashed at 148-149F. I dont think it is, but not totally sure. I think the target FG was 1012. So its not too far off
jtp137
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You are probably right I doubt there would be a noticeable difference between 1.010 and 1.012
jtp137
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Finally got this sucker to ferment past 1.014. I put 1 pound of sugar in the boil and added 2 pounds at day 6. Don’t know if it will get down any further plan on leaving it at 80 degrees for two weeks
For those adding Candi syrup (edit) near the end of fermentation, how long did it take to get back to fg?
I imagined pretty quick. I put 3# in 3 nights ago and gravity was 1.013 preaddition. I have 2 more # to go(10g batch). I didn't want to throw to much sugar in at once but don't want it to stall either.
I do have fresh yeast I can pitch if needed if it does though. Everything seems normal and I'll probably add the rest of the sugar tomorrow after work. I just don't want to pull samples early if I can help it so was wondering what timeline others have seen.
Congratulations @jtp137. Maybe we should swap in a few months and compare. I did drift a little bit due to restrictions and what I had on hand but should still be solid(did wort boil down, only used ~23% Belgian pale, rest was 2 row, added 12oz Belgian aromatic malt and used 1 #d90, 3#d180 and 1# d240 hoping to add a bit more complexity.
I imagined pretty quick. I put 3# in 3 nights ago and gravity was 1.013 preaddition. I have 2 more # to go(10g batch). I didn't want to throw to much sugar in at once but don't want it to stall either.
I do have fresh yeast I can pitch if needed if it does though. Everything seems normal and I'll probably add the rest of the sugar tomorrow after work. I just don't want to pull samples early if I can help it so was wondering what timeline others have seen.
Congratulations @jtp137. Maybe we should swap in a few months and compare. I did drift a little bit due to restrictions and what I had on hand but should still be solid(did wort boil down, only used ~23% Belgian pale, rest was 2 row, added 12oz Belgian aromatic malt and used 1 #d90, 3#d180 and 1# d240 hoping to add a bit more complexity.
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jtp137
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I put the sugar in on day 6 and waited until I couldn’t hear the bubbles in the airlock it was day 10 when I took the reading I still have it at 80 and will check it again tomorrow I will probably leave it at 80 for two weeks then start to cool it to drop the yeast
I added candy syrup in 1 lb increments then waited until about 3/4 of the sugar had been consumed, based on gravity readings.
I have some 1 year old bottles that aren't carbed enough and ended up a little high on gravity (~1.018). I'm going to add .5 mL of dilute Brettanomyces c. slurry to them and re-cap to see if they will cab and gain some interesting flavors. Nothing to loose as the beer is just "good" but not "great" right now.
I have some 1 year old bottles that aren't carbed enough and ended up a little high on gravity (~1.018). I'm going to add .5 mL of dilute Brettanomyces c. slurry to them and re-cap to see if they will cab and gain some interesting flavors. Nothing to loose as the beer is just "good" but not "great" right now.
mirthfuldragon
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Just finished a 750ml bottle with SWMBO. OG was 1.092, FG 1.008. I added 3 pounda of D180 to the boil and pitched a 3L starter. Top-cropped that and re-yeasted after a month of primary and two months secondary. Ramped primary temp to 82 over the first week.
Beer is fantastic. Just amazing. Soft, smooth, dark...i want to open another 750, but I also want to walk tomorrow.
Beer is fantastic. Just amazing. Soft, smooth, dark...i want to open another 750, but I also want to walk tomorrow.
eustacesk
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Brewed this on 3/4/18 and opened my first bottle this weekend. This turned out absolutely amazing. split a quart with my neighbor and realized this brew can get you going quick! Fantastic beer that is dangerously easy to drink. I made the syrup at home based off a "20Lbs of sugar and yeast nutrient" thread on here. Going to brew this again soon for the fall. Actually just plan on kegging it. I tried this when I was bottling and it was already delicious. So I figured why not double down on this brew for the fall/winter
I did a similar process, minus re-yeasting after a month and my brew stalled at 1.018. Tastes great but is a little sweet because of the high FG and under-carbonated because the yeast crapped out during bottle conditioning.
Next time I will definitely shoot for 1.008-ish by adding more active yeast during fermentation and try to hit 3 volumes of CO2 by adding active yeast to the bottling bucket.
mirthfuldragon
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My original post is un-clear. I top-cropped yeast at high krausen and set that aside in a jar. After a month of primary and two months of secondary, I took my saved yeast, built another big starter. 1/3 of that went for bottling, with 1/3 going into a Belgian blonde, and saving the other 1/3 for the next big Belgian. With fresh yeast, the bottle conditioning was done in a week or ten days.
eustacesk
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So im sure this is covered somewhere in the 32 pages of thread, but hoping someone has input on this one.
I noticed another recipe using various specialty malts on the first page. Has anyone made both the regular pilsner/pale malt(1st recipe) and the second one w/ specialty malts?? Any suggestion on what you liked better or you something you might change? Thinking of making another batch of this one soon. Thanks!
I noticed another recipe using various specialty malts on the first page. Has anyone made both the regular pilsner/pale malt(1st recipe) and the second one w/ specialty malts?? Any suggestion on what you liked better or you something you might change? Thinking of making another batch of this one soon. Thanks!
If you're talking about Saq's original recipe, that's the pre-2014 recipe. It's sublime. You get a lot more complexity going on a lot earlier in the life of the beer. Complexity that compliments the yeast really well. I've found that that recipe reached a stage I'd consider drinkable quicker than the pilsner/pale version. I think I prefer the pre-2014 version, myself. There's a lot more going on. But mine are both less than a year in the bottle and I gather both versions really need two before they properly shine. So my opinion may change
Just a note on getting this to ferment down. I've got extremely accurate temp control, a tilt hydrometer to keep track of things for when to change temps, and a temp controlled stir plate for my starter. I followed the recipe to the letter to the extreme and didn't have any issues getting this beer to FG. I wonder if stability of temps and accuracy of things like pitch rates is key to this beer doing what its supposed to.
eustacesk
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If you're talking about Saq's original recipe, that's the pre-2014 recipe. It's sublime. You get a lot more complexity going on a lot earlier in the life of the beer. Complexity that compliments the yeast really well. I've found that that recipe reached a stage I'd consider drinkable quicker than the pilsner/pale version. I think I prefer the pre-2014 version, myself. There's a lot more going on. But mine are both less than a year in the bottle and I gather both versions really need two before they properly shine. So my opinion may change
Thanks! Thats exactly what i was looking for. Im going to do the Saq's recipe this round since im going to keg it and it will be nice to not have to wait so long. Thanks for the input!
I've had this recipe in the fermentor for a couple of days now. Using the WLP 530 yeast. Very active and smells funky. Should it be giving off such a strong smell? The 2 stage yeast stater I made with it also had the same funkiness to it - I'm worried it got contaminated during making the yeast starter.
Never had contamination issues before with a yeast starter but it was my first stepped starter. Should I be concerned or is this normal for this yeast?
Thanks!
Never had contamination issues before with a yeast starter but it was my first stepped starter. Should I be concerned or is this normal for this yeast?
Thanks!
jtp137
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Yes this yeast has a different smell to it not to worry
f in ell. now that is what you call comprehensive (bordering on insane). anyway due to the obvious passion of people involved in this, this is going to be one of my next gos. thanks all!
normally don't have the patience but due to a good pipeline I feel this is a worthy long term brew to go with my sours, hopefully ready by the winter when they are most welcome.
normally don't have the patience but due to a good pipeline I feel this is a worthy long term brew to go with my sours, hopefully ready by the winter when they are most welcome.
Oldskewl
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I cracked open a 1 1/2 year old bottle of this last night. It was so delicious. It just keeps getting better.
GRJBowers
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I'm thinking about brewing this, but fermenting under pressure (15 psi) to tame the out of control krausen. How much would this inhibit the Belgian character? I've read a Brulosophy exbeeriment that suggests it may not, but this is a pretty iconic beer that I'd like to get as close as possible to the real thing.
cheesebach
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Be really careful about taking any of those Brulosophy experiments which produced insignificant results as being indicative that the variable being tested has no effect. Due to the small sample sizes in most experiments, a higher percentage of “correct” participants is required to show significance than would be with say 100 participants. Also, I would argue that humans in general do not perform well in these triangle type tests, and that being blind to the variable being tested makes the task even more challenging. Why they don’t clue the tasters in to what was varied really bugs me - I’m much more interested in whether the experiment produced beers that are perceptively different than whether someone blind to the nature of the experiment can detect a difference without knowing whether aroma, flavor, mouthfeel, astringency, bitterness, etc. is likely to be affected.
I read the specific experiment you mentioned and noticed that 5 out of 6 tasters who completed the triangle test correctly also correctly identified which beer was fermented under pressure. This to me suggests the results for this particular experiment could be interpreted as “the variable in test produced beers that were perceptibly different to a subset of tasters, but the majority of tasters were unable to detect a difference between the samples.” Again, a much larger sample size is needed to make any real claims about the results, but it would have been more enlightening if they had questioned the people who guessed correctly what differences the noted between the samples.
TL/DR: This beer relies more heavily on attenuation and yeast character than the beer used in the experiment, be careful how you interpret the results.
I definitely wouldn't. I brewed a Belgian blond under pressure once, a recipe I'd brewed normally a few times prior and had success with. The yeast character was very muted.
It could have been something else wrong, this was only 1 batch, but I won't be fermenting yeast-forward styles under pressure again. If you are worried about headspace transfer some to a growler or coke bottle and transfer back when fermentation is almost done.
I'm a bit confused. Trying to wrap my head around adjusting strike and sparge water to a certain water profile. Does the trappist breweries adjust their strike and sparge water with minerals? If so, to replicate what a certain trappist brewery does, does a homebrewer first adjust the strike and sparge water to get the target water profile of, say Chimay, then adjust everything again when the mash goes in, in order to get a desired PH and a desired mineral composition as for example Chimay would have done it?
http://www.candisyrup.com/uploads/6/0/3/5/6035776/common_belgian_water_profiles_rev_1.2.pdf
http://www.candisyrup.com/uploads/6/0/3/5/6035776/common_belgian_water_profiles_rev_1.2.pdf
Oldskewl
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I don't recall the water profile being discussed in this thread, but it has been a while since I read the whole thing. I have been reading "Brew Like a Monk" on and off this year. I'm pretty sure that I read that the breweries alter the water profile anyway.
