Winter Warmers

[z-bob]

I'm thinking about brewing basically a Belgian Dubbel without any spices, hopped more like a tripel or pale ale, and use a neutral ale yeast instead of something with character. "Winter warmer" is the best description I can come up with. Would Lallemand Köln yeast be okay for that? Also I'm planning to hold back the [homemade] dark candy sugar and add it to the fermenter. Just dump it in and let it sink to the bottom; the yeast should find it. Don't know if that's a good idea or not.

 

[MaxStout]

So, something akin to an English old ale, perhaps? I would think Koln would work fine, and it can handle up to about 9%, IIRC.

Is your dark candi sugar a syrup, granulated, chunks? It might sink to the bottom of the fermenter and sit there. If it doesn't dissolve, the yeast can't ferment it. I've never tried that. Granulated might dissolve well on its own.

I made some invert syrup once, took a long time to get it dissolved in the boil. I can't imagine it dissolving well at ferm temps.

 

[z-bob]

So, something akin to an English old ale, perhaps? I would think Koln would work fine, and it can handle up to about 9%, IIRC.

Is your dark candi sugar a syrup, granulated, chunks? It might sink to the bottom of the fermenter and sit there. If it doesn't dissolve, the yeast can't ferment it. I've never tried that. Granulated might dissolve well on its own.

I made some invert syrup once, took a long time to get it dissolved in the boil. I can't imagine it dissolving well at ferm temps.

It's chunks. I figured it would probably take a week to dissolve but that would be okay because the yeast would be attacking it. I could be terribly wrong about that

 

[Erik the Anglophile]

I'd add the sugar to the wort near the end of boil. Take some hot wort to a pot and dissolve the sugar in it and pour back the last 10 or so minutes.

 

[z-bob]

I remembered that I have some pints of dark invert sugar syrup that I made last year. I don't know if it's closer to invert #2 or #3, but each jar has 1 pound of sugar in it. A few weeks ago I brewed what should have ended up 4 gallons at about 7.5% ABV with the sugar, and a little less than 60 IBU. The mash calculator I used had me add too much water; I didn't lose nearly as much to grain absorption as it calculated because I squeezed the bag. I didn't feel like boiling it all away so I ended up with 2 or 3 quarts more wort than I wanted and a little lower gravity and bitterness. I didn't add the syrup.

Yesterday it reached final gravity and is sitting at just above 6%. I poured a pint of the syrup into a glass carboy (I haven't used one of those in years and I was a little afraid of it, but all my plastic carboys are only 4 gallons) I siphoned the beer on top of it and will let it ferment for a week or two, then bottle it. It should be about 6.8% or so when it's done. I hope the bitterness scales back proportionally with the increased water and comes out about 45 to 50. The beer has a very nice smell to it but I haven't tasted it yet.

 

[z-bob]

I bottled this yesterday and drank about 6 ounces of it warm and flat. It tastes wonderful but that might partially be because I haven't had any beer in about a month. (not a permanent thing, I'm just trying to lose some weight and get healthy) It's not as bitter as I expected but it's still nicely balanced. The hop aroma is mostly gone but I think will come back when it's carbonated, but even if it doesn't there's a good hop flavor and tons of malt but it's not heavy. It's a clear dark amber; it looks about like bourbon whiskey. I put it up in 22 oz bombers and one 16 oz plastic "tester" bottle, and will probably give half of it away as gifts.