All Grain #1 Tucked Away! (Pics)

[Asalpaws]

It did change, the most recent I tried tasted almost exactly like Westermalle,
however I preferred the younger version which was much more spicy and estery. As you can see from the pic the yeast does eventually settle out! I guess the beer we get over here is never going to be as fresh as a batch straight from the Abby, so it's nice to brew your own to get that fresh taste.

Yes there are a lot of Belgian's to taste, just look at all the hard work I have to get through

T

 

[Asalpaws]

The other cool thing about going AG is that you can try and clone brews that you might otherwise never try. Just had a cheeky glass of my Westvleteren 12 clone. Perhaps one day I might get the chance to try the real thing.....

 

[morethanworts]

Spent an evening with Mark S-M from viewsfromthebar recently (blog) and I see from his list that he's just brought a Westvleteren 12 back from Belgium... And one or two others...
http://www.viewsfromthebar.co.uk/

Sounds special and a worthwhile clone!

 

[Asalpaws]

Cool interesting blog. I'm going to try and get my paws on the Austrian Trappist ale "Gregorian" would be nice to try and harvest the yeast. T

 

[Asalpaws]

Did you get this into secondary in the end? My fridge is full of lagering Koelsh at the moment but I need to brew another Belgian soon. Thinking Delerium Tremens or Achoufre Houblon clone :) T

PS this might be a useful investment, depending on how many empties you generate:

http://http://www.the-home-brew-shop.co.uk/acatalog/Beer-Bottles-330ml.html#.UmaVWLe9Kc0

 

[morethanworts]

Cheers T! The link didn't work, though my second batch is going to spill over into a few 500ml bottles as well. :drunk:

Racked to secondary at a stable 1.009 on Sunday and standing cold under airlock. Probably bottling on Thursday. Fingers crossed there are no last minute cock-ups!

Second brew day booked this Friday. Stepping up the starter for that tonight. Just going to make a couple of tweaks based on my first experience to make a slightly less potent beer this time - but not too much hopefully. To use up the Pilsner I've got, it will be a 24.6L batch approximately, and I'm thinking 6.4Kg Pilsner, 500g clear candy sugar, 400g invert, 240g torrefied wheat and 42g Northern Brewer 9.7%. That should up the grain/sugar ratio just a little, add some interest with the candy sugar and lead to around 1.077ish, with maybe a little less attenuation.

Any thoughts very welcome!

 

[Asalpaws]

Sounds good to me! A lot of members on here seem to despise torrified wheat, must say I've never noticed any off flavours with it. I use some malted wheat instead now but I really must stress I've had no bad results with TW.

I'm totally addicted to pilsner malt at the moment, went through a 25 kg sack of Wyermann's in a few weeks. My last half a dozen brews have been just pilsner with varying yeast and hops. Apparently pilsner contains large amounts of DMS which can give a cooked vegetable flavour so a 90 min boil is reccomended. Think I might buy some Dingemans Belgian pils next.

Got a Saison but with Amarillo and Cascade hops planned for this weekend. Also going to try and freeze some yeast from the starter. Fun times :)

The link was for THBS that sells cases of Duvel style bottles.

 

[morethanworts]

That saison sounds great. Regarding the yeast storage, I've decided to write off the extra expense of the fresh packets on these high OG brews (at least until I've got the hang of harvesting) and will try it with some basic bitters in the new year. Plastic vials and kilner jars at the ready. Good luck.

I love the pilsner malt too. Considered changing more for my second one (maybe a later hop addition) but I just need to keep most factors the same until I've got some consistency in the AG basics, I think. And I did deliberately brew a style that I particularly love, first. I look forward to experimenting a bit more later on, like you are with the other styles and even brett etc.

You'll be blending a geuze before I've ordered my next grains at this rate!

 

[morethanworts]

The start of All Grain #2.

WY3787 looking like a wet, malty time bomb again. Precautions taken.

 

[Asalpaws]

Always a good sign when the starter needs a blow off tube! T

 

[brewtim]

That yeast is wild, roll on a phot of the fermenter :shock:

 

[morethanworts]

Well I have a 33L fermenter, but that wasn't enough for a 20L batch last time with this yeast. I'm planning a 24L batch and this is a bigger starter! :whistle:

Sorry no pic, but it blew up the tube and into the bottle a bit today, dying off now. Been shaken every two hours or so, which actually seems to quash the krausen a bit. Sends the blow off bubbles crazy of course for a while. It's been 20C throughout. Hoping it's done soon tomorrow so I can start chilling. I have the option of brewing Sunday rather than Friday if it hasn't settled enough.

A couple of billion cells in 2.5L or so certainly don't hang around! (This one in the DJ was a step up from a 1.25L starter.)

 

[morethanworts]

Bottled! Primed with 180g dextrose in around 19L.

AG2 going on tomorrow, looks like this:

Ignore BrewR's constant 75% attenuation estimate. I'm hoping for around 85%. or just under. Sticking at 66C for now (2.5 hrs), but the grain/sugar ratio is tweaked a bit, and I've got the candy sugar in there too. :

 

[Asalpaws]

Your right brewing software always seems to underestimate the attenuation of Belgian yeasts. Last beer I brewed finished at 1004.

I'm brewing Saison tonight but will soon need to make another batch if triple! May the force be with you. T

 

[morethanworts]

Right. Brew was done. Around 23 litres at 1.075. I had some extra wort left over after noticing that the runnings were still around 1.020 (warm, uncorrected!) - kept sparging a bit, though I was already boiling 28L by then, which is about all I can fit in my pans. I ended up using some of the extra runnings to top-up, along with some extra water, after noticing that a) my pre-boil OG was 1.060 rather than 1.050 expected, and b) it was boiling off more than expected.

So a few decisions still had to be made on the fly and I did a second small boil and cool for some of top up, due to capacity issues, but seemed to get there in the end. Froze a 1.5L of left over water (EDIT - wort) too. I'm going to recheck all my capacity markings because they seemed to vary, which obviously causes confusion.

Nice inch or two of krausen 16 hrs on, though not smelling bananary yet. I can't remember exactly when the bananas started with the last one...

Sorry no pics - would be very similar to the last set. Will try to post some of the finished products!

 

[Asalpaws]

Nice one you must be getting good efficiency. Soft water in your neck of the woods? T

 

[morethanworts]

I think it's the batch sparging T. Hope the saison is going well. Medium hard, river-sourced water here. No decocting this time, i just squeezed the calculated 8L of boiling water into the tun after the 2.6L/Kg mash to bring it all to 76C, stirred gently but deeply, allowed to settle for 10 mins or so, vorlaufed, and drained 14L at about 1L/minute. Second batch straight in at 76C, stirred, settled, vorlaufed, drained another 14L. Measured at 1.060 (corrected). Boil on. Further weaker runnings and a bit of water was then used to eventually hit 1.075, accounting for the sugar addition and higher than expected boil off. Not sure that really makes sense, but I think my capacity marks are a bit errant, so may have ended up with larger amount in FV (after boiling&cooling some of the extra runnings later) than the original boil would suggest.

The happy Bananary smell is back in the shed and krasuen is pushing on the lid again this morning. FV is stood in a a large, shallow, plant pot dish I bought yesterday!

By the way, how sure can we be FWIW that WY3787 and WL 530 really are the Westmalle (/Westvleteren) strain, as reported here for example?

That yeast is wild, roll on a phot of the fermenter :shock:

Here you go:
I've cropped it twice since this pic this morning, just to keep it in check, and will do again last thing before bed! The lid was never sealed, by the way (airlock just blocking hole).

 

[Asalpaws]

I guess you can't be sure it's the same yeast and TBH even if it came from them it's probably different by now. All I know is it makes damn fine beer (and usually a bit of a mess).

Got some yeast cropped from a a bottle of Delerium Tremens on the go, smells really nice. Hope it works out for this weekend! T

 

[morethanworts]

Just got back from evening at the 'local', who were out of Tremens! First time they've been out of anything. Anyway, still managed an orval*, chouffe and Westmalle Tripel.

Hope the Tremens culture goes well.


*Dear autocorrect. Please don't keep changing orval to oral. It will be very embarrassing one day.

 

[Asalpaws]

LOL Mine does that as well.

In theory your local is a great yeast bank! Just take your conical flask next time to collect the bottle dregs.... Now that sounds odd. T