Tricolored Heron Trippel - June 2014

One Gallon Batch. All-grain. Belgian Trippel. Recipe called "A Well-Made Tripel" from the Brooklyn Brew Shop book titled Beer Making Book.

Ingredients - One Gallon

ABV is suppose to be 9.9%

• 2.8 lbs Belgian Pilsner malt (14 lbs)
• 0.08 lbs Caramel 10 malt (0.4 lbs)
• 0.3 oz East Kent Golding hops (1.5 oz)
• 0.1 oz Saaz hops (0.5 oz)
• 0.25 lbs Belgian Candi Sugar (1.25 lbs)
• 1/2 packet of yeast (2 packets):
  • Book recommended: Wyeast Belgian Abbey 1218 or Safale S-33
  • We used Wyeast Trappist HG 3787
• 3 tablespoons of honey for bottling (1 cup):
  • Book suggested orange blossom honey for bottling
  • We used raw local honey, purchased from the Phoenix Earth Food Co-op.

Notes

• brewed on June 4, 2014
• we used Wyeast Trappist HG 3787
• we finished brewing and added blow-off tube around 11:00 p.m., June 4
• OG was 1.074, temp 73.4, adjusted OG was 1.075.
• around 7:00 a.m. on June 5, no surface activity existed. but within an hour or so, considerable surface activity existed, filling the carboy to the lid with bubbles.
• by 11:00 p.m. on June 5, the most vigorous fermentation activity had already subsided.
• at 7:00 a.m. on June 6, fermentation activity continues at nice pace with gas flowing through the blow-off tube, but the activity is less than the evening before.
• fermentation on June 4, 5, and 6 occurred in the dining room with an air temp between 68 and 71 degrees. i wrapped a blanket around the carboy, and i stopped opening the window in the dining room because our morning temps this week were around 50 to 55 degrees.
• temps in the dining room remained in the mid 70s from Jun 7 through Jun 9.
• on Mon eve, Jun 9, I turned the furnace on to 80 degrees for a while, which is obviously a bizarre thing to do in the summer, but this is beer making. Then later, I moved the fermenter to the upstairs bathroom and closed the door. That room can be the warmest in the house.
  • july 4 update: i think that on June 9 when i moved the carboy upstairs, i replaced the blow-off tube with an air-lock. the blow-off container contained a fair amount of trub-like sediment in the bottom. the extremely active fermentation pushed a fair amount of wort and yeast into the blow-off container. not enough headspace existed in the one-gallon carboy when it was filled with wort on brew day. on brew day, the wort went a little above the one-gallon mark.
• we had cool mornings and days all week, Jun 9 through Jun 13. temps in the upstairs bathroom remained in the 70s.
• on Fri, Jun 13, I moved the carboy to the basement.
• it's suppose to be a two-week fermentation, but this one fermented for about four weeks. the beer cleared itself between the second and third week. I think that our Belgian Blonde did the same thing.
• around 3:00 p.m. on July 3, we brought the carboy upstairs and left it on the kitchen counter until bottling. we planned to bottle on the afternoon of July 3, but we had outdoor plans. weather was cool on July 3 with outdoor temps mainly in the 60s, eventually reaching the low 70s in the late afternoon.
• on July 4, we bottled between 12:30 p.m. and 1:00 p.m. I though that the beer clouded up some on the day before when the carboy was moved upstairs, but the beer remained a little cloudy on July 4. The beer cleared between the second and third weeks, but maybe it started clouding up between the third and fourth weeks.
• it produced 9 bottles of beer.
• we drank the small amount of left-over beer. it tasted smooth, sweet, and it seemed strong, alcohol-wise. we liked it. it could be a winner after a couple weeks of carbonation.
• the final gravity on bottling day measured 1.010. room temp / outdoor temp at about 1:00 p.m. on July 4 in West Toledo was 75 degrees. the beer temp was 75.3 degrees. beer would have warmed a little after resting upstairs overnight.
• http://www.brewersfriend.com/abv-calculator/
• maybe our ABV is between 8.5 and 9.0 percent. if so, it's well below the book specs, which stated that this beer is suppose to have an ABV of 9.9%. but as long as it tastes good, i'm fine. we may always be a bit inefficient.
• On Thu, Jul 17, 2014, we drank our first bottle, and it tasted good. It has a good strong Belgian yeast flavor. Maybe hints of fruitiness from the hops, possibly, since no fruit was added. It has a golden yellow color. It had good carbonation. This is a keeper. I could see doing this one as a five-gallon batch.
• Fri, Jul 18, 2014: Drank another trippel. This is probably my favorite beer that we've brewed thus far, right after the stout. This is a close second or maybe a tie with the stout. Two drastically different beers, but the taste for both is excellent.

December 2014 Update

Today, Dec 13, 2014, Deb found a bottle from this one-gallon batch trippel in our basement. I assume that it's the last bottle from this batch.

Our basement temp is now in the upper 50s. This bottle sat on the basement floor, so we did not refrigerate it first before opening.

Back in the summer, we liked this one-gallon trippel a lot, which is why we brewed the five gallon version in August. But on Dec 13, 2014, we dumped the five-gallon trippel down the drain because it still tasted bad. We gave it some time, but it was not improving.

This evening's one-gallon batch bottle was a pleasant and surprise find now in December. The beer aged well because it tasted great. We both liked it better than the La Trappe Isid'or that we bought today, although they are different styles.

#Belgian - #trippel - #1gal - #photo