Hello, A few days ago I asked for some general advice on preparing Belgian Strong Ales for competition. Here is a recipe for a Tripel that I came up with: 5 Gallon, OG: 1084 FG: 1021 ABV: 8.27% Color: 6.2 SRM Bitterness: 37 IBU Grain: 12lb Belgian Pils, 2 SRM 2lb Belgian Clear Candy Sugar 0.5 SRM .75lb Munich 10 SRM Hops: Saaz 2oz @60min Saaz 2oz @30min Yeast: WYeast 3787, with a big starter, and fermented at 75F. I know lots of people say only to use sugar and pils, but I like some maltiness so I went with some munich. As always suggestions are appreciated.
A good tripel should probably finish lower than 1021, how are you mashing? For the best examples of the style you really want the beer to dry out, and the Westmalle year is certainly capable of it. I would target 1010-1013 for FG. I've played with the White Labs version (530) a lot, and I find I get good performance in bigger beers by pitching a good starter lower, at around 64-65, then letting the yeast rise over 5-7 days. I don't let it go hotter than 78F. This fermentation schedule was derived from the info in Brew Like a Monk and tries to mirror what the monks say they do at Westvleteren.
The addition of .75# Munich probably will probably not have much impact on the beer, IMO. Maybe you notice, maybe you don't. However, I think highly of Belgian pils and would be inclined to skip it. YMMV.
Overall not out of wack. It looks like the sugar is about 20% of the fermentables which is about right. I am with pweiss909 you will not notice that much Munich malt. If you want that maltiness go for closer to 20-30% of the grain bill but I think you will be wandering out of Tripel territory. But who cares we brew what we want and I do not think it will be bad. I am also with cskollmann that your final gravity number is high, but that is just calculated. 3787 will do the job for you. This yeast always starts off like gangbusters and takes a while to finish. Depending on the temp of the room you put this in you could pitch in the low 60's and walk away leaving it at room temp. Get a blowoff tube ready now. Also, I would not pitch too heavy for this strain. I did a split batch tripel once with 2 different pitching rates for 3787. The rates were 750K cells/ml/plato and 450 cells/ml/plato which is danger low for most strains. They both finished at 1.010 with the 750 being fruitier and 450 with a little more phenolic. I did give them some aeration at 12 hrs into fermentation too. I also pitched a dubbel on an entire cake of 3787 once, most bland beer ever, no yeast character. Good luck!
Thank Goodness you're using a Tripel yeast strain and not a Belgian Golden Strong strain for this beer. <JK> On the sugar... clear candy sugar, if solid (rock candy), is the same thing as table sugar, or, if it's a syrup, is functionally about the same thing as table sugar. Table sugar is cheaper.
I concur, skip the Munich I don't think you'll notice it in there. As far as the syrup, I do think the syrups contribute a certain flavor. I brewed a tripel recently and to save money I used 1# table sugar and 1# clear candi syrup. It came out great. I'm planning on entering that one to see how it does in competition. Mine attenuated to 1.007 from 1.081. A bit on the low side, but it still has great mouth feel and flavor, and drinks way too easily. Overall looks like a solid recipe with or without the munich, just mash on the lower side and let it ferment out completly. On mistake I feel I made, that I don't plan to repeat was I boiled for 90 min, and the longer boil did add some color to the beer. I'm sure most people would not even notice the darker hue of yellow, but I do. Next time I'd only boil for 60 to try to keep the color lighter. Good Luck in the comp.
Overall, it looks like a fine recipe. Just a few comments (some already mentioned). I would use table sugar vs, clear candi sugar. I would suggest that you pitch in the mid-upper 60s and after a couple of days left it rise into the 70s. I would mash at around 152°F for an extended time (e.g., 75 minutes) to create a fermentable wort and I would boil for 90 minutes since you are using Pilsner malt; the 90 minute boil will drive off DMS pre-cursers (SMM). Since this is a big beer I would suggest that you utilize Fermcap to minimize krausen (blow-off). Good luck with your Tripel! Cheers!
Ditto what everyone said about the munich I think a bit of honey malt (~0.25-0.5#) would go well in this beer, it would still dry out from all the sugar but the honey malt would give it a hint of sweetness (perceived) and a nice aroma
RE: Clear candi syrup vs. table sugar: could you say more? This may venture into difficult-to-describe, got-try-it-yourself territory, but thought I'd ask, as I never tried the clear syrup. Also never tried soft blond candi sugar that I have sometimes seen. Just wondering... RE: 90 vs. 60 min boil: Wouldn't you recommend 90 min to eliminate DMS? I wouldn't think you would get a whole lot of extra darkening out of the extra 30 minutes, but I'm probably one of those people that wouldn't notice. Never had a DMS problem, but always have done 90 min with mostly pils malt recipes. That is the conventional wisdom.
I love the honey malt idea. I did this for a Belgian Pale Ale - Blonde tweener recipe that I brewed last year. Twas tasty.
Yeah the flavor is hard to describe, but there is a subtle difference and in a beer style like this subtleties come into play. Is it worth the $8-$9 per lb, hard to say. My last triple was 100% table sugar, and that turned out fine, but nothing special. I typically do a 90 min boil for all my beers, and on second thought I would probably stick to that for the next triple. I brewed this one in my aluminum kettle because it was a 3 gal batch and that kettle is smaller. My aluminum kettle seems to always add color to my beers. Next time I will use my SS kettle and still do the 90 min boil. The color change occurred all in the last 15 min or so. It looked more dramatic in the kettle, in the bottle not so much, but if you hold it side by side with another beer you can see the difference.
How do How do I go for a lower FG? To do this I need more attenuation. I know I am a little high on my FG. The attenuation on Trapist High Gravity is 76%.
“How do I go for a lower FG?” I addressed this in my prior post: “I would mash at around 152°F for an extended time (e.g., 75 minutes) to create a fermentable wort …” Cheers!
First, forget about any published attenuation range or average for a yeast strain. There are too many other variables for that alone to predict your attenuation. Some of these factors are.... - The Grist (some grains produce worts that are more fermentable than others, and simple sugars are fully fermented) - Mash Length (longer yields more fermentable) - Mash Temp (152F is the sweet spot for fermentability under Greg Doss's test conditions) - And of course yeast strain
As the others say, start with mashing low and long. I'm not familiar with Vikeman's reference, personally I'd do 149 for 90 minutes as that's what Brewing Classic Styles recommends I believe (books at home and I'm not). Don't mash out, you want those enzymes working as long as possible. A trick I don't think has been mentioned yet is to hold the simple sugar out until a few days into fermentation. This will force the yeast to process the more complex sugars first and give the yeast an extra boost towards the end of fermentation. Probably not necessary with a good sized pitch of healthy yeast though. Speaking of yeast, make sure your yeast are ready to rock. Make a proper starter based on the Mr. Malty calculator and give the wort good oxygenation. Do you have good temp control?
Dont get hung up on calculated FG's, they are almost never right If you use the grain bill as originally proposed with 2# of sugar I dont think you'll have any issue getting a FG well below 1021
