Bastogne Tripel Label

Tripel and Michigan State Fair

I just cracked open my first chilled and carbonated sample of my tripel and was delighted. I'd say it ranks up there with the first batch of Annabelle in my books, though a completely different beer. Everything I was going for (basically a similar version of Bell's Sparkling Ale) was achieved: a muted Belgian character (thanks to White Labs' seasonal Bastogne Ale yeast), a soft but high alcohol content, and great drinkability. Clarity is sub-par, but the color is beautiful, and I'm starting to worry less and less about clarity in my beer, since it has little to do with the quality (especially the flavor) of a beer itself. I'll leave this recipe as is since I am overwhelmingly satisfied.


Bell's General Store where I work is a drop-off location for the upcoming Michigan State Fair Homebrew Competition. I've wanted to enter some beers in a competition for awhile, but I was sort of waiting for a more local one (rather than the collossal AHA National Competition) for starters. I think I'll be entering it, likely with my tripel and IPA headlining. The cost for 3 entries is the same as 1 or 2, so I'll need to scrape up another entry as soon as possible, either using the Belgian Annabelle in the Belgian Strong Ale category or Hannah or Rachel if they are done in time. Wish me luck.

Rachel!

The first all-grain version of Rachel is here. Brewed her on this beautiful day with very few problems and one looong brew day; extra runoff from the mash gave me about 7.5 gallons to boil down to 5 gallons, which took a bit of time and propane to figure out. But all is well, and Rachel should start fermenting within the next twelve hours.

Hannah is in the secondary. Some of the astringent tannin seems to have dissipated, but only bottling, carbonating, and chilling the finished product will tell the truth. I'm thinking of special ordering some PVPP brewing product (basically microscopic plastic finings that remove haze and tannin proteins) to add if pre-bottling tastings don't show significant improvement.

The approximately 3.5 gallons of Ella that proved to be far too dextrinous for a drinkable beer are back in a sanitized carboy. I'm experimenting with Bean-O and Champagne yeast, a catch-all trick for drying up a beer; in other words, those dextrins (long sugar molecules, cannot be consumed by yeast) will be shortened by the Bean-O enzyme (which is the same enzyme used to break up food in the human stomach; hense, Bean-O digestive aid), which will be readily consumed by the alcohol tolerant and highly attenuative Champagne yeast. The result? Who knows, but I'm expecting an even more astronomical alcohol content and little sweetness to balance it out. All in all, this is more of an experiment than an effort to produce a drinkable product. If worse comes to worse, I'll build a home still (as in distilling) and turn the booze into single-malt Scotch and store it away for awhile. The possibilities...

That's it for now. Eva #2 is next, hopefully in time for the Sam Adam's homebrew compitition.

Sam

Hannah!

Hannah's back!

Brewed the first all-grain version of her this afternoon. Efficiency was a bit low, and I'm worried about some astringency issues from possibly too high mash temperatures (I need a new thermometer and a little more patience), but hopefully all will turn out well and result in a comparable version of Dk's summer beer.

Wheat beers being best enjoyed young, I'll plan on a week of fermentation and a week of settling in secondary until bottling, if not a bit longer, depending largely on time/finances.

That goes for the Tripel as well. Strange fermentation characteristics from that beer have calmed down; I had worried of an infection when the beer began to foam heavily in secondary. Hoping I had merely racked into secondary before primary had fully completed, I raised the ambient temperature surrounding the cooler to promote and last minute yeast activity, then moved to another secondary vessel. The same issue there, but much smaller in scale. As soon as I feel fermentation is complete, I'll make the move to bottles. By the way, the Tripel tastes very, very good. As does the Amarillo IPA, which is nearly fully carbonated and now mellowing out in the bottle. I'll have to put some restrictions on myself or else I'm bound to finish them before I know it.

Anyway, look for Rachel next. Until then...

Sam

The Lineup

Being disappointed with the mediocrity of some of my more recent beers, I feel it necessary to produce some sort of permanent lineup of regular offerings, especially if I am to be moving my way into kegging in the coming months. I plan on moving away from brewing new styles until I have really pinned down these six previous brews, which I think demonstrate the best individual quality and comprise a healthy variety of styles:

Rachel - Amber Ale
Hannah - American Wheat
Annabelle - Scotch Rye
Eva - 10-Malt Brown Ale
Amarillo IPA
Bastogne Tripel

These are reconfigured all-grain recipes for each of these beers. Ideally, I would like to have each of these styles available at any given moment, and once I can accomplish that, I will start brewing new batches, as long as I have come to a final decision on each recipe. The overall problem is that after over 20 batches of beer, I have no set recipes, partly from spreading myself too thin over too many styles, and partly from moving so quickly from extract to all grain. I'd like to settle down with six original all-grain recipes for six outstanding beers, rather than 14 recipes for 14 sub-standard beers.