Belgian Dubbel

This weekend I plan on brewing a Belgian Dubbel.  The recipe is slightly modified from a Zymurgy article.  The original won a Gold medal, so I am hopeful a little of that magic rubs off on me.  This is a high OG beer, so I am trying to get some yeast going in a starter right now.  I have never attempted this, so hopefully all will go well or the brewing will be delayed at least a week.  I am regressing a bit, this is an all extract recipe, but this is a holiday week so I wanted to do something simple and I love Belgians.  I also plan on racking this batch to a secondary after a few days, hoping to cut down on some of the bite I ended up with in the Pale.  Pics and posting to come following brew day, stay tuned.

Another taste, no improvement

Second beer sampled and it is not much better after another week.  There is a very biting hop presence there, but no floral character.  Also, not enough malt balance.  It is drinkable, and believe me I will drink it, but I am hoping for better results with my next batch.

First taste - Pale Ale

Finally got to sample my batch of Pale Ale.  Pours nice, bottle carbonation took and a good 1/2 head developed.  Beer is quite cloudy, I am hoping that with some more time this will clear out a bit but I did not use any finings during the brew process.  I may need to add this to future batches or see how a secondary fermentor helps the clarification.  Taste was good, not great.  Good hop flavor but not a lot of malt balance there.  I suspect my grain conversion was not very good which would explain the low starting gravity as well.  I am going to let these sit for a couple more weeks and try another.  In the mean time, I am looking to brew a Belgian Dubbel.  I am sticking with an extract or extract/whole grain mix for now, but I did find instruction for a nice cooler conversion mash tun.  Hopefully I can move to all grain after another batch or so.  Less expensive and opens up more possibilities.  Downside is it will take much more time.

Draft Magazine has come out with their Top Beers  list for 2011.  Some of these may be difficult to find, but I know I am going to have some fun trying to validate their findings!  If you get a chance to try some, comment on this post and leave your impressions.  Happy Drinking my friends.

Bottle conditioning - waiting stinks

I walk past my stash every day, waiting and anticipating that first taste.  The bottles have to sit for another week and it is killing me!  I tried to get a pic of the beer's current state, but it really doesn't depict very well.  Their is some settling going on, but the beer is quite hazy right now.  I did not use any clarifying agents with this batch so there will probably be some haze even when completed.  Next week, the beer should be markedly clearer and refrigeration will help as well.  In the mean time, I patiently wait.  I am already thinking of my next batch.  I will need to keep a rotation going to make the waiting less painful until I get a keg set up.  I am thinking Belgian for my next batch.  Maybe spiced a bit and higher ABV for the fall/winter weather.

Capping the batch

Once I have the beer transferred into the priming tank and the sugar is stirred in well, it is time to fill and cap the bottles.  I was working solo here, so I found it best to fill about 12 bottles and then cap 12.  This went pretty quick.  I was a little rusty with the valve - it has been a while - so unfortunately their was some overflow.  I do hate wasting beer.  I have a very basic bottling set up.  You get a bunch of caps with the kit I bought.  Capping is pretty easy, set the cap on top and use the cap crimper to pop it on.  It takes some practice with this tool to get them on straight, but you can pick it up relatively quickly.  I would recommend bottling with a friend, it goes much quicker.  I had no takers at my house this night so the process took a little longer than planned.  I would say from sanitizing through packing up the beer I spent about 2 hours.  Net yield was 50 bottles.  Now they sit for 2 weeks conditioning in the bottle.  At the 2 week mark, I will chill one to see how it turned out.  For now, it's a waiting game.

Bottling day

Transferring beer to priming tank

Bottling day arrived at last.  Fermentation visibly stopped on Wednesday so I targeted Saturday to bottle.  You want to wait at least 2 days after bubbles stop to bottle to ensure fermentation is complete.  The arduous task of cleaning and sanitizing 50+ bottles as well as the fermenting equipment took up quite a bit of time.  I need to switch over to kegging, bottling is a huge pain in the rear.   Once everything is clean and sanitized, I moved the fermenter back into the kitchen and began moving the beer into the priming tank.  You officially have beer now, if kegging you could move it directly into your keg and force carbonate.  The more traditional route is to add some sugar to the priming tank and then bottle it up.  The sugar provides some additional fuel for the yeast.  This produces more fermentation and waste CO2 which carbonates the beer in the bottle.  The downside here is that you will end up with some sediment in your beer.  Filtering and kegging would give you a "clean" bottle but also can take away from some of the aging flavors you can realize especially on higher alcohol content brews.  Prior to starting the bottling, I took a final gravity measurement.  Using a simple math equation, you can determine the alcohol content of your beer (SG - FG x 131.25). For this beer, I look to have an alcohol content of 5.25%.  A good session beer, but lower alcohol content than expected by the recipe.  My starting gravity was lower than expected, which I suspect was due to an in efficient grain conversion.  Not surprising as this is the first time I have integrated a significant amount of grain with my extract.  If any of you have advice on how I can increase my efficiency, please post a comment.  I am pretty sure my sparging process kind of sucked.

taking my finishing gravity reading

Always a sign that the Holidays are near

The last few trips to the store have revealed the "Pumpkin Ales" and "Harvest Ales" give way to the stronger alcohol spiced Holiday ales.  But for me living in NE Ohio, there is one beer's release that truly means the holidays and winter weather are heading in quickly.  Yesterday was that day - Great Lakes has started serving Christmas Ale at the brewery.  It is only a few short weeks before this elixir makes its way into local bars and stores.  Can't wait to sample this year's batch!

Bubbles have stopped

Active fermentation on the Pale Ale appears to be concluding.  The airlock stopped bubbling yesterday when I went in to check on it.  Looks like bottling this weekend!  Then 2 weeks until chilling and enjoying!  Stay tuned for bottling documentation.

Christmas Ale Ice Cream???

It is a Christmas miracle come early.  Great Lakes Christmas Ale ice cream  Nothing more to say really.