So I heard about a contest that Karbach is having for Belgian tripel.  convenient because I just ordered a 55 pound sack of Belgian pilsner and some WLP530, WLP570 and WLP575 yeasts.   I was planning on going to Belgium anyway.    So here is my first shot at a tripel.  Hopefully it’s decent enough to submit. here is a link to the Karbach Facebook Post on it

3/4 teaspoon of calcium chloride and 3/4 teaspoon of epson salt added to mash water. Prepare 7 gallons of water with intention of mashing with 6 of it. With all water losses will need 7.5 in boil. 2 lost in grain absorbtion so 9.5 gallons of water total will go through this thing. 149F target mash temperature. 90 minute mash, 90 minute boil. 161-162F strike water temperature.

How it Went on 1/20/2013

Everything went great on the whole. I hit mash temperature, I hit PH and it all seemed to be going quite well. 75 minutes in to the boil the gravity was reading 1.063 in my refractometer and I had 2 pounds of cane sugar to add. I’m thinking great this is going to give me an additional .018 of gravity but at flame out the refractometer is reading 1.078ish. I’m going to have to research that and see what’s up. Regardless the bu:gu ratio is fine and I think the product will be fantastic.

Update 1/23/2013

Fermentation took off fine. Ambient temperature of about 65F which on day 3 with high Krausen has risen to 70F. This thing has been putting off some heat because the temperature controller is set to right under 60F and the temperature is still rising. This WLP530 yeast is certainly a showing yeast with a huge plume of krausen.

Update 1/27/2013

Fermentation is still going on. I think it slowed due to weather being a little cool here. The termperature is about 65F. I’ll rouse the fermenter some and run a light to warm it up. Should finish in the next couple of days. Right now it’s at about 60% apparent attenuation and tastes quite nice albeit sweet.

Update 2/6/2013

Fermentation has been interesting on this beer. I transferred the beer from from fermenter to fermenter in order to spur fermentation which it did. On 2/3/2013 I transferred to a keg and pressurized. Leaving it at room temperature it’s managed to ferment out to about 80%AA. It tastes fantastic and seems like it’ll dry out a tad more in the next day or so which I hope it does quickly being that I have to ship it off to the Bluebonnet Brew Off for 2013. Overall I think this beer will be a winner. It’s a good balance between spiciness, Belgian yeast character and smooth maltiness. That being said anyone attempting to ferment out a 1.080 beer at ambient temperature of around 65F better pitch big and be ready to nurse it to the finish line.

Update 2/9/2013

This beer was shipped out to the Bluebonnet Brew Off. Other than the fact that it’s probably only carbonated to 2 volumes it is fantastic. I’m upping the carbonation in anticipation of shipping it to Karbach. It’s truly a great beer but at 2 volumes it isn’t giving a big puffy head. Although I believed it to be at 3 volumes when it was bottled it apparently lost too much carbonation and didn’t produce the head. It had the taste but wasn’t impressive in presentation. So I”m adding a volume and hoping to get better results.

Update 2/13/2013

Ok this is strange. The beer is now too sweet at about 3.5 volumes CO2. It appears to be showing more sugar at later servings. It’s got the right presentation now with the CO2 but tastes sweeter. Perhaps its the cold???? Lets hope the folks who judge this beer get it a little warm. Still tastes nice just too sweet.

Tasting Notes on 3/13/2013

I don’t know what was going on 2/13/2013 but this beer is very good for me.  It finished around 1.017 which was about as high as is allowed in a lot of the trippel examples I saw in Brew Like a Monk.    It has plenty of Belgian spice which come through and the assertive Amarillo hops are certainly there.   I think it has as good a shot as any in the Karbach Carboy Classic which is where it’s about to be heading.