Westmalle Tripel Clone

 

This recipe was modified from byo's clone recipe, the original recipe is available here.

5g batch

OG 1.082

FG 1.012 

8lbs pale malt

3lbs pilsener DME

1lb clear candi syrup

1oz Styrian Goldings hops

0.75oz Tettnang hops

0.50oz Fuggle hops

0.50oz Saaz hops

Wyeast 3787 (4L starter)

Mash grain at 150f for 90 minutes, sparge at 170f.

Bring collected wort to a boil. Boil 60 minutes with the following hop additions: Goldings & Tettnang @ :60, Fuggles @ :25 and Saaz @ :05. I also mixed in the DME & syrup @ :15 so it didn't caramalize, watch for a second boil over when doing this.

Cool, aerate and pitch the slurry from your 4L starter.

Primary for two weeks.

Secondary untill is settles out 1-2 weeks.

Bottle carbonate with 3/4 cup sucrose dissolved in 2 cups of water. 

This one is best when it has bottle aged at least a few months but it will be carbonated in a couple weeks.

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Unibroue Quelque Chose Clone

This is a modified recipe from North American Clone Brews:

5 gallon
OG 1.085
FG 1.022

7lbs Pale Malt
3lbs Wheat Malt
4lbs Pilsen DME
1/2lb Carastan Malt
1 oz Northern Brewers Hops
2 Cinnamon Sticks (broken up)
6 Cloves
6lbs Sour Cherries 
Wyeast 3787 (4L starter)

Mash grain at 150f for 60 minutes. Sparge at 168f.

Transfer wort to your brew pot, mix in DME and bring to a rolling boil.

Once boiling add 1oz northern brewer hops and boil for 60 minutes.

Cool, transfer to your carboy and pitch the yeast slurry from your 4L starter.

Primary ferment for 2 weeks.

Rack to secondary onto 6lbs sour cherries, cinnamon and clove and secondary for 3-4 weeks on the cool side (50-55f)

Then rack off the cherries to a clean carboy and allow to clarify for 2 weeks.

Bottle carbonate with 3/4 cup sucrose dissolved in 2 cups of water.

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Finally got around to making this one after coming across the recipe a few years ago. I bottled it yesterday and I am looking forward to trying it carbonated. Smells amazing! Here are a bunch of shots I took along the way:

Belgian Dubbel Recipe

 

Here goes my first stab at brewing a Belgian ale. This recipe is an attempt to clone an ale similar to Westmalle Dubbel. This is what I came up with from various sources:

5 gallon batch
OG 1.072
FG 1.016
ABV 7.3%

3lbs Pilsner DME
5lbs Pale Malt
1lb Belgian Aromatic Malt
1lb Belgian Special B
2oz Debittered Black Malt
1lb D-90 Candi Syrup
1oz Tettnang Hops
1oz Styrian Goldings Hops
0.5oz Saaz Hops
Wyeast 3787 (4L Starter)

Mash grain at 150f for 60 minutes, sparge at 165f. Add DME & Candi Syrup to collected wort.

Boil wort for 60 minutes with Tettnang @ :60, Goldings @ :15 & Saaz @  :10

Cool wort, aerate and pitch yeast slurry.

Primary up to 82f until fermentation is finished, approx 1 week.

Secondary at 68f for another 7 days.

Lager at 50f for 1-2 weeks.

Prime ale with 3/4 cup sugar dissolved in 2 cups of water and bottle.

Bottle age for 1-4 months.

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Brewed this batch Nov 15 and fermentation went well. It is tasting great right out of the carboy, can't wait to see how it progresses in the bottle. Here is a series of shots of the process:

Dark IPA

3lbs Pale DME
3lbs Pale Malt
1lb Wheat Malt
1lb Carastan
4oz Debittered Black Malt
8oz Sugar
2oz Northern Brewers Hops
4oz Cascade Hops
Safbrew S-33 Yeast

OG 1.060 (Actual OG was 1.059)
FG 1.016 (Actual FG was 1.020)

Mash all grain at 150f for 60 Minutes, collect wort and bring to a boil.

Boil for 60 minutes with 2oz Northern Brewers @ :60 and 2oz Cascade @ :10

Cool wort, aerate, add to carboy and pitch yeast.

Primary until final gravity is reached.

Transfer to secondary onto 2oz of cascade and dry hop for 1 week.

After dry-hopping transfer to bottling bucket onto 1/2 cup sugar dissolved in 2 cups of water.

Bottle and allow to bottle condition for 1-2 weeks.

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With that out of the way, I brewed this beer Oct 31. Fermentation went well for 2 days and from that point forward it was stuck at 1.030. Safbrew S-33 sucks! I repitched with EC-1118 yeast and it brought it down to 1.020 at which point I just bottled it. Here are some photos I took along the way:

 Ingredients

Mashing in

Hot break

 Fermentation on day two

Before bottling, it is not nearly as dark as it appears

 The end result, 12 750ml and 19 500ml bottles

I'll add a glass shot once it carbs up

2012 Hard Cider

Back in September I started my annual batch of Hard Cider. I wasn't sure if it would even happen this year due to the crop failure here in Ontario. Lucky Brantview Cider brought in apples for pressing. 

This year I kept the recipe very simple. Just 20L of preservative free cider and a pack of EC 1118 champagne yeast.  

 

Here it is two months later. I had issues getting the cider clear. I ended up adding gelatin twice and then resorted to Super-Kleer K.C. That finally cleared it out but there is still some pectin haze left. At that point I decided to just bottle it. My next batch I'll be using pectin enzyme from the start!

After all the racking I ended up with 25 750ml champagne bottles. They are currently bottle carbonating from a solution of 1C sugar dissolved in 2C of water. Once carbonated I will let them age at least 6 months, next fall they will be even better.

After bottling there was a nice sample left in my bottling bucket. This stuff tastes great already, light and tart with a good amount of fresh apple taste lingering. Alcohol content of this batch came in at 7.3% ABV.

Malt Bomb Pale Ale

Its been a while since I have brewed so I decided to make a malt bomb of a pale ale. I was planning on doing it all grain but I had 3lbs dme on hand so I threw that in as well. I am brewing this with my homegrown goldings hops as well! The recipe follows:

5gal Batch
10lbs pale malt
1lb crystal 60 malt
3lbs pale DME
3 oz goldings hops
american ale yeast

• Mash grain with 16.5 quarts (15.5L) of water @ 150F. Mash for 60min, stiring every 15min well maintaining the mash temp.
• Collect wort and sparge remaining grain with 24.75 quarts (23.5L) @ 170f
• Add all collected wort to your brew pot along with the DME and bring the a boil.
• Boil for 45mins dividing 2oz of hops at :45, :15 and flame out.
  
• Cool wort in an ice water bath.
• Transfer cooled wort to a carboy and pitch yeast.
• Primary ferment for 1 week.
• Rack beer into a secondary onto the last 10z of hops and dry hop for one week.
• With dry hopping complete rack again and allow the beer to settle out for another week.
• Once the beer has cleared, rack off the lees, mix in prime sugar (3oz sucrose dissolved in 2 cups water) and bottle.
• Bottle carbonation should take another week.
• Enjoy!
  

Mashing

Boiling

Hot Break

Carboy after pitching the yeast.

The Malt Bomb came out at 1.075 OG, a big pale indeed!

Finishing the Munich Dunkel

Feb 19th I racked the Munich Dunkel from the primary fermenter to the secondary fermenter. To clarify the beer I racked onto a solution of gelatin, 1 tsp gelatin dissolve in 1 cup of warm water. I then lagered the beer for about a month to bring on the lager flavors and so the gelatin could clarify.

Once the beer had lagered and clarified I racked the beer to the bottle bucket leaving all the sediment behind. To carbonate the beer I used white sugar that was mixed into the bottling bucked. The sugar solution was 2/3 cup of sugar dissolved in 2 cups of hot water.

With that done it was time to bottle. First thing was to sterilize all the bottles in Star-San and then rinse. I then siphoned the beer from the bottling bucket to the bottles using a bottling wand.

Here is the final product. I ended up with 24x330ml crown bottles, 16x500ml flip top bottles and one 750ml champagne bottle. They were bottled March 7th so they should be fully carbonated soon.