Drink Belgian or nothing at all!!!!

[DoubleVision]

Sirg, so let me first says thanks for all the knowledge imparted on your last brew day! Since then I've been incorporating some new things into my brew process - oxygen stone, yeast stir plate, etc. and I'm about to attempt my first mostly all-grain big belgian brew.

Can you explain the step mash your doing? I was just going to do a single step at 150 and sparge a 168. Is there a better way?

[sirgiovanni]

Man that is freaking awesome news Aaron!

So if you want to talk more about it over a beer as to the why of this mess, I'd be glad to talk too. I have to be honest in saying that there is no single step mash I believe in. I'm a tinkerer and constantly screw around with this to try and tweak attenuation and extraction percentages. Iodine will show you if your starch is converted but I see nothing wrong with being a little more patient on the end nibblers. They really will not deactivate till you pop 160. I hope that helps! PS, you better save me a beer!

[DoubleVision]

No wonder your brews all taste great!

Thanks for the help. I'll take all I can get - this one will be a learning experience for me. It will also push the limits of my equipment. I'm hoping to get in the neighborhood of 1.070 (fingers crossed).

[sirgiovanni]

If you need to borrow anything equipment wise, be happy to help. Thanks for the nice comment!

[sirgiovanni]

Hey by the way, make sure you try some inverted sugar out if you are worried about your mash capacity. I thought I had capacity problems too until I started working with that some more. It's really easy to do.

[DoubleVision]

Thanks for the tip. Is it something I will find in the grocery or healthy store? The reason I ask is that I may not have time to order online and get it before brew day.

I was going to use 1 lb. of good quality unrefined sugar. I notice that I could probably make the inverted sugar syrup by boiling normal or unrefined sugar in citric acid for 20 minutes - not that I have that on-hand either! Is that something you've ever tried?

[sirgiovanni]

yep,
You can get any kind of sugar from the grocery that is 100% sucrose (cane sugar is just as fine as beet). You just convert to glucose and fructose which is easier for the yeast to consume.

BE REAL CAREFUL when you pour your hot syrup into the brew pot. If you pour too quickly it will be like old faithful and gush up towards you. Not sure of the chemistry there but that sugar is condensed and very hot. It goes nuts when you put it in. I mean nuts! Be careful and go slow, you will be fine.

[Chris Norrick]

You can get citric acid at the grocery in the canning and pickling section. In the local stores this is a small section usually near the charcoal for some reason.

[DoubleVision]

Thanks guys! I did pick some up at Elbert's and will give it a try this Sunday. For now, I had better get the yeast starter going.

[sirgiovanni]

Well I'm getting closer. I squeaked out 80% attenuation on the IPA Tripel. That is the first beer I ever finished drinking the full hydrometer tube of.

Finished out at 1.013 and 7.5%. Can't wait to taste it with bubbles tomorrow.

[sirgiovanni]

10 gallons of blond off and running. 10 gallons dubbel conditioning and 10 gallons of Belgian stout almost ready to keg. Not a drop to drink out of all that so I took 5 gallons of blackberry / raspberry mead with orange blossum honey (6 months) and carbonated it for the kegerator. Not too bad while I wait.

[sirgiovanni]

I'm not sure if it's because I've been working on wort attenuation or what. But Saturday's 6.9% blond blew out pure yeast cake from the top of the airlock, twice within 12 hours, from the 15 gallon conical. That's 5 gallons of headspace that I have never seen a blow off from before! Very strange as it was a tremendous fermentation that slowed drastically after 2.5 days before it blew out. It was a thick, pure appearance yeast goo, nothing liquid that I have typically seen from carboys. In fact, it was barely liquid at all. I can't wait for this one now. It's the violent ones I love. It's all so strange cuz like I said, it was the trailing off of the primary and it fermented at only 72 degrees.

So I guess maybe my blow-off system I bought and have never needed may start coming into play after all.

[john mills]

Brewed my 1st Belgian yesterday with the yeast recycled from Turoni's Dubbel (Thanks Jack).
I started off on the easy side with a nice Blonde. Hey I just think I found it's name "Easy Blonde"... Who doesn't love those
6 1/2 # Pilsner
12 oz Munich
2 oz Aromatic (all I had left)
6 oz Vienna
1 1/2# inverted sugar
1/2 oz Perle 40 min boil
1/2 oz Perle 15 min boil
OG: 1.059 I hope the FG finsishes no higher than 1.008!

[sirgiovanni]

I might be going too far.

I have decided to split the 10 gallons of dark strong I'm brewing Saturday. 5 gallons will go as a straight 10% into the secondary, 5 gallons will be dumped onto about 17 lbs of raspberries to referment.

I think I enjoyed the mead on tap too much.

[john mills]

Interesting....sounds good. I'd like to try a sample when ready What is the ABV going to be with the added fermentables? I would guess you will be about 12-15%. Might be really good to oak a gallon for sampling too.