Belgian Update

[STiKY]

The Tripel has been fermenting for about 8 days now.

SG has dropped from 1.074 to 1.024. I'm hoping to bottle it around 1.016. Airlock bubbling has slowed down to about evey minute. Any one have any pointers on when to bottle? White Labs 500 (chimay yeast I believe).

Also, any bottling pointers on dealing with the nasty thick yeast sludge on top it was pretty nasty pulling a sample today for testing. Or anything else that would benefit the beer in a positive way.

-peace

[Dwayne_Delaney]

The only when-to-bottle tip that I can think of is not to be in too big of a hurry. I know that it is tempting to put it into the bottle as soon as you can, but make sure that fermentation has totally stopped by checking the gravity every day or so over a period of a week. If the gravity has stopped decreasing, it should be safe to prime and bottle. Never use a predetermined gravity reading to dictate when to bottle; some yeasts will attenuate the wort lower than others. Also, higher fermentation temps will cause the yeast to increase attenuation. You DON'T want any bottle bombs!

The funk on the top of the wort usually will sink a week or so after fermentation has stopped. You can speed things up by swirling the beer.

One thing that I have been doing is to add gelatin to the beer 4 days before I keg or bottle. This will do wonders for the clarity of the beer. It also works with mead.
To prepare the gelatin:
1. Add 1 pack of Knox unflavored gelatin to 4 cups of water.
2. Let the gelatin soak for an hour.
3. Bring the mixture to a boil and remove from heat immediately.
4. Pour into the fermenter and mix with a sanitized spoon.

I don't claim to be an expert; these things seem to work for me.

[psfred]

Having had a 10 gal batch of Karmeleit Tripel ruined by yeast autolysis, I would recommend an old-fashioned open fermentation and removal of that stuff -- the yeast appears to starve to death sitting up there on the foam, and it tastes horrible. "Normal" ale brewing specifies removing it with the back of a sterile spoon.

Inside a carboy I don't know what you could do, this was the cause of our terrible taste, I think.

I usually transfer the beer to a secondary fermenter while still active (not really bubbling, but still fermenting) to flush any air out of the secondary, then allow it to stand until it clears. Yeast hanging in suspension usually means it's still munching on sugars, and if you bottle it too soon, you get fire extingishers instead of bottles of beer.

You may want to pitch a small amount of fresh lager yeast when priming and bottling if you let it clear completely, this will encourage rapid and clean conditioning.

Peter

[STiKY]

It leveled out nicely and the foam subsided. It was just while getting the gravity that I encountered the yeast problem.

It held gravity for 3 days and was bottled more than a week ago. No 12oz handgrenades yet.

Tried the beer on Sunday. It was green but showed excellent promise. See if I can hold out a couple more weeks on the second tasting.

[STiKY]

Well in my newness to brewing I didn't think about how the Carmel Malt and dark belgian candy sugar I added would change the color from a nice light triple color to more of an amber dubble color.

Still tastes a little raw, I'm hoping its just that I'm too imptient and need to let the beer mature. Arg not a hobby for impatient people.

[STiKY]

Well three weeks in the bottle and the change has been amazing. It has gone from ok, to pretty damn good. It's all I can do to keep myself from drinking it too fast.