After many, many months of not brewing I was very excited to get back into it recently. To make it more interesting for me I (sort of) wrote my own recipe for the first time, used dry extract for the first time, used larger amounts of sugar for the first time, ordered my supplies from a new place, and brewed a style I never have brewed before. I say “sort of” wrote my own recipe because I started with a recipe from one of my books before making additions, subtractions, and substitutions as necessary and/or desired. Still all of these things were new variables for me.
The video from the brewing of the Pomegranate Hefeweizen is still a pretty good reference for this batch since the initial setup is much the same. Even though I have changed all of those things mentioned above, the actual brewing process really has not changed a lot for me. There are some tweaks that I need to get working on and when I do a new video will come along with them.
Now on to my attempt at brewing a Belgian Dubbel.
Most of the components
As with every batch, sanitation is very important and I do my very best to ensure that everything used for my brewing has been sanitized to the best of my ability before getting started. With that, I brought 2.5 gallons of water to about 150 degrees and put the following into the grain bag:
- 1.75 lb Medium Crystal
- .5 lb Aromatic
The grains were then soaked for 60 minutes while maintaining the temperature between 150-160 degrees. I need to refine my methods a bit to better maintain that temperature at a specific point, so I think building myself a mash tun has to happen in the near future. If nothing else, controlling the temperature better will help my ability to repeat a recipe later on if I choose to.
Preparing the sweet stuff
The grain bag was then pulled out and I poured 2 quarts of 180 degree water over it to ensure all of the grainy goodness went into the pot. Then I added the following as I turned up the heat to work in the direction of a boil:
- 3.25 lb Golden Light Dry Extract
- 1.75 lb Sparkling Amber Dry Extract
- 1 lb Panela Sugar
- .25 lb Turbinado Sugar
Adding the dry extract and the sugar was a bit of an adventure and I pulled the pot off the burner multiple times in an effort to keep the wort from foaming over and making a mess. Of course a bigger pot would help out a lot with that issue. Once everything was incorporated and brought up to a good vigorous boil I set the timer for 90 minutes and added:
- Bittering hops – 1 oz Bullion pellets
After the 90 minutes of boiling I was able to get the temperatures down pretty quickly by officially using my wort chiller for the first time. I was able to get it from boiling down to 87 degrees in 15 minutes and then added cold water from there to get the temperature down to a good yeast pitching temperature. All in all the process went very smoothly, but I will have to wait weeks to find out how well the batch turns out.
Each batch usually does have something that goes wrong where I have to improvise on the fly and this one was no exception. The strainer that I use to filter out the hops (and whatever else) as I pour the wort into the primary fermenter broke upon the first touch. I quickly grabbed some cheesecloth as a substitute and that will be another thing that I have to wait to find out about the result.
A minor setback
Another change for this batch was that I decided to go back to using liquid yeast. Though there are a few reasons, probably the biggest is that the place I ordered from gets it to me in half the time so there is less chance of it dying on me during transit. With the wort cooled down nicely to 72 degrees I gave the (now room temperature) vial of White Labs Abbey IV (Platinum Series – WLP540) yeast a good shake and dumped it in before snapping the lid on tightly. The airlock was bubbling away by the time I woke the next morning, so my hopes are high.
The original specific gravity came in at approximately 1.065, which was only slightly higher than I was aiming for. This time I took a first hydrometer reading before just topping off with water to 5.25 gallons and it worked out well. That allowed me to fill it up closer to only 5 gallons and to come close to my goal starting gravity. I would rather have fewer bottles of better beer in the end than to continue to fall short of where the original gravity should be.
I plan on letting this one sit in primary for two or three or four weeks before racking it to secondary. After taking a gravity reading in a few weeks I will make that decision.
Stay tuned . . .
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