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E.S.B Extra Special Brewchez
A Grand Cru is a difficult one to categorize, by definition it isnt really a style as much as it is the "brewer's best" recipe and flagship beer. It is generally a belgian style, but can be anything from a tripel, to bier de garde to a dubble or abbey. When entering into 16E, you must specify also the factor that makes it a specialty and not fit the other categories, by usually special ingredients or technique. The only beer I enter into this is the Liquid Stoopid, which is a Belgian Strong Golden Ale, and should be entered into that category, but BSGAs should not have ginger and corriander so dominant, so it would suffer, but you must enter what makes it unique, and you may submit the base style if you would like, not necessary.
So this last bottle of grand cru you have been saving, does it have anybody's name on it? hhmmmm? I'll share I promise! If, of course, it was still available, eh hem...So when are we spring brewin it?
thirsty wrote:
A Grand Cru is a difficult one to categorize, by definition it isnt really a style as much as it is the "brewer's best" recipe and flagship beer. It is generally a belgian style, but can be anything from a tripel, to bier de garde to a dubble or abbey. When entering into 16E, you must specify also the factor that makes it a specialty and not fit the other categories, by usually special ingredients or technique. The only beer I enter into this is the Liquid Stoopid, which is a Belgian Strong Golden Ale, and should be entered into that category, but BSGAs should not have ginger and corriander so dominant, so it would suffer, but you must enter what makes it unique, and you may submit the base style if you would like, not necessary.
So this last bottle of grand cru you have been saving, does it have anybody's name on it? hhmmmm? I'll share I promise! If, of course, it was still available, eh hem...So when are we spring brewin it?
It'd be a good one for the next community brew!
DC
Yea, I kept one 750ml bottle out of the 12 empty bottles that Wade gave me, the rest I gave as christmas presents, and this one I kept because It had a few pieces of cork in it. While it is unfit for a present, I'm sure it will do fine for our purposes.
This isn't exactly the one that I entered, as I entered the Grand Cru with the WLP400, the one that is left is the safbrew wb-06. Came out very very good, but at the last second I swapped out the dry yeast for the WLP400 as a month in the bottle did it justice, and I got the flavors and aromas I wanted in there.
Making the next batch with forbidden fruit, does anyone have any experience with this strain?
bruguru wrote:
Making the next batch with forbidden fruit, does anyone have any experience with this strain?
Yes I have done a couple dubbels with it, both came out slightly malty and slightly uderattenuated. I would pitch a HUGE starter. And although it cleared up nicely, I got very little cake from it, so little I didnt harvest any of it the second time around.
So what exactly is the style for this? Is it a dubbel, tripel something in between? What's the grain bill look like? (being nosy)
Basically it's just Papizan's who's in the garden, but with grain instead of malt. I'm thinking of throwing in some torrified wheat, or maybe cutting the straight belgian Pilsner malt I used in the first one with some Pale malt like Brewchez suggested. Off the top of my head here it is.
10 gallon batch
15 lbs Belgian pilsner malt
4lbs clover honey
1 oz saaz 60 min
1.5oz corriander/ 1oz saaz 30 min
1.5oz corriander/2 valencia orange peels no pith 10 minute
1 oz saaz flame out.
mash in 149F Carbonate slightly higher than usual, I used a little more corn sugar for Priming 3/4cups, plus a little more
I pitched this one at 100degrees F because I ran out of time, I think that may be where I got some hot flavors from. I don't know if this is exactly the same adds, but I remember it was 1.060 OG, and 1.09 final gravity, this one packed a pretty good whollop, and no one can see it comming because of the carbonation, and the light flavor
I don't know if I got the adds completely right, i'd have to look at my book notes, but it's close enough to post, I know I tweaked it some, but no wheat malt at all, and I'm thinking of adding some this time.
Thirsty, im sure you know this, but any help with the Next batch would be appreciated, I want to keep it light and citrus. any of your 2 cents would be like a quarter to me.
looks pretty good, hard to tell without tasting it !!!! hehe
If your goal is to make it more light and citrusy then it already is, then my suggestion would be to lower the mash temp to say 145, back off the honey, (which I would exchange orange blossom for the clover), and add a couple #s of cane sugar to the primary after a week or so. A FG of .009 is pretty low already though, so maybe just adding more citrus to it will work. Adding fresh peel along with dried peel may get you more as well.
With that style you could replace some of your base malt with a belgian pale, and golden promise is a great sub as well. Just some ideas.
Wow, 145f? I was kinda scared to mash at 149? what is the lowest you can mash at? I thought that 142 was probably the lowest, but i'm not sure.
Any suggestions for a yeast? I was going to repitch the WLP400 in 5 gallons, and the forbidden fruit for the other 5 gallons, but I kinda need this going in a hurry, as I'm planning to make this on the 3rd of april, and they need it by may 4th I think. It took about 28 days to completely ferment out the WLP400, so I can imagine what the forbidded fruit is like.
On a side note, I have very little experience with Belgian beers, and as my drinking days are pretty much over, it's hard to drink beer that's not my own, just not enough time. I have tried some triples, and doubles, and Lambic, but I have the feeling that these beers are not as intended as their flavor profile would change from to long in the bottle, and temp changes on the plane and such, in other words, how do you know what a belgian is supposed to taste like if you haven't actually been there?
From what it sounds like you are building here, I would go down to your local packy/specialty store and get a bottle of Unibroue's La Fin DuMonde. This is what I picture when you are talking about this beer. 145 is definitely on the low side, but by no means too low. These fine belgians are all about delicacy, and should really hve a maturation time, however if you are trying to plow through a fernent and get it into action for a deadline, I would suggest T-58 dry yeast or perhaps WLP500. You can probably bust through that in 3 weeks, then carb for a week. It will not even come close to doing this beer justice, but if you have a time commitment, so be it.
BTW if you havent had La Fin DuMonde yet, it will give a very inexpensive view on how great and complex a simple belgian can be with time.
Damn, that's what I thought, not enough time. Just to many family commitments the last 2 months, and every weekend full up.
Well, I might have to rethink what I'm making now. GOD DAMNIT
maybe i'll just enter the ESB, and save the Belgian for a couple of months. When I first started making beer, and only had 2 cases a batch, and they where gone 3 weeks after bottling, I would think to myself wow, I bet this would have been really good after 2 more months in the bottle.
145-142 are definately do able. Keep in my however, that the RATE in which these enzymes work is also temperature dependent. SO if you go down to 145F you really should plan to mash longer that you do at 154F. Like 90 minutes. This is where doing conversion tests with iodine come in handy. Otherwise, you're flying in the dark.
I mash my Tripel at 144F and let it got for 90minutes. I have never done a conversion test. I work well in the dark.
Ha ha, yea, i'm thinking about mashing in Friday night, then starting up again on saturday morning, giving a full 12 hrs. I don't think I'd need a conversion test after that. I figure that cuts down my brew time to about 4 or 5 hours on saturday giving me more time to clean up, and get things together.
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