Recipe #7 - Ommegang Clone

This was brewed on November 28th, and was our 7th batch. The recipe:

5 lb. 9.6 oz. Pilsner malt
2.25 lb. aromatic malt
1 lb. 6.4 oz. crystal 20
2.25 lb. Briess Special Roast malt (50 Lovibond)
2 lbs dark candi sugar
6.25 AAU Styrian Goldings (60 min) (1.25 oz. of 5% alpha acids)
.33 oz. Styrian Goldings (0 min)
2 pkgs Wyeast 1214 (Trappist Yeast)

This was our first 'step mash'. We started with 5.5 gallons in the pot, and brought it to just over 113. Added the grains, took off the heat, and covered for 15 minutes. We brought it back to the heat, raised the temp to just over 144, then covered for 15 more minutes. We followed that same process for these temperatures/times:

113 degrees: 15 minutes
144 degrees: 15 minutes
154 degrees: 15 minutes
162 degrees: 10 minutes
169 degrees: 5 minutes

We then sparged about 1.5 gallons of water at 170 degrees into the wort. Estimated volume at this point was about 5 gallons.

We brought the wort to a roiling boil, then started a 90 minute boil. The Styrian Goldings went in at 60 minutes, and again at 0 minutes. We had a significant boil off, of approx 1 gallon.

From here, the wort was chilled. We let it come down naturally, for a bit, before transferring to an ice bath to bring down quicker. Approx half a gallon of water was added to the carboy, along with the wort. OSG was high: 1.093. The estimated OSG for this recipe was 1.074. I believe this was due to a more concentrated wort. We probably have about 4 gallons in the carboy.

Pitched the yeast, 2 pkgs, at around 75 degrees. Aerated the wort, and capped with the airlock. Fermentation was going around 12 hours later, when I checked. I think this one will be good, but will be very hot...if we can get down to the estimated final gravity of 1.013, we will be in the 9% range of ABVs.

Bottling Over the Weekend!

Seems like a good time for an an update.

We bottled on Saturday night, managing to get a case of the Hibernation clone (recipe #3) and about forty-eight 12 oz servings of the Winter Belgian into their own drinking vessels.

Things generally went smoothly during the process. Oxyclean was a big help in de-labeling the empty bottles, and I went through a soak and scrape process Friday and Saturday to prep enough bottles. We are already ahead of the game for the next bottling; I'd say there are about 20-30 bottles ready to go.

We tasted the Hibernation the other day, and thought it was a nice compliment, if maybe lighter bodied, to it's cousin. I'll be very curious to see them side by side, but we need to wait for carbonation.

The Winter Belgian was very pungent on the nose, but was surprised that the spice smell didn't really hit the flavor of the beer. It's a meaty style, I'd say, and probably not session-able, but I think it's going to be a big winner. Very impressed with how that one is going.

We need to get some things on the calendar...the Saison and the Pumpkin porter deserve to be racked this week, and we have all the ingredients to brew the small batch rye. That needs to happen this week.