Welcome back to Brew Logs, where I keep track of my experiments in homebrewing. Even though I brewed my third all-grain batch last Saturday, there were lot of firsts — first really high gravity ale (I was aiming for at least OG 1.1), first solo brew (none of the dudes could make it), and my first attempts at using my new outdoor burner. All in all, it was a great day. Brewing alone becomes less of a party or hangout and more of a meditation. I cleaned, organized, and executed my brew session with a good amount of precision, which made me feel good. Yes, I still enjoy cleaning and organizing. That means I’m either cut out for this, or I haven’t done it enough times for it to bother me.
The Dark Strong is an interesting style, and many people’s favorite beers, or the beers they vote “THE BEST IN THE WORLD” are Dark Strongs — they are also sometimes known as Trappist Style ales, usually of 12 degrees or higher by older naming conventions (click here for the BJCP guidelines on the Dark Strong). I’ve enjoyed a number of beers from this category immensely, and as I was looking for a beer to help me get through the cold Brooklyn winter, this seemed like a perfect choice.
I went with a simple recipe instead of the complex grain bills that have been winning the homebrew competitions in this style category. Since I wanted my beer to be somewhat monk-like, the inimitable Brew Like a Monk by Stan Hieronymus was invaluable. I decided on a 50% Pils and 50% Pale ale recipe for the grain, plus 3lbs of Belgian Dark Candi Syrup. With around 80% efficiency, this brought my OG up to 1.13, which really surprised me. My mash tun was very full, and the stirring was pretty difficult, but I’m a big believer in how efficient my fly-sparging procedure is, so that must have had quite a lot to do with it.
After around 18 hours, the beer was blowing off an insane amount of trub and gross black grease, which didn’t cease for about 4 days. The airlock is on in place of the blowoff tube now, and as of 5 days of fermentaiton, the SG was down to 1.06, which is right on target for 2 weeks bringing me down to 1.02 or so, according to my amazingly crude calculations. Temperature fluctuations in Brooklyn have been a bit rough, and even though the wort got down to about 62 in the carboy, fermentation hasn’t ceased, and the production of esthers from the White Labs Trappist Ale Yeast seems all but unaffected. I used a nice hop schedule which included Warrior, Northern Brewer, and Saaz pellets to bring me to around 50 or 60 IBUs as well, and with little hop aroma and the right amount of bitterness, this shoudl bring me about to where I want to be.
I’m not going to be spicing any of my Belgians on the first round, because I want to get the base recipes on lockdown. Then I’ll add spices and other flourishes as necessary or desired. In other homebrewing news, I have pruchased a small system for kegging with cornelius kegs, and I’ll post that info and experience along as it comes.
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