Belgian Trippel

[nabs478]

I have brewed a belgian using the following recipe...

11kg of Bohemian Pils
2.7kg Cane Sugar (I used ordinary table sugar)

110gm Saaz @ 4.5% 55min
25gm Saaz @ 4.5% 10mins - Total 32IBU (thats according to beer smith, but probably more like 40 I think)

1 Whirfloc Tablet

Efficiency 52%

35L Final Volume, OG 1079, Wyeast 3787 Tappist High Grav I think.

I started the ferment at about 18 C, anbd held it there for abou a week, and then raised it to 20, then 22, then 26C over another week and a half. I used the high temp as it only got to about 1024 after the first 10-12 days. It has since dropped to about 1021.

It is far too sweet. I am wondering why it has stopped. It had sooo much sugar in it that I thought it would get to about 1010 or 1012 - Particularly after my stopped my sparg early and got so little out of the grains ro make onlye 52%, leaving a higher ratio of sucrose to extract.

I had in my mind that sucrose is fully fermentable.....I now have my doubts??

 

[Stuster]

What size starter did you make or how much slurry did you use?

 

[newguy]

You can still salvage it. Mix enough water with 4-5 tsp of yeast nutrient to make the mixture runny enough to pour. Nuke in the microwave long enough to allow it to boil for at least 30 seconds. You may have to turn the oven on/off because it will foam quite a bit. The yeast nutrient I'm referring to is sometimes called yeast energiser by some retailers. It's a light beige powder. If you can find diammonium phosphate, add 1-2 tsp of that too. DAP is sometimes called yeast nutrient in stores. DAP looks very much like slightly clumpy table salt. Add the nutrient mixture to your fermenter while it's still hot, then gently swirl the fermenter before you affix the lid/airlock. If you affix the airlock before swirling, the hot vapour you just added will form a vacuum as it cools and will suck your airlock's water into the brew, possibly contaminating it.

Keep the temperature @26C and gently swirl the fermenter twice a day. It should finish (or get as low as it's going to get) in about a week.

 

[neonmeate]

i brewed a tripel with exact same OG recently - 1079 - and exact same yeast (3787) and it got down to 1006 after 10 days. mine started at 20C then got up to 25-26 fairly quickly.
I have three theories as to why yours isn't getting there -
1. 18C is very cold for this yeast and it will slow down significantly
2. as stuster said, perhaps your pitching rate was too small for 35L of 1079 wort - did you aerate?
3. did you mash at 71C or something silly

 

[Swinging Beef]

I made a Belgian Tripel IPA with a SG of 1120 that stalled around 1040.
A commercial brewer suggested to me the solution.
Make up a strong starter of the same or a different yeast.
Sterilise a egg beater or whisk and beat the shit out of your stalled wort to re-aerate it, then add the strong starter of the 2nd yeast.
I have no temperature control, but it eventually dropped to 1015.
Still sweeter than I would have liked it, but its a ripper drop now after sitting in the bottle for 6 months.

I was listeing to the Jamil show the other day about Tripel and he suggests adding the sugar as a syrup 2/3 of the way thru the ferment.
If you add the simple sugars early, the yeast will eat them first, and ignore some of the more complex sugars, such as malt, leading you to a much higher finishing gravity.

 

[neonmeate]

1120??!! what was your final abv, 14%?

 

[Swinging Beef]

1120??!! what was your final abv, 14%?

Yep, something like that... its a ridiculous beer.
Still have 4 longnecks left ageing nicely.
Deadly Neddily it got called

 

[nabs478]

Thanks for all those ideas. I will try something like that.

Can someone confirm that sucrose (table sugar) is fully fermentable is added to the boil? I have found a website that ays it is and that it can be used for priming sugar, but I have a friend that had a similar experience with a sweet beer after using sucrose as an adjunct.

 

[nabs478]

SO its about 9 days since I last measured the gravity of my tripel. I have been away and came back and noticed the airlock bubbling about once every 10-20 seconds. I have founded in the last 9 days it has dropped from 1021 to 1014. I have had a very slow fermentantion like this once before, but it was because I spilt some some rinse sanitser into the brew after I ptiched the yeast (about 100mL into about 130L).

I am interested in the reasons why stuck and slow fermentations occur, but I think I will do a search and perhaps start a nes thread focusing on them.

 

[brotom7]

I don't have much experience with cane sugar but this link suggest that the yeast will have to put some effort into breaking the sucrose into Glucose and Fructose unless done when converting the cane sugar into candy sugar.

http://oz.craftbrewer.org/Library/Methods/...ers/candy.shtml