G&g Artisanale #4

[NRB]

Hi guys,

After 18 months of not brewing, I'm getting back into it. Yeah yeah, I know, what was I thinking taking so long off? Suffice it to say I had plenty of shit going on hence my absence from the board for 8 months.

It's time to get the stocks up so I purchased an ArtisanAle #4 from Grain & Grape:
"A pale high gravity base suitable for making German Bock or Doppelbock, British Barley Wines, Imperial Stout and Scotch Ale, or Belgian Tripel, Dubbel, or Strong Golden Ales. It has an original gravity of 1080 and is made with Pilsner malt and with 10% of the gravity being provided by pale Candi sugar. 25 IBU with bitterness provided by a mild neutral hop and a small late addition of German Hallertau."

I'm planning on fermenting it with WY1388 Belgian Strong Ale without dilution, but wasn't sure whether some extra hopping might be in order. I'm happy to ferment "as-is", but wanted a little feedback from anyone who's fermented this wort before.

As soon as it's done, I'll fire up my brewery and get a few English and American pale ales out followed by what takes my fancy.

I'm hoping it's like riding a bike!

Post your comments.

 

[devo]

welcome back, missed ya avatar.

 

[NRB]

Thanks mate. Hopefully you'll be seeing a little more of her again

 

[NRB]

Doesn't anyone have an opinion on this? Surely someone's fermented it!

 

[FireBlade]

I haven't used the #4 but I use the #2 regularly and can vouch for the quality of the G&G fresh worts, they produce outstanding beers.

They have some guide lines for styles with the #4 here http://www.grainandgrape.com.au/articles_other/wortkit_4.htm

 

[WarmBeer]

I used the #4 Artisan Ale to make a Dubbel.

Steeped the following: 200g Carahell, 200g Cara-amber and 200g Cara-aroma (all from G&G) in ~3lt water for 30 mins, strained and boiled the resulting liquid, then chucked in 200g Dark Candi Sugar, and popped the whole lot into the fermenter with the #4.

Mine's taken a while to carbonate (long story) but has come on very tasty, although at 7%, it's not a session beer

The AA packs aren't the cheapest way to brew, but give good results, enjoy.

Cheers

 

[hazard]

I used the #4 Artisan Ale to make a Dubbel.

Steeped the following: 200g Carahell, 200g Cara-amber and 200g Cara-aroma (all from G&G) in ~3lt water for 30 mins, strained and boiled the resulting liquid, then chucked in 200g Dark Candi Sugar, and popped the whole lot into the fermenter with the #4.

Mine's taken a while to carbonate (long story) but has come on very tasty, although at 7%, it's not a session beer

The AA packs aren't the cheapest way to brew, but give good results, enjoy.

Cheers

This is the recipe that comes from the G&G site. I wanted to make a Chimay Blue clone using the G&G #4 wort and research indicates that this includes 10% of the grist as wheat starch. So to this recipe I added 500g torrifed wheat, with 500g pilsener malt. I mashed these malts with the specialty malts above. I had to make my own candi sugar as G&G didn't have any, and this was added to the boil. G&G cube, and wort from partial mash were added to the fermentor for a final volume of 22L. I used 2 packs of Safbrew T58 on advice of G&G as I didn't have time to make a yeast starter. OG was 1080, FG was 1022, ABV 7.6%. Bottled on 1 Nov 2008.

I opened a bottle after 2 weeks, and was OK but not as good as I was hoping. I left for a few more weeks and now this is really good, not identical to Chimay Blue but pretty darn close (OK so the real thing is 9% alcohol, but its the taste that counts). If you have time to use Wyeast liquid then it would be even better. So my advice - use the #4 kit with confidence for a Belgian strong dark ale. Don't be afraid to experiment. Use liquid yeast. And most importantly - enjoy what you drink.