Golden Strong Ale On Cherries

[b_thomas]

Have been tinkering with this recipe for a while now. It's pretty much a knock off bastardisation of the Golden Strong Ale from the Brewing Classic Styles and Papazian's Cherries in the Snow but with both some freshly frozen sweet cherries and a couple of jars of Turkish Morello cherries and a touch of Munich malt.

First concern is that this will be a pretty strong beer and I'd like to incrementally feed the yeast rather than dump and leave to ferment. The other is the steep temperature ramp up 18-28c in a week, apparently it's the way to "dry out" such a high OG beer, which I want, but turning of the heating on Day 7 may cause the yeast to go sleep which I don't want given I have more fermenting for them to do in the secondary. I have the hardware to do this but scratching my head over these two problems.

Recipe for an 8L batch of wort with timings of when I *think* I feeding time should be and at what temps.

1.5kg of Dry Light Malt - Initial Wort 18c
0.15kg of Munich Malt - Initial Wort 18c
0.50kg of Dextrose - Day 2 20c
20gm of Saaz (18IBUs)
1.2L of Morello Cherries - Day 3 22c, ramp to 28c by Day 6 leave for a day then let drop to 20c in 1c daily stages
0.5L of Frozen Sweet Cherries - Day 14 rack to secondary and add frozen cherries sit at 20c for 7 days before lagering for 3 weeks at 3-4c
11.5gm of T-58 Yeast
OG 1.093

If anyone can see anything glaringly wrong with what I've got listed or have some suggestions let me know.

 

[drtomc]

First concern is that this will be a pretty strong beer and I'd like to incrementally feed the yeast rather than dump and leave to ferment. The other is the steep temperature ramp up 18-28c in a week, apparently it's the way to "dry out" such a high OG beer, which I want, but turning of the heating on Day 7 may cause the yeast to go sleep which I don't want given I have more fermenting for them to do in the secondary. I have the hardware to do this but scratching my head over these two problems.

Based on my reading and a small amount of experience, I'd hold the temperature up until you reach your FG - even with the T-58, which is pretty robust, you're likely to drop it out and send it to sleep by lowering the temperature.

One faces a similar problem the Saison yeast 3724 - it gets through most of the sugar quickly, but you have to hold the temperature up for several weeks to finish off and hit FG.

You may also find that the dry malt leaves you with a somewhat high FG - if I was doing it AG, I'd be mashing low to get the most fermentable wort I could. The secret of good Belgian beers is high attenuation.

 

[b_thomas]

Based on my reading and a small amount of experience, I'd hold the temperature up until you reach your FG - even with the T-58, which is pretty robust, you're likely to drop it out and send it to sleep by lowering the temperature.

One faces a similar problem the Saison yeast 3724 - it gets through most of the sugar quickly, but you have to hold the temperature up for several weeks to finish off and hit FG.

You may also find that the dry malt leaves you with a somewhat high FG - if I was doing it AG, I'd be mashing low to get the most fermentable wort I could. The secret of good Belgian beers is high attenuation.

Thanks for the feedback, I may just leave it high rather than dropping the temperature before lagering - haven't worked with T-58 before.

I've noticed with this particular brand of dry malt that it attenuates surprisingly well - plus I'm tempted to maybe put the dregs in off a bottle of Orval in to my bottling bucket.