My Dubbel!

[kevo]

Hi,

Made an extract/mini mash belgian dubbel from Brewing Classic Styles about 10 days back in a bit of a tired hurry so as to get some 3787 trappist yeast active.

In my tired stupor, I stuffed my recipe and added nearly 4 times the munich to my mini mash that I needed. So, when I had finally cooled and racked into the fermenter, I found my Og was 10 points above where it should have been once sugar was added through the ferment!!

OG was 1070. Should have been 1064 after the sugar was added - without sugar I should have had about 1043 from memory.

Anyways, didn't have fermenter room to dilute it so thought I'd just leave it, get the yeast moving and brew it again once this one was finished.

So....it's now 10 days old and sitting just on 1020 - by my calculations about 71% attenuation. It's been on 18C to start and come up to 21C over the week.

I used plain old LME and munich(lots of), caramunich and melanoidin in my minimash.

Rekon it's finished?

Kev

 

[Adamt]

Give it a day or two and check again though with that malt bill 1020 is about right.

You can never use too much Munich!

 

[raven19]

Kev - 1020 sounds a bit high, that being said, if its consistent at 1020 over 2 days, I would say its ready to keg/bottle.
Cheers.

 

[buttersd70]

71% apparant attenuation isn't that far off what wyeast reckon this yeast will do, so as long as its a stable gravity, it should be right.

 

[kabooby]

From the looks of it you have used a fair bit of sugar. I would expect a lower fg than that.

A lot of things affect attenuation. Best bet is to leave it for a few more days.

Kabooby

 

[Stuster]

That yeast can take it's time finishing things off I've found. I've also found it to attenuate more than that, though having the LME in there it might be a different story. How much sugar did you use? I'd leave it a few more days, probably a week more would be better. It won't hurt it in any way to leave it, the yeast can clean up after itself and finish up fermenting completely.

 

[kevo]

I didn't use any sugar at all - I added way too much Munich by mistake and ended up way over my expected OG. I think I added a little too much LME too.
By the time I'd realised, adding the sugar would have turnined it into something in the region of a strong dark - so I left it alone to have another go at later.


Plan to leave this until the end of the week - BCS says to carbonate to 3-4 volumes and lager for a month.
I'm planning to rack into another fermenter - let that lager for a month and then bottle. Sound ok?

Kev

 

[Stuster]

Sounds like a good plan. I hope you have strong bottles lined up if you're going to carbonate to 4 volumes in them. :huh:

Oh, and you could always add the sugar and make it into a strong dark.

 

[Ronin]

When I was making my last dubbel, I had a brewbelt with a fridgemate and ended up ramping the temp by 1C per day for the week, started at 18C ended at 26C (I think that was in brew like a monk). I don't know if it's too late and the yeast has gone dormant, but increasing the temperature might help.

FWIW it started at 1.065 and finished at 1.010 with Wy1214, which supposedly isn't as high an attenuator as Wy3787 (haven't used it though). One of the nicer beers I've made.

 

[kevo]

3-4 volumes - just quoting the book - I think carb drops will be the go for this one.

Thanks for the advice everyone.

Kev