The Great Belgian Experiment

[newguy]

Thought this would be of general interest.

A member of my brew club suggested that the two of us get together and brew 10 gallons (about 40 litres) of beer, and then split it 10 ways. Each one gallon 'batch' would get a different Wyeast Belgian strain of yeast. We are supposed to roll out this brew for our club's year end wrap-up party/competition/conference at the beginning of June. This is meant as a learning exercise for all of our club members.

By the way, if anyone is interested in entering our competition, we'd love to get some entries from Australia. Details can be found here: EHG homepage.

I agreed, and we ordered the yeast. Then my partner disappeared so today I ended up brewing the whole thing myself. Figures, eh? <_<

The yeasts we're trying are:
1214 Belgian Abbey
1388 Belgian Strong
1762 Belgian Abbey II
3278 Belgian Lambic
3463 Forbidden Fruit
3522 Belgian Ardennes
3724 Belgian Saison
3787 Trappist High Gravity
3942 Belgian Wheat
3944 Belgian Witbier

It was suggested that we brew a Dubbel for this, and I happened to win a gold medal for a Dubbel a year ago, so I copied the recipe. Almost. I left out the candi sugar, but the grist was the same. Something else was different. I don't have any idea what I did today, but my anticipated efficiency should have been 80%. I usually get 85% time & time again, but when I brew higher gravity beers, my efficiency always suffers a bit. Today I got 95% efficiency for some reason. I was shooting for an OG of 1.064, but I hit 1.078. Oh well. I guess I'll call it a Belgian Dark Strong.

If you're interested, here are links to some pictures I took to commemorate the event.

Here's the recipe for the beer itself:
6.47 kg 2-row
2.94 kg light munich
725g caramel 60
445g dark crystal
408g special B
118g chocolate malt

Mashed @ 67C for 60 minutes, then heated up to 75C. Sparged with 75C water until approx 55 - 57 litres collected.

OG 1.078. Like I said earlier, for some stupid reason my efficiency ended up being 95% instead of the 80% it always is for heavier beers.

Boiled for 90 minutes, with one hop addition for entire 90 minute boil duration: 2.5 oz (71g) Bramling Cross (5.0%) for 17.6 IBU. Yeast pitched @ 17C.

 

[tipsy_mcstagger]

looks like an awesome experience, keep us posted on the progress.

 

[Tony]

what a great experiment.

I hope we get a report on the differences of the yeasts.

I have been thinking of doing this but with 2 yeasts split between 2 x 25 liter batches.

great work

cheers

 

[Adamt]

Nice! Keep us posted with the results

 

[newguy]

what a great experiment.

I hope we get a report on the differences of the yeasts.

I have been thinking of doing this but with 2 yeasts split between 2 x 25 liter batches.

great work

cheers

Absolutely, I will indeed report the results. My MIA partner is the one who suggested this in the first place because he said that Wyeast's descriptions of their yeasts aren't accurate in the slightest. What we plan to do is give everyone a sheet with the recipe and the 10 yeasts. There will be space beside each so that they can write down the aroma & flavour of each - like a cheat sheet. We've done something similar for 35 varieties of hops - what an eye opening experience that was!

Now that I've done this one, I want to do the same with all of Wyeast's ale and lager yeasts. I'll see how much help I get bottling this stuff before I commit to any further experiments.

 

[Darren]

Looks like fun. If nothing else you will have plenty of starters for your next brew.


cheers

Darren


PS: Make sure you you dispose of the more funky yeasts carefully. The last thing you want is lots of lambic blend as normal flora around your house.

 

[tangent]

or Brett in everything

 

[Stuster]

Wow. Wonderful experiment. What's the price of yeast over there? :blink:

Definitely keep us posted. Anybody game to pick a winner out of those?

 

[brendanos]

I'm calling a tie between Westmalle (3787) & Rochefort (1762), with the Lambic (3278) a close second... ^_^

 

[Kai]

I like the idea but I think you might be comparing (belgian) apples to (belgian) oranges. I assume conditions are being kept the same for every yeast, and that's going to favour some more than others. Granted, it'll show you a difference between them all and that will definitely be a very interesting exercise. If you do standardise everything you can then you're probably going to have a beer that will suit some strains better than others. However, trying to tailor optimum conditions for all would be an impossible affair. My only real suggestion would be to try it with a more neutral wort.

 

[newguy]

An XL pack of yeast varies - either $9 or $10, depending on the supplier. The place I got them from charges $10, but gives our club members a 10% discount, so it ended up being $9 anyway. Cost isn't an issue, since the club is picking up the cost of this exercise. One of the advantages of having a large and very active group. :beerbang:

Kai, you're absolutely right that the wort will have a big influence over the ultimate impression/performance of each yeast. Our purpose in selecting the same wort for each was to remove wort variability from the equation. I have to thank you for giving me a new idea, though: to repeat the experiment with something like a tripel base. I'm sure our club members would support another round of experiments. :super:

This is what I was greeted with this morning:

This was taken after I cleaned the airlocks of the 3944 witbier & the 3463 forbidden fruit, as both tried to escape. A couple of the samples showed visible signs of fermentation 6 hours after pitching. The only one to not really look like anything is happening is the lambic blend. Interesting that the two smack packs that were slow to swell (lambic and saison) were also the two which were extremely flocculant.

Edit: Forgot to mention that we're going to 'recycle' all of these yeasts. When these different beers are sampled, we're also going to raffle off these yeast cakes, as they'd be perfectly suited as a starter for another batch of beer. For doing all this work, I'm getting first choice of whatever tastes best. B)

 

[Hargie]

what a great experiment.

I hope we get a report on the differences of the yeasts.

I have been thinking of doing this but with 2 yeasts split between 2 x 25 liter batches.

great work

cheers

....do it, Tony...i've already done this with a few....


...a witbier with 3944 and K-97....

...a hefe with 3068 and WL 380....

....a porter with Nottingham and US-05....

....and the different characteristics of each yeast really stand out when put into battle like this...

 

[Ross]

There will be space beside each so that they can write down the aroma & flavour of each - like a cheat sheet. We've done something similar for 35 varieties of hops - what an eye opening experience that was!

Hey Newguy; have you got the results of this in a postable form? I'd be extremely intrested in your findings.

Cheers Ross

 

[warrenlw63]

I love your work Newguy! :super:

Finally a thread worth reading. They're a bit thin on the ground lately. <_<

Just make sure you keep us all updated.

Warren -

 

[newguy]

Ross,

Yes, the highlights of the sessions have been posted in our club's newsletter, the Worthouse News, which can be found here. The two articles are in the April 2007 and May 2007 editions.

For each session, bottles of Coors Light were opened, hop pellets were dropped in, and then they were recapped. The beers were dry hopped about 5-6 days before the sessions were held. For the first session, I used roughly two big pellets/bottle, which seemed a bit on the low side for some of the hops. For the next session I added about 3g/bottle, which was about the perfect amount.

The hops we examined were:

Session 1
Saaz (Czech)
Tettnang (German)
Tettnang (US)
Tradition (German)
Hersbrucker (German)
Hallertauer (German)
Organic Hallertauer (NZ)
Spalt (German)
Santium (US)
Northern Brewer (German)
Strisselspalt (France)
Ahtanum (US)
Glacier (US)
Amarillo (US)
Galena (US)
Chinook (US)
Warrior (US)

Session 2
Fuggle (UK)
Willamette (US)
Styrian Goldings (Slovenia)
EK Goldings (UK)
Progress (UK)
Challenger (UK)
Organic First Gold (UK)
Northdown (UK)
Target (UK)
Bramling Cross (UK)
Perle (German)
Cascade (US)
Amarillo (US) - no one had had Amarillo prior to the first event and when we realized how similar it was to Cascade, we decided to compare them side by side in the second session
Sterling (US)
Nelson Sauvin (NZ)
Simcoe (US)
Columbus (US)
Nugget (US)

If you'd like me to post the impressions of each hop, not just the best ones, let me know.

 

[oldbugman]

May 2007 newsletter?! damn you canuks and your time machines

Nicely laid out newsletter

How many members do you have?

 

[newguy]

May 2007 newsletter?! damn you canuks and your time machines

Nicely laid out newsletter though.

How many members do you have?

Our newsletter editor usually publishes it a day or two before our monthly meeting but this time he was rushing to get it done early because he's now in Mexico. His vacation is the cause of the time warp.

And thanks for the compliment. We've been getting a lot of them this year, thanks to Greg (editor).

We have 52 members this year, which is nearly a record for us. Hopefully we can break the record this upcoming year (which starts in September).

 

[Kai]

Thought this would be of general interest.

A member of my brew club suggested that the two of us get together and brew 10 gallons (about 40 litres) of beer, and then split it 10 ways. Each one gallon 'batch' would get a different Wyeast Belgian strain of yeast. We are supposed to roll out this brew for our club's year end wrap-up party/competition/conference at the beginning of June. This is meant as a learning exercise for all of our club members.

By the way, if anyone is interested in entering our competition, we'd love to get some entries from Australia. Details can be found here: EHG homepage.[...]

An additional bump out of curiosity, if we enter then how do we pay?

 

[newguy]

An additional bump out of curiosity, if we enter then how do we pay?

Excellent question. Members of our club have found a method for shipping beers to competitions that is almost always guaranteed to work: ship the beers with no paperwork in the box, and mail the entry forms/fees separately. Declare the beers as "yeast samples for analysis" and put a note in the box with the beers stating "paperwork to follow in a separate shipment." I don't know about the Australian mail system, but around here Canada Post and the american post office will not ship alcohol. In fact, it's illegal. Yeast samples are okay though. Declare a value for the shipment of $1 per bottle, no more, no less. Courier companies (some of them) will in fact knowingly ship alcohol, but it's never a good idea to declare this on the package. The issue is that the driver has the ultimate say over what they deliver and can refuse alcohol with no questions asked. And they don't have to return your package either.

It's very important not to have any paperwork in the box that will give away the fact that what is in the bottles is beer. When customs officials open the box, and they will, they'll definitely turf the shipment if the contents of the box don't match the customs declaration. You should mark each bottle with the beer style, but not in words - use the BJCP style number/substyle letter. For instance, if you were entering a traditional bock, put "5B" on the bottle. Either tape a piece of paper with "5B" to the bottle or write it on the cap, but mark it somehow. When customs finds this box marked "yeast samples for analysis" and finds two bottles with a cryptic "5B" on each they have no reason to suspect that these are not yeast samples for analysis. If they open the box and find beer competition entry forms, your shipment hits the garbage.

Mail the paperwork separately and not at exactly the same time so the people behind the counter at the post office don't get suspicious. For entry fees, a cheque will be fine. It will take much longer than a money order to clear, but it's also much cheaper than a money order.

Packing: Courier companies get very angry indeed if a package starts leaking foul smelling black liquid over other packages. Tightly wrap each bottle in kitchen cling film. This will help to hold the shards of glass together should the bottle break. Place this inside of a ziplock plastic food bag - only one bottle per bag. Liberally use bubble wrap, styrofoam, newspaper, etc. to make sure that the bottles aren't able to bang into each other. Place these packed bottles into an inner box, which itself is lined with a plastic bag. Once this inner box is packed tightly, seal the plastic bag. Two layers of plastic help to ensure that even if a bottle does break, it shouldn't leak out of the box.

The inner box should be packed into an outer box. The outer box doesn't have to be a lot larger than the inner box as the goal is to double up the cardboard to prevent punctures in transit. Put the note saying that the paperwork is in a separate letter on the inner box.

Does this help?

 

[brendanos]

I'm pretty interested to know how many of them turn wild after the 3278 starts bubbling...