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Posted by Chris Colby on Tuesday, 31 January 2012 in BYO Brew Blog

Fun Times Three (Belgian Tripel)

I brewed a Belgian-style tripel on Friday and had a great time for at least three reasons: 1.) My friend Dan Dewberry came over and brewed with me. 2.) This was my first brewday of 2012 and 3.) Everything went extremely well.

Last year, I was lucky enough to tour the Westmalle brewery in Belgium. Westmalle brews a tripel -- in fact, may have been the first brewery to do so (although there is some debate on this matter). Tasting their beer fresh at the source got me excited to take another stab at brewing a tripel at home. I had brewed one years ago but, while it certainly wasn't bad, it didn't really thrill me. So, armed with some new information -- including things I gleaned at Westmalle and from Stan Heironymus' book, "Brew Like a Monk" -- I set out to brew a tripel in the style of Westmalle. (Tripels actually vary quite a bit in Belgium, but I was most fond of the Westmalle tripel.)

The grain bill Dan and I settled on was just Pilsner malt, a little flaked wheat (~5%) and about 8% cane sugar. The percentage of cane sugar we used is a little lower than Westmalle uses (to strengthen the beer but not add to the body), but we mashed for a very fermentable wort, so things should even out. We had one hop addition, all Fuggles as first wort hops, to a calculated IBU level of about 30. (The picture above shows the kettle filling with the Fuggles pellets floating on top of the wort.)

We used a step mash and it went very well, we started with a 45 minute rest at 140 °F (in prime beta-amylase range), then ramped the temperature to 152 °F. As a result of reviewing my previous notes (and a little dumb luck), we hit the mash in temperature within 0.2 °F.

The "ramp" between rests also went well. In the past, I noticed the temperature would initially drop when I started recirculating the wort and heating the mash tun. This is due to the heat loss as the wort left the mash tun and flowed through the hoses. This time, I heated the mash tun for about 3 minutes before starting recirculation (so the wort under the false bottom would heat up a bit), and the temperature only dipped a tiny bit.

Unfortunately, as a result of not reviewing my notes, I underestimated how long it would take to heat the sparge water and so the second rest rested for a few extra minutes as that came to temperature. We collected about 13 gallons (50 L) of wort and boiled for 90 minutes.

Near the end of the boil, we added some yeast nutrients, Irish moss and the sugar. At knockout, we had about 11 gallons (~40 L) of wort at 18.5 °Plato (roughly SG 1.074). We cooled (we had one small glitch here that extended the cooling time, but not so much as to cause any problems) until we reached 65 °F (18 °C), aerated and pitched our yeast. As luck would have it, Austin brewpub Uncle Billy's was brewing with the yeast we chose and Dan was able to get some from the brewer (thanks Amos!) on Wednesday. (Uncle Billy's brews very cleanly, so we weren't worried about the quality of the yeast.)

So, in all, it was a fun brewday. And -- despite the fact that I hadn't brewed in awhile and still haven't completely learned the ins and outs of my new brewing system -- everything went well. The only small snags we hit lengthened the brewday slightly, but shouldn't effect the quality of beer. (And, the weather was gorgeous that day, so a little longer time spent outside wasn't a bad thing.)

When it was all over, I poured a Westmalle Tripel and enjoyed it.

UPDATE: The beer was fermenting the next morning and I let the temperature rise to 70 °F (21 °C) Sunday afternoon. Today (Tuesday), it is still fermenting, but the rate of bubbling in the airlock has slowed to once every 17 seconds.

Last modified on Friday, 08 March 2013

Chris Colby

I learned to brew beer right around the same time that I discovered good beer. I started graduate school at Boston University in 1990 and quickly began enjoying the local brews — particularly Harpoon Ale, Sam Adams Boston Ale and Dock Street Amber (from Philadelphia) — that were popping up. There was even a brewpub, Commonwealth Brewing, with three or four regular brews and a new “seasonal” beer every other month or so. I also tried out imported beers, whenever possible. Coming from South Dakota, where Beck’s was an exotic import, this was an eye-opening experience.

A couple of graduate students in my department brewed beer and I was immediately intrigued. I learned the basic extract brewing method from them, but was hampered for a long time by substandard equipment — especially the lack of decent-sized brewpot — and having to brew in a small Boston apartment.

My early brewing efforts were also hampered by my lack of knowledge. As a graduate student in biology, I could have easily dug into the advanced homebrew literature at the time, but I figured I had enough things to study and just wanted a nice, easy hobby that ended up with me drinking beer. And, even though the stuff I made wasn’t great, it did get drunk on poker night with no complaints.

I got a nudge in the right direction from a friend of mine, John Weerts. I went to college with John and would see him over the holidays as my folks had moved to Kansas City, where he lived. I taught him how to brew on one of those occasions, but then he struck out on his own. He joined is local brewclub (Kansas City Bier Meisters), stepped up to all-grain brewing and started making some really good beer. Years later, he visited me in Boston and brought along a keg of rye beer, which was fantastic. I immediately knew I was missing out on something.

On my next stop at my local homebrewshop (The Modern Brewer), I bought every book they had, including George Fix’s “Principles of Brewing Science” and Greg Noonans “Brewing Lager Beer.” Armed with the knowledge from these books, a new brewpot, and a ridiculously cobbled together all-grain set-up, I brewed a mini-mash version of a porter recipe of mine. It was the best beer I had made so far.

Fast forward to today, and I still think that gaining the right knowledge is the most important step to brewing great beer. (My brewing set-up is still almost comically jury-rigged, but it works.) I have read a number of professional brewing texts (and recommend the two volume “Malting and Brewing Science” set by Briggs, Hough, Stevens and Young), keep track of many of the great homebrewing forums out there, and am a member of the Austin ZEALOTS homebrew club.

The best way to gain brewing knowledge, however, is to brew. And, I normally brew about 20 batches per year. In the 15 or so years I’ve been a homebrewer, I have brewed ales, lagers and sour beers. I have tried most of the common traditional brewing techniques and experimented with new techniques (including my reiterated mashing techniques). Although primarily an all-grain brewer, my interest in extract brewing has been rekindled due to new techniques (such as the extract late procedure) and I have recently experimented with ways to improve partial mashing (especially making dark beers with a partial mash procedure).