So in sum...it's really quite good now. It has been quite an aging process.
At first with the dark malts and the Brett it was quite fruity, but the dark malts were still quite astringent and I chose to age it further.
Then it became a bit leathery/ faint horse blanket which I didn't much...
give it a test with a sampling and then you'll know for sure. Be sure to carefully record the volumes of water, sugar etc, try multiple ratios and well... see what you like and then scale it up for the full five gallons.
could be fun to do with a good drinking/brewing buddy...hell I'd come...
The first time I made a dark ale I used a lot of roasty malts and the beer really did taste like a$$. It took about 6 months but then it was probably the best I ever did make. Not sure how it happens but time sure did heal this beer of mine.
So....have patience, you might just have to sit on...
I used to work in a yeast lab and froze down all my cultures at -80. Thing is I dont work there any more and now I gotta hope they didn't throw them out! Better get my butt down there!...
All I managed to procure was a 2L erlenmeyer and a 6L which is real nice for experimental recipes...
My SWMBO really like Chimay too. The above recipe is a real winner, I've tried it too. I'm even trying an all grain version I modified a bit for the second batch, which has a little less alc-y-hol.
Use this recipe to make some nice dark candy sugar with some table sugar at home. I didn't...
DONT get the quad!
I toured the brewery and tried everything a few weeks ago on a rainy spring weekend in VT. I was also kinda underwhelmed with their beers. They are good just not amazing.
The quad was overdone and tasted really hot like a young homebrew. The spicyness was too much and...
Transferred to secondary today. With the cold snap we had here in Quebec this is becoming a bit of a problem child beer. I think the yeast cut out early and I only reached about 1.020 with the S04. I didn't realized it but the Brett that they sent me was six months old, so it took nearly half...
So i brewed this yesterday. I adjusted the numbers to reflect my poor efficiency this time, argh. Had sort of a brewing poker party so all my times and temps were distracted by friends and generous quantities of alcohol lol.
In the end, I saved 4L of wort just for the Brett in an erlenmeyer...
Get Chimay Blue/grand reserve or your tour of belgium is a failure!!!!
+1 to the Rochefort suggestions, although my favorite is Rochefort 8.
ALSO need to try delirium tremens if you can find it. nice mild belgium goodness.
La chouffe is pretty darn good.
"La mort subite" has pretty good...
Perfect thanks for the advice. I think ill follow basically all you advice. I was thinking of doing some of those anyways.
Nice blog btw!
EDIT updated recipe to reflect changes. namely scrapping the 6-row, maltodextrin, cascade hops at 30 mins, and adjusting numbers
Maltodextrin adds body i think. 6-row because i have some and to give enzymes for the oats.
I guess i dont know what to expect in terms of taste for bruxellensis. Maybe ill try option 2 for moderate funk.
How long do i wait to not have bottles explode with this method?
So I want my next beer to be a porter and have been meaning to try out Brett for quite a while. I was reading that many of the historical old porters had significant Brett notes that they picked up from the wooden aging barrels back in the day so I figured why not?
This is the recipe I am...