My recent experience with WLP500 - thoughts?

[ZenFitness]

Hi all,

I'm still a very new brewer (I only have five AG batches under my belt), but a couple of batches back I decided to try my hand at a homegrown recipe. It turned out decent except for two things. One of these is entirely fixable (I goofed on BeerSmith2 and entered in five gallons as the batch size when I was brewing 6 gallons, so I had too much water and the beer tastes watery to some degree). However, the other was I believe due to WLP500 (my yeast).

The style I was making was a Belgian IPA (a request from a friend who wanted to see how the brewing process worked). Here is the grain bill:

6lbs Belgian Pilsner
5.5lbs Vienna Malt
2lbs Wheat Malt
1.5lbs Candi Sugar, Clear

I fermented this at about 68 - 70 degrees the whole time, and it was done within a couple of days tops (from about 1.070 to 1.008). I did not let it sit very long in the primary but moved it off to the secondary about a week after it finished and then into bottles maybe a week or two after that.

I was shooting for more of a tripel flavor but ended up with something VERY saison/farmhouse. I love the latter style but was surprised given that I thought this was more of a Belgian ale style yeast, but I'm suspecting it has to do with the fermentation temperatures. My guess is that I probably fermented it too warm and should have let it go a few days in the primary at more like 62 - 64* and then start raising the temperature a degree or so a day. Can anyone comment on this?

Thanks!

 

[afr0byte]

Hi all,

I'm still a very new brewer (I only have five AG batches under my belt), but a couple of batches back I decided to try my hand at a homegrown recipe. It turned out decent except for two things. One of these is entirely fixable (I goofed on BeerSmith2 and entered in five gallons as the batch size when I was brewing 6 gallons, so I had too much water and the beer tastes watery to some degree). However, the other was I believe due to WLP500 (my yeast).

The style I was making was a Belgian IPA (a request from a friend who wanted to see how the brewing process worked). Here is the grain bill:

6lbs Belgian Pilsner
5.5lbs Vienna Malt
2lbs Wheat Malt
1.5lbs Candi Sugar, Clear

I fermented this at about 68 - 70 degrees the whole time, and it was done within a couple of days tops (from about 1.070 to 1.008). I did not let it sit very long in the primary but moved it off to the secondary about a week after it finished and then into bottles maybe a week or two after that.

I was shooting for more of a tripel flavor but ended up with something VERY saison/farmhouse. I love the latter style but was surprised given that I thought this was more of a Belgian ale style yeast, but I'm suspecting it has to do with the fermentation temperatures. My guess is that I probably fermented it too warm and should have let it go a few days in the primary at more like 62 - 64* and then start raising the temperature a degree or so a day. Can anyone comment on this?

Thanks!

As you suspected, I think you'd have got more of what you wanted by pitching at 62-64 and letting it free rise from there.

 

[helibrewer]

I concur, for all my Belgians I start at 64F and increase by 1 degree per day until reaching 68.

 

[Cyclman]

+1, start lower next time.