The Tripel – a fermentation digest

[crawkraut]

There is plenty of info out there on the characteristics of the Tripel, including it’s history, a few clone recipes and even a podcast or two – which all combined provide a good general overview of the brew process and profile for the Belgian tripel. From malts to yeast strains, even adding additional spice notes. And all of that is fairly easy to process. Build a recipe, mash it low, boil it and add sugar.
Check. Did all that. Even mashed in a couple of roasted pie pumpkins, and made a very small pumpkin pie spice addition to add a subtle spice characteristic in place of the traditional coriander and orange spices used in the brew that inspired this particular mash up. Now everything is 3 days into primary, sitting on a growing cake of WLP530, first two days I had the carboy/swamp cooler dialed in at 65 degrees. Today, day 3 I’m allowing the temperature to rise, no more ice in the swamp cooler and less water volume in there too.
What I haven’t been able to wrap my head around is the entire fermentation, aging, bottling, carbing, and conditioning process. Some folks ferment at low temps, some folks just pitch the yeast and let it go. Most folks have no temp control for their fermentation process so they can’t raise the ferment temperature a degree every day. Some folks finish their primary fermenting up in around 80 degrees F. Some folks primary for a month. Some folks don’t. Some folks bottle condition their brews for 9 months. Some recommend to bottle, then lager for a month, then they start to enjoy. There’s a lot of different fermenting techniques out there, not a lot of post consumption feedback and so therefore there are no easily referenced best practices as far as the fermenting process goes.

So now the questions that resonate with me on this Tripel brew are:
1. How long should this be in the primary? [WLP530]
o Understanding that primary is complete when final gravity is apparent. I assume this brew also benefits from an extended stay sitting atop its yeast cake.
o But how long is good enough?
2. How long should this be in the secondary?
o Note, I may make an addition of butternut squash to the secondary and I know this will impact the time in the secondary, but for the above, I’m just looking for a standard, i.e. time in the secondary with no other additions.
3. Carbonation time. I assume the time to properly carb, when bottled is no different from other brews. 3 weeks being the standard
o Also I understand the standard homebrew bottle cannot handle a CO2 volume of 3 to 4.
4. Bottle conditioning time. What’s the standard here? (the podcast reported a month)

Halloween is coming up – and this being a pumpkin brew, the “Franken-Carp-Tripel-Stein”, I’d like to share this with friends during that time. However Oct 31 is only 6.7 weeks after brew day for this batch.

 

[beergolf]

Ask ten brewers a question and you will get 12 different answers.

Halloween is coming up – and this being a pumpkin brew, the “Franken-Carp-Tripel-Stein”, I’d like to share this with friends during that time. However Oct 31 is only 6.7 weeks after brew day for this batch.

My advice,... save this brew for next year. Too soon for a good tripel to be ready.

I prefer my tripels simple, so no spices. But it is your beer.

530/3787 is a yeast that can take off fast but then take a long time to get the last few points of attenuation. You cannot rush this yeast. I like to start it cool, leave it there for a few days and begin getting the temp up to the mid 70's. I leave mine in the primary for 4-8 weeks. Then secondary for a while. Another month or more.

You can lager or not. I usually don't but I do a pseudo lager in the bottles after it is bottled and carbed up. It will usually take longer than 3 weeks to carb up. If it is a bigger brew it may take as long as a couple of months to really get carbed up.

Do yourself a favor and do not try to rush this beer to be ready for Halloween.

i am drinking one right now. It was brewed in March. Primaried for 8 weeks. The bottle I am drinking now has been in the fridge for 5 weeks. Very tasty.

 

[Yooper]

T


Halloween is coming up – and this being a pumpkin brew, the “Franken-Carp-Tripel-Stein”, I’d like to share this with friends during that time. However Oct 31 is only 6.7 weeks after brew day for this batch.

1. At least three days after FG is reached, but could be longer. I don't understand about the belief that leaving the beer on the trub once the "clean up" phase is over- there is no scientific reason for that belief. The "clean up" phase is usually from before the end of fermentation to about 24 hours after active fermentation ends. It might not hurt the beer to remain on the trub, but it is not beneficial either. If you're aging the beer, aging it off of the trub means a "cleaner" end product.

2. If the beer is clear, it can be bottled or left in the clearing vessel. It doesn't matter, as there is nothing magical about the shape of the vessel. Some people feel that aging in bulk means a more even aging, and that could be true, but I'm not sure you'd be able to tell the difference with carboy aging vs bottle aging.

3. A high ABV beer takes longer to carb up. Sometimes significantly longer, because alcohol is poisonous to yeast. The few left have to work harder. As long as you're not at the ABV tolerance of the yeast strain, it'll still carb up. But more slowly. Also, a super clear beer still has billions of yeast in suspension, but not as many as a cloudy beer so that will increase carbing time as well.

4. If the beer aged, say, 3 months, in the carboy, those three months still "count" and will count toward the aging/conditioning time. Whether it's in a bottle or in a carboy, the beer still ages. So, if you bottle three weeks after brewing, it might need a bit longer in the bottle to get the same results than if you conditioned in the carboy. In other words, 6 months is 6 months, whether it happens in a fermenter or a bottle. Aging isn't shortcutted by the vessel it's in.

A tripel is one of the few beers that need age, in my opinion. You don't want to serve it this Halloween. Maybe by New Year's, if you really feel it needs to be served sooner rather than later. But next Halloween would be about right, assuming you had the ABV of a tripel.

 

[beergolf]

A tripel is one of the few beers that need age, in my opinion. You don't want to serve it this Halloween. Maybe by New Year's, if you really feel it needs to be served sooner rather than later. But next Halloween would be about right, assuming you had the ABV of a tripel.

I know that yooper is a big advocate of getting beers from grain to glass quickly. So when she mentions that you need to age this brew listen. Belgian beers are different. They really do improve with age. Tripels need less age than the darker Belgians but the do really need some age to reach their peak. 4-6 months for a tripel will be a good age to start drinking them. After about a year they do not change much.

BDSA's can go years and continue to age and improve. I have several that continue to impress me with just how much they change with time.

 

[crawkraut]

Thanks everyone. Almost two weeks In and the fermentation is still working, have a nice high krausen and regular bubbling. Did the best I could do to raise the ferment temp over the first week and now just going to let nature take its course. Given the brew date it looks like this one will be headed to the AHA National competition in the spring if good things continue to happen! Btw this yeast smells delicious...

 

[crawkraut]

No AHA entry but dam did it ever pass my own tests and blow the socks off evr'y tripel lover I shared it with.

Best paired with prosciutto , smoked prosciutto and double/tripel cream bries


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[rupert130]

No AHA entry but dam did it ever pass my own tests and blow the socks off evr'y tripel lover I shared it with.

Best paired with prosciutto , smoked prosciutto and double/tripel cream bries


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Recipe?

 

[crawkraut]

It's under the subject "trippel pumpkin ale - read and weep pumpkin tears". The original recipe is there as well as updates in the hop schedule and the tea solution I added to secondary. Couldn't get a good format to easily paste here


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