This recipe is the Westmalle Trappist Dubbel recipe from Beer Captured with different hops.
target OG: 1.071
target FG: 1.014
target ABV: 7.0%
brewed: 04-11-09
3 oz Chocolate malt
8 oz caramunich
5 oz biscuit
12 lb belgian pilsner
struck with about 5 gallons of 65 F water
mashed for 120 minutes at 150 F
raised temp of mash to 170 by heating up 1 gallon portions of the liquor and adding it back. Sparged out with about 4 gallons of 170 F water. The first few gallons of liquor were cycled back thru.
Boiled for 60 minutes
1/4 oz Hallertauh hops 6.2% (5 IBU) for 60 min
1/2 oz Golding 6.2% (8 IBU) for 60 min
1 oz Hallertauh 3.6% (12 IBU) for 60 min
Irish moss for 15 min
4 oz malto dextrose for 15 min
12 oz dark candi rock sugar for 15 min
Pitched onto a 2nd gen cake of Wyeast 1388 – Belgian Strong Ale
Fermantation temp started at 64 F and rose to 68 F.
Transfered to Secondary after 2 weeks, bottled with 1-1/4 cups DME after another 2 weeks.
OG: 1.064
FG: 1.010
ABV: 7.1%
Results: This beer began with a light malt flavor and ended with a nice yeast spiciness. Got a lot of good comments on this one. I think the fermentation temp is right on, but next time I’m gonna mash at a higher temp, maybe like 152-153 to try to get a better malt flavor in it. I might up the specialty grain amounts a bit too. And boil for 90 min.
What’s a “2nd gen cake”? Recycled yeast?
It’s the second time I used that batch of yeast. I used to judt dump the chilled wort onto the cake.
How long and under what conditions did you keep the yeast?
When I’m repitching with the yeast cake/slurry I don’t keep it for that long, maybe like 2-3 hours. I always repitch from the primary, so you will need to have brew days 1 to 2 weeks apart. benefits of repitching include obvious monitary savings from not buying new yeast and a lot of yeasts actually ferment better on the 2nd, 3rd or 4th use. Also, for big beers like barleywines you will almost need to use repitched yeast. The start you would have to make to get a good yeast cellcount for a barleywine would be like 1 gallon, which is a huge starter, and effects the gravity of the beer. My current method is this:
1) Clean and rise everything with dish soap (Usually secondary fermentor, turkey baster, siphon hose, small funnel and 1000 ml elanmeyer (sp?) flask and sanitize. If I’m paranoid I’ll fill the flask half full with water and boil to kill anything inside.
2) Rack beer (that you will be harvesting yeast from) from the primary to the secondary, being careful to leave the trub/yeast at the bottom undisturbed. Leave a bit of liquid as well.
3a) If the trub looks decently clean just swirl it all up and continue racking the trub/yeast mix into the flask, using the funnel if neccessary.
3b) If the trub have junk in it pull out the sanatized turkey baster and pull the nice white layer of yeast out and drop it into the flask.
4) Cover the flask with a piece of tinfoil and put it into the fridge. I usually don’t sanatize the tinfoil, but I really should.
5) pitch into new cooled wort like you would any other yeast.
The super-easy way is to rack the first beer out of the primary, leaving the trub and just dump the new beer on the existing yeastcake, but you will get more flavor carryover from the first beer to the second using this method.
Always keep in mind that beer is most vulnerable from the time the boil ends to the time you have the cover on the primary, so pay special attention to sanitation with anything that will come in contact with the beer in this window.
This weekend I repitched 600 ml of a thick slurry of Pacman yeast that had already been used twice. I had aggressive, bubbling fermentation within 5 hours of pitching.
If you want to store the yeast longer you can wash it. This will let it keep for maybe a month, but it’s a bit troublesome. I can show you how to do that, if you’d like.
I’ve heard this “washing yeast” language thrown around. Whats that involve? A microscope and some really small brushes?
I like to use tiny sponges, but I like to get intimate with my yeast.
OK you jokers:
http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f163/yeast-washing-illustrated-41768/
MAC, notice his container boiling technique… caps off!