AG#128 – Belgian Hop Burst

Posted by: pdtnc on: September 21, 2014

In: Brewing
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Belgian Hop Burst – I wasn’t going to brew today I was going to trim the hedges, I decided to skim the yeast from the Belgian Extra Blonde in the fermenter so I could experiment more with WLP575. The yeast had thrown off a lot of sulphur while fermenting I’d guess for one of two reasons; 1/ its just a yeast that does that sort of thing, 2/ the liquor treatment I used had too much in the way of sulphates in it so it made the yeast express this with co2 as it fermented. The FV had been left on the garage floor and the thermometer strip on the side said it was at a pretty steady 22c, if that thermometer was actually a bit wrong the beer could have fermented too cool and the lack of vigorous fermentation may have stopped enough of the sulphurous odors from gassing off, though its not like I’m saying the yeast didn’t ferment vigorously as it went off like a rocket spewing out all over the garage floor 🙂

So yeah, the hedges are still in need of trimming but I have made wort! I am aiming for a fruity, malty & sweet sort of beer, this recipes lack of sugar will hopefully be compensated for by the lower mash temp than that of AG#127… we shall see.
The yeast flavour is actually quite clean so the double edged sword of a warmer more controlled ferment coupled with no added sulphates, just a simple Tsp of CaCl, will hopefully bring out more of a Belgian character and gas-off any volatile sulphur compounds.

Recipe Specs
Batch Size (L):           20.0
Total Grain (kg):         4.166
Total Hops (g):           90.00
Original Gravity (OG):    1.048 (°P): 11.9
Final Gravity (FG):       1.010 (°P): 2.6
Alcohol by Volume (ABV): 5.03 %
Colour (SRM):             11.3   (EBC): 22.3
Bitterness (IBU):         27.2   (Rager)
Brewhouse Efficiency (%): 75
Boil Time (Minutes):      60

Malts:
3.334 kg Pale Malt (80%)
0.208 kg CaraGold (5%)
0.208 kg Dark Crystal 340 ebc (5%)
0.208 kg Munich I (5%)
0.208 kg Vienna (5%)

Single step Infusion at 65°C for 60 Minutes.

Hops:
2.0 g Willamette Leaf (6.4% Alpha) @ 60 Minutes (First Wort) (0.1 g/L)
44.0 g Ahtanum Leaf (4.5% Alpha) @ 0 Minutes (Flameout Stand) (2.2 g/L) (Software calculated as 5min boil)
44.0 g Columbus Leaf (16.5% Alpha) @ 0 Minutes (Flameout Stand) (2.2 g/L) (Software calculated as 5min boil)

My yeast was raring to do with just a little wort added to it at the start of transfer so I’ll probably end up making a yeasty mess of the fermentation fridge… which is set to 24c

Malts and Calcium Chloride:

A massive 2g of First Wort Hops!

Liquored back to 1048:

*22 Sep ’14 – Gravity at 1014.5 thats fair ripped through the fermentation since pitching yesterday and no sulphurous odors and flavour is still quite clean, hop flavours tasting good.

*Bottled 4th Oct ’14 – with 70g of sugar in just short of 20L, tastes good, has more character with the warmer ferment, could use a touch more Dark Crystal to boost the colour a bit and hit a deeper red.

*15th Oct ’14 – This is tasting rather good, it has a nice slick mouth coating body, I could go a touch heavier on the hops but otherwise has good depth.