Friday, September 14, 2007

Thing that happened to me today #26

Brewed a nice IPA today, racked a wonderful Belgian Tripel into the secondary fermenter, and kegged an Irish stout. If you have no idea what I am talking about, then, oh well. If you do, then perhaps you are a tad jealous. There is nothing like a good homebrew.

3 comments:

Effie Jones said...

What kind of Belgian Triple? I don't know you, but I am VERY jealous.

Anonymous said...

Effie was a student of mine and I can vouch for her jealousy...if not her expertise in beer...

It is amazing to me how many degrees of separation get collapsed in this blogosphere.

Ben Alsop said...

Hey Effie, glad you have checked out the blog. To my knowledge there is only one kind of Belgian Tripel, and it just refers to the strongest of their holy trinity (they are monks!). It is usually a golden to blonde ale with an alcohol range of 7.5-9.5%. I don't have the recipe off hand, but if I remember correctly, I mashed about 10-12 lbs of base malt, American domestic, probably 7-8 lbs 2-row and 3-4 lbs 6-row. Then threw in one lb of extra-light dry malt extract and one lb of Belgian candy sugar (med color) into the boil just to boost the gravity a bit more. One oz of northern brewer hops for bittering (60 min) and one oz of Saaz for aroma (end of boil). White labs abby ale yeast I think (might be trappist ale). Decent color, although could be a bit lighter, will probably switch to all carapils malt next time instead of the American domestic. Hopefully you know what I am talking about, figured I'd throw the recipe in just in case.

Cheers,
Ben