a 10% Belgian Tripple Ale – 5 Gallon All Grain Recipe

Posted on December 2, 2012 by ray kodiak

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Belgian Triple Ale

In case you are wondering if a 10% ABV beer would taste different, this one doesn’t really, and YES! a single glass WILL KICK YOUR ASS!  This is NOT a Coors Light, drink slow and responsibly – or Else!  😉

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tripel

Most pubs/breweries sell this beer by the glass only, (if they have it at all).

This traditional Tripel recipe has a white, creamy head. The aroma has elements of malt and citrus, which lead to a mildly sweet orange flavor.  Try to substitute grain as close as possible if your store don’t carry exact grain type in recipe.

Age: 4 months minimum, up to 12 months.

60 minute standard mash – our extraction efficiency was at 75%, efficiency on higher gravity beers goes down.

Our OG – 1.092, FG – 1.018

9.71% ABV

  • 17 lbs domestic Pilsner // in last recipe we used German Pilsner Malt as substitution.
  • 8 oz Euro Caravienne
  • 4 oz Euro Aromatic

Hops / Additional ingredients:

Once you achieve a rolling boil, set timer:

  • At start-of-boil add 1.5 oz of Styrian Golding Hops and 1.5 lb of Light Belgian Candi
  • At 45 minute of boil add some Irish Moss
  • At 5 minutes end-of-boil, add 1 oz of Sweet Orange Peel
  • At 2 minutes end-of-boil, add 0.5 oz of Willamette Hops

Yeast:

Make a starter ahead of your brew session, we do ours 1 week ahead by making a whole bunch of extra yeast and then splitting it in half ( half to brew session and the other into storage jars – saves money on buying yeasts and beats washing yeasts after fermentation ).

Wyeast Trappist High Gravity Yeast #3787, also you can try:

Wyeast Belgian Abbeyor or White Labs Belgian Ale yeasts.

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Belgium Beers

Posted on December 1, 2012 by ray kodiak

We here at Kodiak LOVE!!!!! Belgium type of beers.  Our favorite is the Belgian Dark Strong Ale in the Winter months and in the summer months we like to brew the slightly lighter style, the Belgian Tripple Ale, which is on the lighter side of color, with a hint of orange spices.  The Belgian’s are enormously delicious beers, and to us, nothing compares!!!  sure we like other style too, but we feel like a King of the Bears in the woods when we drink the Belgians!

It is also true that the Belgian’s are typically higher in Alcohol content, but I can’t imagine anyone complaining about that!  If its good enough for a monk, it should be good enough for you!

Anyways, everything said – we really think it is important to understand the History of the different beer styles and regions they come from, especially if the Belgian’s are also your favorite beer too, because here specifically, there is a lot of History!

Wikipedia just so happens to have a great page already written about this and so without further delay here is the link, Cheers!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beer_in_Belgium

 

 

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Re-Using Re-Capture Yeast after fermenting, Beer Home Brew

Posted on November 23, 2012 by ray kodiak

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This process comes under different names, re-using, re-capturing, rinsing, cleaning, etc.. etc., but basically after you remove the beer from the fermentor – there is a lot of nice and high quality yeast that is left over.  You can re-capture this yeast and use it again and again, and again……

Benefits are many!

  • save money, high quality yeast usually costs $8 a pack, so you can reduce the bill of each brew batch substantially
  • to brew a stable beer that comes out the same all the time, it is important to use the same strain of yeast to be consistent
  • you can easily make a lot more yeast than what you started out with from the packet, so if you wanted to say brew a bigger batch of beer, say 10 or 20 gallons, there is no need to buy 4 packets at $8 each – because you can easily make that your self
  • the yeast becomes better over time and creates even better beer, the more you re-capture the same yeast, the better the yeast becomes

It is best to collect yeast strain that you will use frequently, because if you collect some rare yeast that you don’t use a lot, just be prepared to use more real estate space in the fridge and potential stares from the wife (unless you have a dedicated fridge).  And so it is best to collect a house/classic strain, that works over broad temperatures.

Here is how we do it at Kodiak.  We put two clear growlers filled with water already into a nice 3 gallon cooking pot (also filled with water) and we heat that up to boiling and let it boil for 15 minutes.  Turn off heat, let it sit for a minute or two and remove the growlers out of the pot with a heat glove and put it on the side to cool.  Put caps on it but don’t tighten them, let them cool!

ALL the water that will make contact with the leftovers needs to be cool, it can’t be hot!!!

We like to transfer the bottom stuff let over from the fermentor into the cooking pot that we just used.   So pour in some water into the fermentor from the pot and shake it well, then transfer the ingredients from the glass carboy into the (empty) cooking pot, put a lid on it.  Let it sit for a good 30 minutes to separate out into layers, see below:

You will have water mixed with beer as the clear liquid on top, then a nice light layer of yeast, and a darker layer at the bottom of throb (left over beer reaction stuff)…

You want to get rid of the beer/water mix if there is an excessive amount out, and pour in the rest into 1 of the empty growlers. As you are pouring into growler #1 the lighter yeast layer towards the end of that, the throb will start (the darker stuff).  You don’t want to transfer the throb out of the pot or (however you do it), leave that behind, that’s the whole idea between doing the layer washing, leave the throb behind, the darker lowest layer.  If some transfers, that’s ok; but leave the majority of it!

Put in some clean fresh water from the boil into that and shake well and let it sit in the growler again for 30 minutes.

Here is how the growler will look after transfer, after shaking, looks like mud….

After 30 minutes pour the contents (using the same method) into the 2nd growler, let it sit there for 30 minutes.  If you have more empty clean growlers you could give it a 3rd transfer, but we at this point just leave it as is, label the growler and put into fridge!

Here is how the layer looks after separating in the 1st growler:

See that nice light layer at the bottom ?  that’s what you are after.  In this example and article, we actually didn’t even employ transferring into the 2nd growler, because this works so well!

Keep in mind that the yeast that you just recovered, there is much more of it than when you started from the yeast packet that you bought for $8 at the brew store.  Some people divide into smaller jars, where each jar = 5 gallon batch, but we just leave as is.

On the label I would also put the date of the re-capture!

Before using this yeast, make a starter!

In addition to our method others exists.

Cheers!

make your own search too!

 

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Kodiak’s Belgian Dark Strong Ale – All Grain

Posted on November 18, 2012 by ray kodiak

 

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List of ingredients for a 5 gallon all-grain recipe.  This is considered a higher gravity beer, and so it requires yeast made for high gravity beers of this type.  We use Wyeast 3787 Trappist HG.

Grain fills up whole bag and is heavy, double bag it!!!!

For this beer we have also employed a yeast starter a few days ahead of brewing the beer.

Your brew store might not have the exact grains listed, ask the store folks, you can substitute as close as possible.  For example, instead of the German Wheat, we used American Wheat, since the store didn’t carry that.

On our first try the OG was 1.068, and FG 1.016, ( 1.016 – 1.068, time 131 = 6.83%, almost 7% ) we weren’t sure if this was because of some of the grain substitution or our mash method for that day, but it still worked out really good and the final beer was fantastic!

Primary fermentation will last 2 weeks, because of the higher gravity, it will just keep on working and working…  Secondary fermentation stage is HIGHLY recommended!

Also, don’t forget to re-capture the yeast from the bottom of the primary fermentor, there will be lots and lots! of great and healthy yeast that you can use for your next brew or you can share and give away to friend for their brew;  save them money!

OG 1.075 ~ 1.110 +/-
FG 1.010 ~ 1.25 +/-

ABV / Alcohol by Volume about 7 ~ 11%
IBU / 20-35
Color (SRM) 12 ~ 22

  • 12 lb of German Pilsner Malt, stores will probably sell Euro Pilsner Malt
  • 1 lb German Wheat Malt, substitute with American Wheat
  • 2 lb Crystal 20L
  • 2 lb Crystal 60 L
  • 1/2 lb Belgian Special B
  • 2 ounces East Kent Goldings (bittering, add at start of boil)
  • 2 lb Amber Candi Sugar (last 5 minutes)
  • 1 ounce Hallertauer (end of boil, 0 minutes)

BOIL for 60 minutes and add all the ingredients at the right time.

Strike the grains at 160F, and mash the grains at 152F for 75 minutes.  Re-Sparge with 170F water for 30 ~ 60 minutes (longer is better).  For this batch we mashed with 5 gallons of strike water and for re-mash we used another 4 gallons, for 9 gallons total.

AGAIN, Primary ferment at 68 ~ 71 for 2 weeks, you should rack into secondary fermentation for additional 2~3 weeks.  Primary fermentation will BE vigorous, you should consider employing a blow-off hose.

Age for 3 months any beer you brew, (some longer) its the best thing to do!  Also before serving we cold-crash our kegs that hold the beer, this helps to clear the beer and gives it a superb taste and everything else becomes much better!

Don’t forget to take the OG gravity reading and if you can take a temperature reading as well, record both into your Brewing Log.

Posted in Belgian Beer Recipes | 1 Comment

making a yeast starters, beer brewing

Posted on November 11, 2012 by ray kodiak

 

Starters are done to wake up the yeast and get it nice and active, so that by the time it is introduced to the wort (un-fermented beer), it goes right to work.  Starters do a better job of converting all the sugars and preventing any unwanted flavors in the beer.  This generally reduces the fermenting period and just overall does a better job in making better beer.

We have made many great beers simply by pitching dry yeast over the top, but other better method do exist and this is one of them.

  • an Erlenmeyer Flask (made out of Pyrex) used is laboratories, [able to withstand extreme cold or heat temperature exchanges], cover top with aluminum foil
  • 2 cups of water
  • DME – Dry Malt Extract, 1/2 cup, the light versions don’t much affect the final beer recipe
  • yeast

Mix the water and DME in a pan, mix that all up and bring it to a rolling boil, then as soon as the boil happens, let that boil for 10 minutes, turn off.

Transfer the wort into the Erlenmeyer flask and then you can dip that into cold water with ice and cool it that way, its a small volume of wort, so won’t take long to cool, you don’t need any fancy equipment to cool it with.

If you don’t use the flask, the quick temperature exchanges of hot to cold will probably crack the glass, so that’s why you want to use it, plus it looks cool :- ) like you know what you are doing!

Get it down to about  75 F or about there.  Put your yeast into the flask, if you are OCD, then get it off the sides of the flask, so it is nice and clean.  Put some aluminum foil over it.

Leave it at room temperature just like you would your wort.

You are making basically a mini-beer, so you want to employ all sanitation principles like you would normally do with making regular beer.

This recipe is good for 5 gallon starters, if you are going to make larger batches, then you might need a bigger flask, use common sense :- ) ask people if you are not sure, join a beer forum.

Stir Plates are a good idea, most semi-serious+ brewers own and use them all the time…

 

you can buy one or make one if you want to, here is a DIY:

http://blog.makezine.com/2006/08/10/diy-magnetic-stir-plate/

Fin.

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Cold-Dropping Beer

Posted on November 9, 2012 by ray kodiak

Many various techniques exists, some people drop after fermentation is over and before bottling, and yet some simply cold-drop the kegs already filled with the beer for about a week, before serving, I will explain both.

Most home-brewed beer is left in a lot of its natural state, most people don’t use filters for example, there are debates over its pros and cons.  If you don’t filter your beer, there is always going to be a small amount of yeast and other floaters that will make it out of the fermentor and into kegs or bottles (if you bottle).

Even when you can’t see it, yeast is suspended in the beer and it does affect its look, color, taste and overall body of the beer.  So what a lot of people do, is take the keg and cold-drop it, or simply put, put it into a fridge (whatever setup) as cold as possible, but still above freezing and leave the keg there for about a week.

All the yeast and other floaters that are suspended in the beer will fall to the bottom of the keg, a thin layer will form at the bottom (not in any way bad), so then all the beer that comes out will be nice and clean, crisp, nice color, taste, and everything will improve SUBSTANTIALLY.

If you were to split a batch of beer into two kegs, and cold-drop one and not the other, you would see and experience the differences, if you want to do a comparison.

If you don’t employ a cold-drop and simply put the keg into the keggenator fridge, it too will help, the cold temperature will basically do the same thing, but will take a little longer, so don’t worry if you can’t get it to almost freezing.

Some people apply this technique to the fermentor after the fermentation is done and over with, for about a week, so then when the beer is transferred to the kegs or however bottled, there too you will gain a lot of benefit.

Fin

 

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How to get grain for brew recipes

Posted on October 21, 2012 by ray kodiak

Brew stores of course sell grain, they also should sell kits, in the very least extract kits and better stores might even sell all-grain kits.  But the best way to learn is to get your own grain, weight it, crush it – this will give you the flexibility you are after, so you can tweak the recipe if you think it would come out better in a slightly different way.

There are basically two types of grain categories base grain and specialty grain.

Base grains make up the base of your beer, that’s why they are called that and typically the American 2-row barley is used for the base grain (but there is also 4 and 6-row too) and wheat too if you are going to brew a wheat beer.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barley

As for specialty grain, there are quite a bit of those, a lot actually – so the best way to get familiar with all of them and look at them is to go to your local brew store.  Grain is not that expensive, base usually sells for $1.00 per pound, and a typical 5 gallon batch might need anywhere from 8 to 12 pounds of base grain, so you are not talking a lot of money.

Also the better stores will sell 50 lb bags of grain for some additional discount.

To be able to buy grain directly from the Malt house requires a federal license in most cases, which most home brewers lack, unless they also running a micro-brewery in the back of their house or something like that…. :- )

Each specialty grains does something to the beer, to its profile, to its taste, its body, its color, its outcome, and this is well known and so with beer software you can make your very own beers (via trial and error) from scratch if you want!

http://www.beertools.com/html/ingredients.php?view=grains

Take a look at the link above and read what each type of grain does to a beer, takes a while to learn all this, so don’t worry about it.

Most brew stores, the better ones will have a room dedicated to this, if they have the space.  Ask the rules if you never been there before, but generally speaking you find your grain bin, weigh the grains in the order that you need them, dump the grain into some bag and as last step you throw all the grain into a mill to crush your grain.  The stores mill will be pre-set, as most are.

If you want the grain crushed a certain way other than the pre-set, don’t crush the grain, bring it home with you and use your own technique or mill setup.

There are all kinds of mill setups out there – and so instead of showing one picture, here is a link to the Google search via image and you can see many different setups:

https://www.google.com/search?q=grain+beer+mill&oe=utf-8&aq=t&rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&client=firefox-a&um=1&ie=UTF-8&hl=en&tbm=isch&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&ei=aA6EUNuvDuvDiwLfvIHgCA&biw=1920&bih=1005&sei=ag6EUPz8JOOsigL_74D4CQ

well, that’s it for now – bear needs to go and use the hot-tub.

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Kodiak’s Pumpkin Ale Recipe – All Grain

Posted on October 21, 2012 by ray kodiak

Kodiak’s Pumpkin Ale:

Don’t know about how you guys prepare your pumpkin // but we do it like this!

bear_pumpkin_2 bear_pumpkin_1

(image source: google image for the below 1 photo)

Homebrew_Pumpkin

Above people pour beer inside a pumpkin to give it an additional flavorings, plus it looks cool.  Here is a video on youtube that shows a tapping of a pumpkin with beer already inside… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SjNBBCxUYHw

In addition we have done another article about how to prepare pumpkin for brewing if you should grow them in your back yard or you purchased them from a local pumpkin patch: https://kodiakbrewing.com/wordpress/?p=1364

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2014 Brew details:

For this brew, we added the pumpkin meat both at mash and boil stages.  We brewed a 7 gallon batch with OG of 1.059 (using the same amount of grain as for a 5 gallon batch) // spot on exactly as last year.  We did the mash for almost 2 hours, (which included some re-circulation time).  The boil was 75 minutes this year, because the pumpkin was frozen, so added 15 minutes in both steps for the ice cube treatment 🙂  We did not use rice hulls to help mash out, we simply raised temperature to about 170 F while re-circulating at the same time, and when the beer is clear – we drain it off.

FG 1.014 ( 1 full week ) // Final ABV 5.91% – or rounded off at 6% // again this was a 7 gallon batch, instead of a 5 gallon.

We used a British Ale #1098 this time // ferments dry and crisp, producing well-balanced beers with a clean and neutral finish, it also has a better lower temperature range, better for basements.

2013 Brew details below:

We brewed a 10 gallon batch on 7/6/2013, we got an OG of 1.064, better than when doing the 5 gallon batch for some reason, using same method and equipment.  For yeast we used 2 packs of Wyeast American Ale (1056) .  We used total of 16.5 gallons of water, and ended up slightly with more than 10 gallons, I say about 11.5 – so no matter how you look at it, we are happy.

FG on the 10 gallon batch was 1.016 – so it ended up as 6.4% ABV.

5 gallon batch ingredient picture below:

Usually brewed for the Holidays and Fall/Winter – breweries brew it ahead of time so that it is ready for brew events, and stores.  This bear likes to drink it all the time and so we brew it all the time, regardless if there are any holidays or not, everyday is a holiday here!

The pumpkin can be added either at mash time, boil time or fermentor time and some people – do it at all 3 stages.  But you have to ask your self if you want a really strong pumpkin beer or a nice hint of pumpkin, so that you can still enjoy the beer.  If you add the pumpkin to mash (some people add rice hulls) and they are used traditionally to prevent a stuck mash.  Rice hulls are the outer covering of rice, and that’s just it, there is no actual rice being added to the brew – that’s one way to do it.

List of ingredients for a 5 gallon recipe.

OG 1.059 +/-
FG 1.020 +/-

(1.059 – 1.020) * 131 = 5.109 approx.

Alcohol by Volume about 5.11%

  • 11 lb of american 2-row
  • 3/4 lb crystal malt 20L
  • 3/4 lb Cara-Pils (Dextrin)
  • 1 ounce mt. hood hops (bittering, add at start of boil)
  • 1 ounce cascade hops (last 2 minutes of boil)
  • 1/2 lb brown sugar (add before returning to heat, before start of boil)
  • 1 teaspoon nutmeg (last 2 minutes of boil)
  • 1 teaspoon cinnamon (last 2 minutes of boil)
  • pump-kin meat (boil for 10 minutes in a sock, we just add it at the last 10-15 minutes of boil)

MASH for 60 Minutes, with a re-mash for an 30-60 additional minutes, longer is better.

BOIL for 60 minutes and add all the ingredients at the right time.

We used a liquid yeast (Wyeast American Ale with direct pitch activator).

 

Age for 3 months any beer you brew, (some longer) its the best thing to do!  Also before serving we cold-crash our kegs that hold the beer, this helps to clear the beer and gives it a superb taste.

Don’t forget to take the OG gravity reading and record the reading number before the beer goes to fermentation and later after it ferments, take a FG reading.  Both of these are considered SG readings.

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Understanding Gravity in Beer Brewing, OG, FG and SG – What ?

Posted on October 19, 2012 by ray kodiak

This bear has brewed many batches of beer for private use and has totally neglected to do any sort of gravity measurements at all.  The beer came out really good, definitely had alcohol in it (trust me) – but because it was for private consumption and this bear can get sometimes kind of lazy (yawn), this bear didn’t even bother or even care to take the measurements – bad bear!  just bad!

In reality you should take these reading and records them, learn – keep a log, even if you re-do the same batch over and over, because its important for a variety of reasons, which I am about to explain.

A hydrometer is used to read the specific gravity of un-fermented (wort) or fermented (beer).  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrometer

This device measures the relative density of wort/beer or SP (Specific Gravity)… there is also:

OG – Original Gravity (gravity taken after brewing beer finished, but before fermentation starts)

FG – Final Gravity (gravity taken after fermentation is done)

O.G. 1.056 (minus) F.G. 1.012 = 0.044 then multiply that by 131 to get 4.192% alcohol by volume approximate (example).

The hydrometer rating should be taken at a specific temperature of 59F / 15 C, and rarely people when taking readings get it that right temp, so that’s why you take a temperature reading.  In addition you can use a calculator that also has temperature adjustments for the formula, so record the temperature too for both OG and FG readings in your log.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_by_volume

The less dense the liquid is (after fermentation), the deeper the hydrometer will sink into the liquid.  The more dense it is (before fermentation), the less deeper it will sink into the liquid.

also – look at your hydrometer, it will say at what temperature to take the perfect reading, and it was calibrated at, on mine it reads 60 F and it should tell you the alcohol by volume right on the scale inside the glass.  Some are made differently, so look at yours.

If you pick up a recipe that someone wrote or it came with a kit that you have purchased, it will have printed the expected OG range that you should get after finishing to brew beer.

Usually it is very difficult to get it spot on, so a Range is provided, and as long as you are within this range, you should be ok, example OG Range: 1.056 ~ 1.061.

You probably have noticed that the gravity reading number goes down after the fermentation is over, that is because the yeast will convert sugars into alcohol and alcohol is less dense and the gravity meter measures what ? density, super simple at the high-level.

To give you an idea, the hydrometer is also used in other applications, not just beer; for example in the salt water aquarium hobby, you start with fresh water, then add salt until you reach a certain safe and acceptable range.

If you are going to brew beer for commercial consumption, than this is super important, because if you claim that the beer is 7.2% on the beer label, but it is 5.1%; than you have a problem, don’t you ?

So it is a good idea from day one to get used to doing this and it will help you to understand another critical aspect of brewing and that is the efficiency method that you are employing during the mash phase to extract the sugar from the grain.

How will you know if the mash is doing well, if you never take a reading and you assume this ? you won’t know!

So even if you are not a commercial brewer, but want to confirm that you are doing the mashing correctly and your method or setup is working as intended, there is only one way to know and that is to take a gravity reading!  Or what if you employ a new method and you want to compare to see which one does better ?

There is also another type of measuring device called a Brix Refractometer; but it needs to be calibrated, the hydrometer, not so much.

There is a benefit to this tool!  While you are mashing, you can put a drop of the wort into the Brix and it will tell you the specific gravity, so that’s a plus for this tool and a lot of people use it for that reason, before you begin the process of actually brewing beer, so that if the reading isn’t right, you maybe have time to make some adjustment to improve the mashing process.

Its best to own both if you are a serious home brewer :- )

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brix

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Refractometer

and they come in different shapes and sizes, including laboratory grade equipment that is tested and certified.  We recommend the old fashioned way of using the hydrometer – cheap, reliable and did I mention its cheap ? and it don’t require batteries ?

Fin.

 

 

 

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Follow us on Twitter @kodiak_seattle

Posted on October 18, 2012 by ray kodiak

If you like our web site, like the writing and want to get more in the future and who knows where this will end up; please follow us on Twitter :- )

@kodiak_seattle

 

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