Aqua Vitae

This is a Belgian style dubbel. The recipe kit is a Yankee Brewer recipe kit from Beer & Winemaking Supplies in Northampton.

Ingredients:
7 lb. British Light Malt Extract
1 lb. Belgian Pale Grain Malt
12 oz. Belgian CaraVienne Malt
8 oz. Belgian Aromatic Grain Malt
4 oz. Belgian Special B (Dark Crystal)
3 oz. Fuggles Hop Pellets
10 grams Red Star Pasteur Champagne Yeast
1 lb. Belgian Dark Candi Syrup
*Ingredient notes: substituted 1lb. of Belgian Dark Candi Syrup for the 1lb. of brown sugar or hard candi sugar that the recipe called for.
Also subsituted White Labs’ WLP500 Trappist Ale Yeast in place of the 10g of dry yeast included in the kit.
1. Prep: Prep was a bit scattershot for this. I boiled two gallons of water and put them in the freezer first thing in the morning, and then setup a bucket with three gallons of sanitizing solution and placed all of the brewing tools in there. I also cleaned both of the brewing pots.

2. Mash: Heated 1.5 quarts of water to 170 and added the grains to this. Quickly decided that this was insufficient water, and so added about a gallon of heated water. Kept the grains between 155-165 for 38 minutes. After this we poured the mash through a strainer to separate the sparge water from the grains, and then proceeded to strain the sparge water through the grains several times to attempt and maximize the efficiency of the mash. The final gravity of the wort at this point (before the addition of sugar or malt extract) was 1.027 (corrected from 140 degrees).
At this point, transferred the wort to the stove and brought the liquid level up to 3.5 gallons.

3. Wort: Brought the wort to a boil and removed it from the heat. Added the liquid malt extract and sugar and returned the wort over heat, bringing it to a boil. Following the hot break (which was mild), added 1/2 of the hops. Boiled for a further 30 minutes and added the 2nd 1/2 of the hops, and boiled for 30 minutes more. After 60 minutes of boiling, removed the wort from the heat.

4. Cooling: Immediately after removing the wort from the heat, transferred the wort pot to the sink and built an ice bath around it. All in all, it took 40 lbs of ice and 1 hour to bring the wort down to 68 degrees. In other words, cooling sucked and took far longer than it should have. The likely reason for the long cooling time was the increased amount of wort - about 4 gallons compared to ~2.5 (compared to the previous brew).

5. Transfer: When the wort hit 68 degrees, we transferred it to the fermenting bucket, and took a gravity reading. We then added water gradually until the gravity hit 1.072. The added water brought the temperature of the wort down a further 4 degrees, to 64. When corrected, the final OG was 1.073.

6. Pitching: Vigorously shook up the yeast in its little bottle, and then pitched it into the wort. Stirred the wort to mix it in, and then put the lid on the bucket and put the airlock in place. We put the fermenting bucket away in a dark corner and awaited (anxiously) fermentation.

7. Repitching: After 2 days of no visible fermentation activity, it was apparent that something was wrong. Just 48 hours after starting fermentation, I opened the fermenter and it was clear that no fermentation had taken place.The best guess is that the yeast was dead when we pitched it (a lesson learned: be careful where you mail-order your yeast from). I still had the 10g of dry yeast that had come with the recipe, so I activated this by adding it to 2 cups of 75 degree water.
While the yeast was activating, I poured the wort back and forth between two buckets several times to aerate it. After waiting for 15 minutes, I pitched it into the wort (now at 72 degrees) and placed the lid on the fermenter. I then vigorously shook the fermenting bucket for a while to mix the yeast in and further aerate the wort, and then put the airlock in place (filled with sanitized water). I tucked the fermenter away in a corner, and again (more anxiously) awaited fermentation

8. Fermentation - Day One: Technically, day one of fermentation was the same day it was pitched. Only 3 hours after having pitched the new yeast there was clearly activity taking place. A couple of bubbles, and obvious pressure within the airlock. So soon!
9. Fermentation - Day Two: The morning of day two of fermentation dawned to some serious fermentation taking place. Lots and lots of bubbling in the airlock, several bubbles per second. The day ended the same, with no apparent leup in the rate of fermentation.

10. Fermentation - Days Three-Five: Fermentation continued pretty vigorously until the end of day three, at which point it gradually slowed down. Now, after 5 full days of fermentation there’s only the occasional bubble, although the water level in the airlock is still rather high, so there is clearly some built-up pressure in the fermenter. I’ll transfer to secondary fermentation today.

11. Secondary Fermentation: After 5 full days of fermentation the Belgian Abbey Ale was transferred to the secondary fermenter. There was still a fair amount of fermentation taking place, as evidenced by the fermentation fumes that seared my eyes and nose when I opened the fermenter. After transferring the wort/beer the rate of fermentation picked up ever so slightly. A bubble here and there, and some distinct pressure in the fermenter. The beer seemed very raucous and undeveloped. I’m expeecting to leave it in the secondary fermenter for two weeks.

There was also a lot of sediment in the beer. It was rather opaque and hazy. In light of this, I may do 1 week at ambient room temperature and 1 week cold. But cold fermentation is such a bear to pull off at this point in time that I may just settle for 2 weeks of ambient fermentation. We’ll see. I may test it in a week and see how it is progressing.

Specific gravity was 1.022 (5.5 degrees Plato). So that’s down from an original gravity of 1.073 (18.25 degrees Plato), meaning an apparent attentuation of 70%. Not bad. I suspect it’ll be a couple of points lower once fermentation has run its course.

12. Bottling: After the beer being in the secondary fermenter for just over 1 week I went ahead and bottled it. The final gravity was 1.018 (4.6 Plato). So apparent attenuation was 74%, giving the beer and ABV of 7.3. The flavor still was pretty smoky, but lacking the kind of complexity or layers that I was hoping for. Hopefully some time in the bottle will help it mature and develop a bit more. The total count was 21 12-oz. bottles and 12 22-oz. bottles a total of 516 ounces.