As promised, I'll be updating this with pictures and text through the process
Water and Grain
I'm using my traditional 25l batch for this. The water is on and heating, and here's a picture of the malt (with bonus dog bowls!). I've never been a fan of adjusting my water, firstly, because I haven't a clue how to go about it and secondly, my philosophy has always been one of working with what you've got. That's what gives your beers their own character.
In there is:
1.6kg Pilsner Malt
200g Munich Malt
200g Wheat Malt
125g Belgian Aromatic
This is going to make for a much looser mash than I'm used to in my other Belgian style beers... The lack of a big grain bill ought to give it the pale colour I'm looking for, also. But I'm assured the lack of gravity points (the amount of fermentable material suspended in the wort) will be made up for by sugar and extract in the boil. Here's hoping... As i'm now convinced i'm going to end up with a Strong Golden at 3.5%!
You do the Mash!
For the mash I'm using a single infusion (as opposed to the step mash I'd usually use with Belgian ales) at 70c. I've heated the water to 75c as I'm bound to lose some in the transition between the boiler and my mash tun/camping gaz cool box. This will rest for 90 mins.
As noted before, and as you can see from the picture. The grain looks lost in there! I'm having a moment of doubt!
I've just mashed out and the wort had the golden colour I was looking for, however, the gravity was bumbling around at about 1.026, which is way lower than I would usually expect for a strong Belgian style ale (here come the Belgians is in the 1.050s at this point). However, we're using a lot more extract and sugar today, so I'll keep faith with the recipe I've put together.
All part of the fun of experimenting!
The Boil
For the uninitiated, the boiling of your wort is where you impart the bitterness of the beer with hops. I use vacuum packed hops in hop bags, purely to avoid the mess and blocked taps on the boiler, resulting in it taking literally hours to get your wort out to chill. The other peril of the boil is boiling over... resulting in sticky wort all over your floor. You can mitigate this by dialling your temperature up and down constantly, or sticking a lid with a small hole in on top of your boiler. The latter, however, runs the risk of a There Will Be Blood style "gusher". Whilst this looks funny for about 20 seconds, the novelty soon wears off, as you'll be showered in boiling hot sticky liquid and then have to scrape hops off your ceiling.
For this ale, I need to add body and gravity (to make alcohol!) so I added 500g of Beglian candi rock sugar and 500g of normal brewers sugar along with 2kg of Malt Extract. For hops I've used 3oz of English Fuggles for a sharp bitterness. These will boil for an hour. After 45 minutes i'll add another half an ounce of fuggles, an ounce of Saaz (for the "green" hop aroma) and another half ounce of Fuggles for aroma.
Yeast and Fermentation
Usually I like to use my copper chiller ( a very basic heat exchanger) to cool the wort before I put the yeast in, today however, it was pissing it down, so I elected to wait it out instead.
The yeast was, unsurprisingly, Wyeast 570 for Belgian Golden Ales. I pitched this at 22c, a little warmer than most would, but I really wanted some of the solventy fusel alcohols to come through in the final beer.
The fermenter will now sit in primary fermentation until the gravity reading reduces to 1.015-1.010 or, for the layman 7.3-7.5% alcohol.
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