Friday, May 6, 2016

Belgian Golden Strong and Smoked Helles Parti-gyle

Just over 2 years ago I brewed a series of Belgians, including an interesting take on a Belgian Golden Strong. Belgian Golden Strong Ales (BGSAs) have been one of my favorite styles since the first time I tried Duvel Green on my 21st birthday and was opened to a whole new world of Belgian beer. With only one beer currently in my kegerator I decided I should throw together something that could be both interesting and refreshing now that spring is here. I also didn't want to solely commit to a BGSA and decided it would be a good time to perform a pseudo parti-gyle in order to get 2 different beers.

I decided that the smaller beer could be a good base for my third attempt at lagering since the kegerator/ferment chamber had space available. Playing around with the numbers I realized that by adding just a little pale malt, and some specialty malts I would be able to make a smoked Helles. While I haven't had a smoked Helles before, it seemed like another fitting beer for spring with a balance of both intriguing components and moderate drinkability.

I brewed the beers on the last day of winter in a cold mix of rain, sleet, and snow. While the weather added some difficulty and I didn't do everything quite as efficiently as I could have, the day went well overall and hopefully I'll come out of it with 2 tasty beers for only a couple hours more work than I would have had to do for 1. The addition of grains required a second mash and made this not a true parti-gyle but allowed me to give more variability to the beers produced and I plan to perform similar split batch procedures in the future. One goal moving forward will be to better line up the timing for the two batches to minimize how much additional time is required.

Designing the two recipes was a somewhat iterative process as I came up with a general idea for each recipe separately, then used a parti-gyle calculator to identify that I would need a 1.045 OG at 6 gallons, then came up with the overall malt bill, then went back and refined the individual recipes. the recipes shown below are my best attempt to show how to recreate the beers if not done together and have been adjusted slightly due to hitting higher efficiency than expected. The base malts used aren't traditional but I was making due with what I had including the last of my bags of Pilsner and 2-row and just enough Maris Otter to hit my required amounts.

Future Laws:
Belgian Golden Strong Ale
OG
1.083
FG
1.017
IBU
29
SRM
 3
ABV
9%

Fermentables
Amount Fermentable Maltster Use PPG Color
4.0 lb
 2-Row (US)
Briess Mash 37 1 °L
2.0 lb
 Pilsner (DE)
Weyermann Mash 37 1 °L
1.5 lb
 Sucrose
N/A Boil 46 0 °L
0.67 lb
 Maris Otter Pale
Thomas Fawcett & Sons Mash 38 3 °L

Hops
Amount Hop Time Use Form AA
1.5 oz Strisselspalt (FR) 45 min Boil Pellet 2.80%
1.5 oz Strisselspalt (FR) 15 min Boil Pellet 2.80%

Yeast
Name Lab/Product Attenuation
Golden Pear Belgian Gigayeast 80.00%

Mash steps
Step Heat Source Target Temp Time
Saccharification Rest Infusion 146.0 °F 30 min
Saccharification Rest Infusion 154.0 °F 30 min

Of Greater Things:
Smoked Munich Helles
OG
1.054
FG
1.013
IBU
15
SRM
4
ABV
5.40%

Fermentables
Amount Fermentable Maltster Use PPG Color
2.0 lb
 Maris Otter Pale (UK)
Thomas Fawcett & Sons Mash 38 3 °L
1.5 lb
 Pilsner (DE)
Weyermann Mash 37 1 °L
1.5 lb
 2-Row (US)
Briess Mash 37 1 °L
0.5 lb
 CaraHell (DE)
Weyermann Mash 34 11 °L
0.5 lb
 Smoked Malt (US)
Briess Mash 37 5 °L

Hops
Amount Hop Time Use Form AA
1.0 oz Strisselspalt (FR) 45 min Boil Pellet 2.80%

Yeast
Name Lab/Product Attenuation
German Lager Yeast White Labs WLP830 76.50%
German Lager Yeast White Labs WLP830 76.50%