#36 - 10° Quad Recipe and Tasting

The 10° Quad is the 3rd and final in my Belgian Trappist series that began with brewing the 6° Dubbel, followed by the 8° Tripel.  In addition to these 3 beers, two side projects, a Golden Strong with Sage and Christmas Cookie spiced Quad/Dubbel blend, also came out of this excursion to the Trappist monastery styles of brewing.  The Quad is intended to be the king of the 3, the most malt, the most sugar additions, the most time to ferment; harder, better, faster, stronger.  This is far from my first attempt at a quad with the first two being interesting but off the mark.  The hope for this beer is that the use of commercial candi syrup, rather than homemade, and tighter control on yeast levels and fermentation temperatures, will bring this to where I want.

4/7/2014
Still have not bottled this beer and unfortunately it seems to have oxidized.  Taste has some nice rum/molasses character of the candi syrup and a bit of fruitiness but these are muted by the flat, oxidized flavor.  I had planned to bottle long before now but a number of issues have made me reschedule and this one now seems doomed.  Perhaps this will go down as a lesson that the high number of beers I brewed in the early months of this year were beyond my capacity to manage and I need to stick to one or two beers over a similar time span, not 4 brew days with multiple variations leading to 7 beers.

4/13/14

Bottled with 2 oz table sugar. Still seems a bit oxidized and less strong than expected but has some nice dark fruit flavors as well.

5/7/14

Tasting:

Appearance- very deep, opaque brown, just a shade above black. Huge, fluffy, light tan head that's well supported by a huge carbonation rising thought the beer.

Smell- dark malt, caramel, toffee and dark pit fruit aromas are somewhat muted by a stale character I take to be oxidation. Some definite alcohol in the mix as it warms.

Taste- dark fruit, molasses, rum, raisin, clove and warming, slightly hot, alcohol.  As it warms there is a bit of that sherry-like oxidized note but the stale, cardboard flavor doesn't dominate as strongly as I have noticed in the past. There is some moderate bitterness in the finish that knocks away the sweetness and leaves a lingering alcohol and fruit sensation.

Mouthfeel- hugely carbonated but moderately light in body, this is pretty spot on for a belgian style giving a creamy, smooth drinking, effect.

Overall- this feels like a beer that could have been very good, lots of fruity, spicy, sugary flavors from malt and yeast and a great body and carbonation level. Unfortunately the early oxidation of this beer keeps it from being a terrific example. Yet another data point in my quest for a great homebrewed Belgian Quad, but maybe the most informative data point thus far.

5-28-14

Update: hugely carbonated was right, opened the laundry room to find shards of glass and dark sticky beer everywhere. At least two (edit, it was 6!) of these have exploded so far. The culprit is likely adding too much sugar as they don't give an off smell (they actually smell great) and were certainly given plenty of time to finish initial fermentation.  Still I only used 2 oz in nearly 4 gallons of beer, which should have given a volume well under 2.5, which the bottles should be able to hold. Time to figure out how to trash the rest; not worth having a bad and dangerous beer sitting around.

#23 - Belgian Quad Tasting

Appearance- deep orange to rose in color with a large fluffy white head that fades to a half inch leaving splotchy lacing.

Smell- huge nose of cherries, clove, cardamom, cinnamon, tobacco, figs, vanilla and a bit of bourbon barrel booziness. It reminds me a bit of the smell of La Trappe's Quad but with bigger, spicier aromas.

Taste- the spice dominates the mouth with some sweetness and the booze quickly following. Warm clove and all spice flavors quickly subside to a lingering warmth and a slightly tingling balance of spice, bitterness and carbonation.

Mouthfeel- feels a bit syrupy and thick which fills the mouth with lots of carbonation.

Overall- this one still comes off pretty hot and boozy and could probably use another year or three to fully develop. While the nose is there and the overall drink isn't bad the depth of flavor is not up to par for a Trappist quad.  A nice try but I will probably not use homemade candi syrup next time and spend a little more effort on the yeast starter size. To reduce the hotness and finishing gravity.

#23 and New Mash Tun

I haven't been super active with this blog recently and there are a few things on backlog (especially tastings of 4 or 5 beers and a few book reviews) but today I brewed a new beer and used a new system recently so that moved to the top of the list.  My #23 is named in honor of both my 23rd batch and myself being 23 years old for less than another month.  Since batch 24 will probably be the only other batch that is equal to my age I decided to do this one right by doing a big Belgian quad with 23 pounds of fermentables.

My new 10 gallon mash tun with over 20 pounds of grain in it

One of my favorite styles for a long time with beers like Westvleteren 12 and St. Bernardus 12 being particular favorites and having recently finished "Brew Like a Monk" it seemed time to go for it.  In an attempt to emulate those beers I am using the Wyeast Trappist High Gravity yeast.  Due to Midwest Supplies leaving out a pound of aromatic I modified my recipe to use 20 lbs of Pilsner, 1 pound of special b, .5 pounds of biscuit malt and 1.5 pounds of a variety of sugars (including corn syrup, white table sugar and brown sugar).  Aiming for a near 1.100 OG could lead to some difficulties with attenuation but I am excited to truly try to make a beer of this style.

To go along with this huge batch I also am doing my first non-biab all-grain brew with my new 10 gallon mash tun!  While brew day was annoying in a few days (yeast had been left out since arriving, 1 lb of aromatic grain was missing, the brew tun was slightly messed up, didn't have enough water and the water filters were going slow) I managed to finally hit my mash temp (151 F) after a prolonged period between 120 and 130 while I went to purchase and then boil distilled water.  So far I'm liking the all-grain set-up much more than BIAB but I will have to see how the final product comes out to make a real determination.

This one had a very active hot break

Note: I also ran a second mash on the malt to make a table beer with some old Abbey Ale II yeast I made a starter for.

Updates:
2/16/13
Cooled to 63F, transferred to 6 gallon better bottle, aerated by shaking for 5 minutes and pitched two swollen smack packs of Wyeast 3787 Trappist High Gravity.  OG came in at a disappointingly low 1.080 (the small beer however did come in at a gravity of 1.055).

2/17/13
This thing took off over night to the point where it blew out the blow off tube!  The most active fermentation I have ever seen.  Made a huge mess but at least I was able to top crop some of the krausen from it.

2/23/13
Fermentation is not nearly as strong as it was for the first few days but still going fairly strong.  Small beer is also still fairly active and giving off strong bubblegum notes.

3/2/13
Fermentation still seems to be going slowly. Sample was at 1.021 gravity, much higher than expected. Color was light and flavor was sweet, boozy, lightly fruity and somewhat bitter. Decided to make another couple pounds of candi sugar to get this closer to where I want it.
Small beer is down to 1.013, probably still has a ways to go. Extremely hazy with protein chunks, I think I grabbed too much of the krausen when sampling. Flavor is a bit fruitier but again too bitter.

3/31/13
Gravity on big beer, #23, down to 1.016. Bottled with 3.3 oz of sugar. Small beer, #24, is finally carbed. Fairly light and tasty with definite Belgian aromas, will need to do a full tasting soon.