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%

#34 - 8° Tripel

Continuing my themed set of trappist style ales I brewed an 8° Tripel. Like the 6° Dubbel (brewed prior to the tripel but aging longer, post to come) this beer uses primarily Belgian Pilsner and a little Munich malt with some sugar additions, Wyeast 3787 Trappist High Gravity yeast and a simple continental European hop bill featuring Styrian Goldings and Hallertau (and in the Tripel's case a little Strisselspalt as well).  The Tripel however should turn out quite different with less dark malts, a much higher hop bitterness, flavor and aroma and the sugar additions being white sugar and honey rather than the complex dark candi syrups leading to hop/yeast balance rather than malt/sugar/yeast.  As the name suggests this beer will also start with a slightly higher gravity (1.080) for an added alcohol oomph.

Trying to work in the same kitchen that my girlfriend was using to make bread led to some issues with tight space and a few spills.  In the end I lost about half a pound of the pilsner malt trying to add it to the mash tun and lost about half an ounce of hersbrucker hops when trying to vacuum seal.  I made up for the pilsner malt with more white sugar.  Pitched 12 oz. of slurry harvested from my Belgian Session IPA on December 26th (about a 50% over-pitch according to Mr. Malty).

In addition to wanting to brew to-style Trappist beers in each of the 3 major varieties (dubbel, tripel, quad) there was an additional goal to this themed series to experiment with tinctures and blending.  Unlike the Dubbel which will be blended with the Quad to create my 7° beer, this beer will have additional sugars (largely honey) added to bump up the equivalent starting gravity just 1 Belgian degree (up to the equivalent of a 1.090 OG) to create a Belgian Golden Strong ale.  Similar to the 7° beer which will be spiced with a number of warming festive spices this beer will have a simpler tincture of sage added to lend some floral, sweet and savory characteristics.

1/28/14
Extremely vigorous fermentation led to me replacing the airlock with a blow off tube.

2/13/14

Gravity down all the way to 1.006 after getting to 1.008 at moving to secondary.  Bottled just under 2 gallons with 1.5 oz of sugar. (as brew #34 despite the Dubbel actually having been brewed before it).  ~2.5 gallons were mixed with 12 oz. of honey for what will be the Sage Golden Strong.  Taste is surprisingly high in bitterness with some noticeable alcohol, fruity yeast derived flavors and a touch of honey like sweetness.

3/1/14

Bottled the Golden Strong with most of the sage tincture (roughly 1/2 cup worth of extract from 2/3 cup vodka, 1/4 cup sage mixture).  Taste is sweet and estery up front but dry and bitter in the finish with the sage giving a citrusy, herbal character that I might have liked to see even more of.

4/12/14

Sage version tasting notes.  Very tasty, noticeable but not overpowering sage presence.

5/17/14

Straight Tripel tasting (with side by side notes of Sage Golden Strong). Also a good beer, though not as true to style as I was hoping.