brewing in maine

The Tripel I brewed waaaaaay back in September and cold conditioned for almost five months, just because I didn’t get around to bottling it, is finally in bottles. Final gravity in the carboy was 1.007 for an alcohol by volume of around 9.84%.

It was actually easy once I had everything I needed. We saved bottles as we drank Belgians, and then I bought a case of 12 to round it out. A full 5-gallon carboy fit into about 25 750ml bottles.

After unsuccessfully trying to beg or borrow a corker I caved and picked up a Portuguese Floor Corker at Maine Brewing Supply ($72 later, ouch!). I bought a package of reference corks for Belgian bottles and a bag of twist cages to hold the pressure.

According to ProMash I needed 6.3 oz of priming sugar to get 3.25 volumes of CO2 in the conditioned beer. Because the carboy had sat at cold temperatures (42 deg) for nearly five months I felt like it would be wise to re-pitch fresh yeast, so I rehydrated 2/3 package of Safbrew T-58 and pitched it into the bottling bucket. I had read that T-58 is well known for forming a solid sediment after conditioning is complete – we’ll see how that turns out.

The bottles are currently stored on their side in my living room and the heat is locked at 66 degrees. It usually goes down to 58 in the daytime to save money on oil – oh the things we do for beer!

Tasting notes to follow someday…though I will open one in a couple of weeks, I am hoping this one will be good to put up for a while.

So I’m going to try something new here on the blog. In addition to writing about homebrewing I am also going to review some beers, bars, etc. while I’m at it.

First beer on deck, Achel 8 Brune – the Dubbel.

Tasted in an Achel goblet. Chilled the bottle from room temp for maybe 15 minutes in the fridge so it might have been a touch warm, but it seemed about right.

Appearance – Deep reddish-brown in color with big head, both in quantity and size of bubbles. Didn’t lace much at all. Slightly cloudy appearance but mostly clear – probably some yeast knocked loose from the bottom of the bottle. The head subsided quickly.

Aroma – I was surprised to find not much of one. No hop presence I could detect, caramel and nut and a wonderful slightly funky/musty farmhouse kind of yeast smell.

Taste – Warm but without any solventy or alcoholic flavor. Caramel aftertaste married to more bitterness than expected. No hop flavor. Some tarty sour/farmhouse but proportionally not much compared to the aroma.

Mouthfeel – Silk. Absolute silky smoothness assisted by the fizz of high carbonation.

Drinkability/Experience – A strong but smooth beer that represents the style well. Smoother than some other Dubbels out there, Chimay included – possibly due to Achel’s use of Westmalle yeast and a step mash that results in good balance of dextrins.