brewing in maine

The smells coming from the Tripel as it ferments have been pleasantly fruit-like but subtle. Once the cane sugar went in, however, the room nearly filled with a banana ester flavor. It must be something to do with the way the yeast process the cane sugar. Since we’re doing a renovation on the house my brewing books are boxed away in storage so I can’t do much for research.

I’m concerned that the esters will be too powerful, or linger too much, but maybe a lot of it will be reabsorbed as the yeast go dormant. Either way it’s to style from what I’ve read.

So I took a reading on the Tripel tonight, three days into fermentation, just as the yeast was slowing down (a bubble every 10 secs or so). The beer was starting to clear up a bit on the top couple of inches, with a settling yeast cloud below.

I roused the yeast first, then added the cooled syrup I made with 2.5 lbs of boiled table sugar.

Before the sugar was added, the gravity read 1012. That’s incredible for three days even with the large starter, and I think tells me my mash went as poorly as I thought. Although it’s consistent with the lower mash temps yielding a more fermentable wort. Since I forgot to take my original gravity measurement, I can only guess based on the recipe what my starting point was, but according to ProMash it’s 1061.  That’s 80% attenuation – more than Wyeast even specifies for the strain. So I’m naturally suspicious my OG was really in the 1052-1055 range.

Either way this beer seems to be very busy even a scant 15 minutes after the sugar addition – should be cranking tonight.