Rosehip Tripel (and small beer)

At some point in the last few months, I decided to brew something...complicated--a brett finished Tripel with--second use--rosehips.  That second use is the key--the plan was to use the rosehips in a mead (1.5 gallon, approx), ferment the rhodomel on them for five days or so, before racking a gallon of the young mead off into a smaller vessel, and racking the Tripel on them for a secondary fermentation.  At some point around then, I intend to add brett brux (from Anchorage Brewing dregs) and let it age.

I decided to use the second runnings in a "mini-mash" to make a small table beer.

Rosehip Tripel - Belgian Tripel

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Batch Size: 3.108 gal

Boil Size: 3.108 gal

Boil Time: 60.000 min

Efficiency: 70%

OG: 1.082

FG: 1.016

ABV: 8.5%

Bitterness: 16.7 IBUs (Tinseth)

Color: 11 SRM (Daniels)

Fermentables

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                 Name  Type   Amount Mashed Late Yield Color

  Pilsner (2 Row) Bel Grain 5.000 lb    Yes   No   79%   2 L

     White Wheat Malt Grain 1.000 lb    Yes   No   86%   2 L

    Cane (Beet) Sugar Sugar 1.000 lb     No   No  100%   0 L

    Munich Malt - 10L Grain 8.000 oz    Yes   No   77%  10 L

 Rahr - Pale Ale Malt Grain 1.000 lb    Yes   No   79%   4 L

            Caraamber Grain 8.000 oz     No   No   75%  30 L

Total grain: 8.000 lb

Hops

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             Name                  Alpha   Amount   Use    Time            Form  IBU

Styrian Goldings              43.9%    0.750 oz   Boil     60.000 min   leaf      0.0

Styrian Goldings              43.9%    0.50 oz   Boil       20.000 min   leaf      0.0

Misc

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     Name  Type       Use   Amount    Time

 Rosehips Other Secondary 0.000 oz 0.000 s

Yeast

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                                Name             Type      Form   Amount             Stage

           Ommegang Strain             Ale        Liquid   0.5 cup               Culture

Notes

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Simple tripel, experimenting with wine yeast in beer.  Allow to ferment for a week with fresh Ommegang culture (from a bottle of Rare VOS).  Wine yeast (71-B) will be introduced upon racking onto the rose hips.

Rack onto second use rose hips (which were fermented in a mead for 1 week), then Brett Brux (from Anchorage Brewing, or Orval) pitched.

Mash in at 128, and raise to 162 over 90 minutes (high start Saison Dupont schedule).  Bulk of the time should be in the 140s.

Brew Day Notes

Striking 3 gallons (1.5 lb/qt), mashing in at 142, aiming for around 130.  Turned off the heat to allow it to go down to 130, then I’ll turn it back on low.  After 15min, the temp got down to 134, and I turned the heat on low. 

143 at 35 minutes.  Turned the heat on and up at 70 minutes.  I think next brew, I’ll try at 1.25-1.3/1 qt/lb ratio.

I heavily squeezed the bag, after running the hot wort through the suspended grain bed to filter the large chunks.

Got a little under 3 gallons, at 1.066 (temp corrected, at 105 degrees).  Added 0.75 oz of Styrian Goldings leaf hops (3.9%AA) at first wort (since there is only 1 IBU of difference between 90 and a 60 minute boil, I decided it wasn’t worth waiting for it to begin boiling).  Added 0.5 oz of flavour hops (same as bittering) at 20 minutes.

Second Runnings

I did a second runnings “mash” with about 1 gallon of 165 degree water.  I allowed it to sit mostly untouched except for the occasional prodding, the grain still bagged.  I let it sit for the whole length of the primary boil, and squeezed the bag heavily.  I am hopping at lambic rates (5gm per litre, so 20 grams), with Aged Alaskan Saaz.  Pre-boil SG was 1.032.  I added about a tsp of ground black pepper at 2 minutes.

6-20-15; Brewed.  OG 1.070, which is rather disappointing.  I’m really not sure about this—I suspect the hopping calculator I used was waay off, since there is a noticeable bitterness at the start—at least it is a smooth bitter.

Now that I think about it, my brewing calculator does not have an option for no-sparge.  Which means at least some of those missing gravity points ended up in the small bier (assuming I just did my calculations right, the full OG should have been 1.077—5 points off, rather than 12).  Still only 66%(ish) efficiency, though.  I suspect that my mash temperatures were a bit low, so I should have let it go longer.

6-21-15; I woke up this morning to see a decent krausen on both brews.

6-23-15; The small beer is fine, and SG is 1.012.  The tripel on the other hand has a strong flavour of DMS (creamed corn)—probably caused by too long of cooling.  Good news is that yeast eventually can metabolize the flavour if there isn’t too much, hopefully, especially brett.
Tripel SG 1.030  Gave it a good swirl and some nutrients.

6-28-15; I’m still tasting DMS in the tripel, but it doesn’t seem to be quite as apparent.  SG 1.010—probably fairly close to finished, at least from the Sacc. (8% ABV).  Calculated FG wsa 1.016, but BrewTarget is usually off.

The small beer is at 1.002, and has little flavour.  I think I will be dryhopping it.  (4% ABV).  Added Styrian Goldings dry hops.  Unknown amount—maybe ¼ oz?

7-1-15; FGs are unchanged.  The DMS is still strong—definitely corn.  I added the dregs from my brett cider to the Tripel.
Bottled the table bier (TB cap), getting 12ozx8.  Added 0.75 oz of dissolved sugar, and using the suspended yeast to carb.  Note: It turned out lovely.  I am definitely going to have to do this with any higher ABV beer.

Table bier

9-9-15; Took a sample.  I can still taste the DMS, but it isn’t as bad.  Very light funk still.  The colour is a gold as I originally hoped, and nearly crystal clear.  Rather than going with rosehips and mead as originally planned (I don't want to waste the rosehips and honey on something with DMS), I believe I am going to spice it—probably orange, chamomile 1.25oz as a cold steeped tea, and dry hop with Styrian Goldings and/or Willamette (hops are optional).

SG is 1.008.  8.3% ABV, and no taste of alcohol.

 

Oh look.  A pellicle.  Guess the brett is working away.

10-9-15; Gravity is now 1.006, and I added one orange worth of fresh zest.  The chamomile will be added as a filtered tea, to better my control, and not ruin the clarity of the beer.

1-4-16; Bottling.  I bottled with 71grams of white sugar, and 0.25oz of chamomile (steeped for 5 minutes).  18 crown caps, and 3 750ml bottles (2 Belgians and a champagne).  I am experimenting with tying corks in a champagne knot, and we will see how that turns out for me--don't even try size 9 corks on a hand corker, btw; waay too much effort.

© John Frey, 2015. The Author of this work retains full copyright for this material.  The recipes, photographs and other contents therein may not be used for any commercial purposes.