GoP

Update 9/13/08 - Bottled just under 5 gallons. Nice and peppery. Hazy because I forgot the clarifier on brew day, but delicious. No competition until the haze settles out. High expectations for aging on this one. Primed with 4oz corn sugar.
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The Westmalle Trippel is delicious. This is not it. But based on a clone recipe for it from BYO. But definitely not going to be Westmalle's trippel. It was mainly an excuse to use the grains of paradise!

Again, low mash efficiency. I may have to chat up someone that knows what they're doing here...

Batch #20
GoP Trippel
--12.75 lbs German Pilsner Malt
--1 lb Clear candi sugar
--1 lb Amber candi sugar
--1 oz Glacier 6% AA (90min)
--1 oz Mt Hood 5.2% AA (15min)
--1 oz Mt Hood 5.2% AA (5min)
--1/4 tsp lightly crushed grains of paradise (5min)
--White Labs WLP500 Trappist Ale Yeast (2L starter)
OG: 1.070 [target 1.081 >:( ]
FG: 1.006
ABV: 8.4%
Calc. IBU: 38

I added the grains of paradise, subbed in Mt Hood and Glacier (available and in my freezer, respectively), and split the 2 lbs clear sugar into 1 lb clear, 1 lb amber. Also, I'm an idiot, and didn't see the Belgian pils bin right next to the German at the shop. Whatever. Obviously, I'm not trying to make Westmalle.

I mashed in at 135F in 4 gallons. Over the next hour and a half or so, I ramped the temperature to 148F by adding ~3 pint amounts of hot water. After 10 minutes at 148F, I added enough water to get the temperature to 167F and let the mash sit for another 10 minutes before starting the lauter. With no sparging I was able to extract 7 gallons.

This was a two hour boil. I boiled the Glacier for 90 to account for the slightly lower AA compared to the Styrian Goldings called for in the Westmalle clone recipe. The sugar went in with 30 minutes left. I lightly crushed the spice (just enough to split the corns in half or so) and boiled that for the last 5. Chill. Pitch yeast.

The Ocho

Updated 3/22 - Kegged. FG is a little high, but the fermentation looked like it's still active. Hopefully it'll settle down over the next few weeks. On the plus side, the beer was pretty tasty despite its simple recipe.
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For my eighth brew, I whipped up a batch of the MoreBeer Belgian Trippel. Nothing fancy. Extract and candi sugar. No specialty malts or anything. Yet somehow it still took me just as long to brew. Probably due to the imprecise measurement of water for the boil, which resulted in the pot having almost 7 gallons after adding the extract, which resulted in me sitting there in the kitchen watching for boilovers while I waited for a gallon or so to leave. In the end I still had a little too much water (OG 1.070 instead of the target 1.075-1.080), but meh.

Batch #8
Belgian Trippel (MoreBeer Extract Kit)
Abbey Ale Yeast (White Labs P530)
--6 lbs German Pilsner LME
--3 lbs Light DME
--1 lb Clear Belgian Candi Sugar
--1 oz Vanguard 4.4% (60min)
--1 oz Sterling 5.0% (1min)
--1 Whirlfloc tablet
OG: 1.070
FG: 1.020
ABV: 6.5%
IBU: ~15

Pitched a little warmer this time, at about 75ºF. The recipe suggests fermenting at 70ºF for clean taste with less heavy alcohol, or in the mid-70s for more yeast emphasis. They suggest trying the other Belgian yeasts for different flavors. In the end, this should get us a nice 7% trippel-style ale. It's a nice golden color. I anticipate secondary in about a week, bottle in three or four weeks instead of kegging so we can see how it matures over the next several months to a year.