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[inahandbasket]

Beer geekery:

Brewed up a Belgian Trippel style beer yesterday morning. It finally started fermenting by this morning, we were worried about it for awhile there. It's bubbling along merrily now, or at least it was when I left this morning and so should still be. I'm really looking forward to drinking this one.

Bought out a local store of the last bottles of Unibrue's "Edition 2004" which we'd dispaired of finding any remaining bottles of about a year ago. They had three bottles left, so we bought them all, drank the one we'd been saving, and still have 3 hanging around for future events. This is probably the best beer I've ever found. We also got an "Edition 2005" to try and see if it compares to the '04. It didn't a year ago, but it was really young then, so maybe by now it'll be better.

Brewed another gallon of ginger ale last week, but it didn't start fermenting for some reason and now has mold on top.
BUMMER!
Got ingredients so that we can try that again. This time I'll make a yeast starter I think.


Belgian Tripple
Batch Size 5 gal.
1.25 lbs. - American Vienna
.5 lbs. - Belgian Aromatic
.25 lbs. - Belgian Biscuit
7 lbs. - Dry Extra Light Malt Extract
1 lbs. - Candi Sugar Clear
1.7 oz. - Hallertau Hersbruck, boiled 60 min.
1 oz. - East Kent Goldings, boiled 15 min.
.5 oz. - Dried Orange Peel, boiled 15 min.
.25 oz. - Goldings (Whole, 5.00 %AA) boiled 3 min.
.5 oz. - Dried Orange Peel, boiled 3 min.
Yeast - White Labs WLP530 Abbey Ale

Original Gravity: ~1.077
Estimated Alcohol/vol: ~9%

Comments

[inahandbasket]

wouldn't mind at all!
now bear in mind that we haven't tasted this one yet... but it's based off an earlier recipe, so should be ok.

1 gallon:
12-16 oz. light brown sugar
0-4 oz. Molasses
- (makes the final product very dark colored, adds rich flavor. optional.)
~3.5 oz chopped/crushed fresh ginger root
- (tweak up or down depending on your 'spicy' wishes.)
1 Tbsp cream of tartar
- (helps head retention, no flavor component)
zest and/or juice from 1/2 lemon

additional spices if desired:
4 whole cloves
3 allspice berries
3 cardamom pods
1 cinnamon stick ~3"

Boil the ginger and spices in a gallon of water for 30 minutes.
Add sugars, Cream of Tartar, and lemon at 15 minutes.
Cool, ferment, bottle, drink.
Yeast:
We've used Burton Ale Yeast (white labs) for both of our batches, but we're still trying to find a yeast that'll leave it slightly sweeter. The Burton's the best we've found in our research so far, and it still leaves it a little dryer than we're aiming for. Liquid yeast gets a little expensive for 1gal batches though, so might move to dry yeast next round.

Try a 1 gallon batch, not much to lose. See if you like it, tweak the recipe, and let me know what you think!

[http://users.livejournal.com/jae_/]

Sounds tasty! Do you let it ferment all the way, then prime and bottle? I saw another ginger ale that said they pitch, then when it starts to bubble, they let it go 48 hours, then bottle and let it finish in the bottle (using champagne bottles). What's your preferred method? I'm kinda wondering if I should maybe let it ferment till it just begins to slow, then stop fermentation, rack into a keg and force carbonate. That may help it retain some sweetness, while getting the characteristics that Burton's will give it. Your thoughts? I have NO experience with ginger ales, so that's why I'm asking you. ;)

[inahandbasket]

Well this is only the second one we've done, so I don't have much more experience. Last time we bottled the same way we do beer (primed and capped), and it came out fine. Planning to do the same this time.

There are a bunch of books out there. The one I'd suggest is:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1580170528/qid=1136669851
It's more soda oriented than 'ale' oriented though, so may not be of interest.

The recipe we came up with is based on one out of "Sacred and Herbal Healing Beers", that infamous book that comes up in every homebrewing thread mentioning unusual beers. ;o)