Cedar Rapids Brewing Society

Triple has been bubbling vigorously for 11 days now and I don't see any signs of slowing down. The original refractometer read 16.5 or 17 brix. I did a hydrometer gravity at 9 days that read 1.035. I'm afraid that the beer is going to be really "hot" with alcohol and not have that great Belgian strong ale sweetness. I pitched a great starter at 67F and after the original blow off raised temp 1 degree/day to 70F, which it has been at for 6 days now. Should I start to cool it again? "Brewing Classic Styles" says to lager for two months. At what temp it doesn't say. Advice anyone!
Thanks
JB

Ran this through promash for you, hope it helps. 17 Brix is approx equivenlent to 1.067, so at 1.035, you sugar conversation rate only puts it at 4.3 AVB, so you should be fine. I doubt you will get much of an hot taste on that. You finish gravity for a triple should be very dry, style guidelines are between 1.008 and 1.014, so let'er fly man!

You're at only ~ 50% apparent attenuation. I'd say keep it where it is til it's done fermenting. If you start cooling it, you're going to drop yeast out of suspension, and end up with an overly sweet beer, which is not what you want for a trippel. I don't think 70 is too high for a Belgian yeast. You might even let it get warmer. My understanding is that most high-temp off flavors occur relatively early in the ferment.

Tim,
Could you possibly bring a laptop with the Pro-Mash software to the next meeting? I looked at the sample (free download) and am interested. However, I don't understand what most of the buttons can do for you, the brewer. I can bring a laptop if that would help. I think the members would be very interested in how this software works.
JB

If no one can bring their lap top, I do have it installed on an old desktop that I can hook to my projector so we can show an example.

jjbuck wrote:Tim,
Could you possibly bring a laptop with the Pro-Mash software to the next meeting? I looked at the sample (free download) and am interested. However, I don't understand what most of the buttons can do for you, the brewer. I can bring a laptop if that would help. I think the members would be very interested in how this software works.
JB

In addition to Pro Mash, I would recommend trying out Beer Tools Pro (beertools.com). I found its user interface much more intuitive than either Pro Mash or Beer Smith.

I tried both Promash and Beersmith. I ended up with Beersmith. I thought the interface was more user friendly. I haven't ever looked at Beer Tools. Beersmith is newer than Promash and you can add your own ingredients. If I can remember I'll bring my laptop.

Actually, just found a new peice of software that rocks.
It is made for Mac, however, they have it in an iPhone app as well.
Which I like, hate having to run back and forth between my computer and the brew room.

So if you have iPhone, app is called BeerAlchemy.
Love it, holds inventory and most of all it uses the batch system, which I really like (something BeerSmith doesn't). Even auto calculated Hop additions for the batches based on Alpha's of hops in inventory.
We all know that a recipe is an ideal, a batch is reality. No two batches ever go the same (at least when you drink as much as I do when brewing).

So, if you have an iPhone or a Mac (or both because they can sync), I would suggest checking it out. From what I can see it has the advantage of a beerSmith like interface and the advantage of ProMashes batch system. Best of both worlds. Link to their site.

http://www.kentplacesoftware.com/produc ... chemy.html

I just recently found that the refractometer can be focused. I believe my original brix reading was almost 19 not 17. This is probably why the batch is still bubbling merrily along after 17 days. Brix reading is now at 7.8.