Today I made brew number 03. It was Norther Brewer’s Belgian Strong Golden Ale kit. It had 7 pounds of malt, along with 3 ounces of Belgian style Saaz hops. Combine those together and I almost had a boil over! Thankfully after a few minutes the boil smoothed out and everything went just fine. The full ingredients are here:
Specialty Grains
* 0.25 lbs. Dingemans Caramel Pils
* 0.25 lbs. Dingemans Biscuit
Fermentables
* 7 lbs. Golden Light Dry Malt Extract
* 2 lbs. Clear Belgian Candi Sugar
Boil Additions
* 2 oz. Saaz (60 min)
* 1 oz. Saaz (1 min)
Yeast
* Wyeast #1388 Belgian Strong Ale.
This kit called for a yeast starter, and since it has such a high original gravity, I thought it would be a good idea to use it. A yeast starter is basically just a small amount of dried malt extract boiled in water for 15 minutes and then yeast added. This allows the yeast to start growing and multiplying, so when you pitch it into the wort, you have good fermentation to convert all those fermentables into alcohol.
The original gravity ended up being 1089, which is much higher than the kit estimate of 1091. It could be that I didn’t quite fill the carboy all the way to 5 gallons with water, since I wanted to leave some room for the 650ml of yeast starter.
The yeast starter definitely appears to have worked though. I already have active fermentation, and it has only been a couple of hours since I pitched the yeast. The beer will of course require a secondary fermentation. According to the general rule, it will need 64-91 days. That along with an extra long conditioning in the bottles to let the flavors come through will mean the beer is ready to drink at the end of February. I’m sure the patience will pay off though!
For my next brew, I am planning on just doing a simple single-fermentation beer, maybe an IPA. I also want to try growing some Duvel yeast with the yeast starter, maybe even using it in the IPA, just to see what kind of interesting flavors it might add.
