BeerBorg

So, needed a fast brew to fill the pipeline, realized I had a couple of two year old Brewferm pre-hopped cans of Abbey Dubbel (yeah, from 2013!) so I decided to see what could be done with them.

So, I put together a sort of a steep bordering on a mini-mash (basically gonna steep some grains with some Munich to get some conversion, for about 40 minutes at 156 ish)

Actual: So, I ended up using 1 ounce of Special B to reinforce the raisony character, 2.5 ounces of CaraVienne to add a bit of fresh complexity, 2.5 ounces of CaraFoam for head retention and added to that 6 ounces of Locally Grown Light Munich for more malt reinforcement and to add something with diastatic power to hopefully get a little conversion.

I added the grains at 165°F and they brought the temp down near 160°F, I covered them and will let it fall for the 40 minutes. Oh yeah, covered with a towel to hold the heat in a bit.

Once that's done, I'll add the two cans of extract (each is designed to use a pound of sugar and makes 9 liters so...

I'll use the two cans, a pound and a half of table sugar (Actual: 700 grams) and a half pound of D-45 Candi Syrup that I happen to have from a previous brew.

NOTE: I will not add the D-45 yet, instead I'll use it as a feeding on Day 2 or 3 of Primary Fermentation to keep the yeast excited (Surprise!)

I think then I'll do a 15 (Actual: 20 minute) minute boil with a half ounce of East Kent Goldings, a couple grams of crushed corriander (Actual: 0.33 ounce) and an ounce of dried Tangerine peel (Actual: 0.50 ounce)

Note: Since the pre-hopped extract is old, I figure the bitterness is still pretty much there but since hops fade over time, I felt a flavor and small aroma addition of EKG would help punch it up a bit... Not that this should be a hoppy style, because it's not... But I felt the hop additions (low alpha acid anyway) and the Corriander and Tangerine would give it new life!

Here's a look at the Corriander and Dried Tangerine Peel...
The pitch will be a pack of Lallemand Abbaye Yeast instead of the yeast that came with the kit. I'll reserve the old yeast to use as yeast nutrient at T-10 on a future brew or two...

I put this in Basic Brewing because it sounds more complicated than it is.... It's really just an Extract with slightly longer steep, and a hop/spice addition short boil.

I'll cool it with my wort chiller and add to the 5 gallon carboy, topping off with cold tap water.

Will add the OG reading when I get there... It's supposed to be an 8% ABV kit so we'll see...

Actual: I added enough top off water to bring the OG in at 1.074

Note: since the extract was old, I added a half teaspoon of Yeast Nutrient at T-10 to help it along.

Here's some pics...

Ok, so here are some more pics further along...

Here's the resulting liquid from the steep... I think I use about one gallon of water for the steep...
And here we are with more water (about two and a half to three gallons total), one can of extract and the first hop addition, and the cooling coil to sanitize in the boil. This is T-20 minutes or so...
The final additions were the second can of extract, the second hop addition, the addition of corriander and tangerine peel and the half teaspoon of yeast nutrient... All at about T-10 minutes.
Now the cooldown...
Here's the yeast I'll be using...

Sounds tasty BigPappaG, starting to like some of these more complex recipes that have some Special B in them. I wonder why pictures are posting upside down lately??

Dawg LB Steve wrote:I wonder why pictures are posting upside down lately??

I have read of people experiencing that but nothing is upside down on my iPad...

Interesting, just checked my Windows phone and some are upside down and one is rotated only 90°...

Strange...

So, here we go...
First the transfer... Nice color but only half the volume... Will lighten a bit when I top off with the other 2.5 gallons of water...
When I topped off to my usual level at the shoulder of the carboy, the gravity was almost 1.090!
So, I just added more water until it read 1.074

That should get me somewhere between 7.5-8 ABV depending on attenuation...

And that is before adding the D-45 (8 oz)... I may consider not adding that and saving it for another brew, again...
Anyway, as you can see, I have like NO HEADSPACE, but that's ok, I'm using a big enough (2 gallon) blowoff container so it'll be fine!
Now for the waiting...

Good thing your using Abbaye instead of 3787/WLP530. You'd fill up that entire bucket with one of those.

mashani wrote:Good thing your using Abbaye instead of 3787/WLP530. You'd fill up that entire bucket with one of those.

LOL, yeah that would be fun eh?

I'm probably gonna empty most of the blowoff bucket tomorrow, just to be safe...

Smelled really good for three year old extract...

I think punching up the malt with the mini-mash and the hops/spice helped a lot...

So, as an update...

Earlier today I decided to add the 8 oz of D-45 Candi Syrup...

Surprisingly, the amount of blowoff during the first five days of primary was minimal...

(Pic below, 2 gallon blowoff container with 2 quarts of initial sanitizer... After five days of primary it only increased another quart or so...)

Anyway, I poured in the syrup and we'll give it another week or so and see where we are at.

I didn't take a gravity reading, but I figure 8 oz of sugar at what, .005 for additional gravity, so I'm gonna figure 1.074 + 0.05 = 1.079 as a calculated OG so I'm looking for an FG of about 1.020 of less...

Should end up being a 8-8.5% beer after all! I'll let this condition out a while and maybe even cellar some of it for next year!