Spencer Trappist Ale Clone - August 2014

One-gallon batch. All grain. The recipe came from the May-June, 2014 issue of Brew Your Own magazine in an article about the St. Joseph's Abbey brewery, located in Massachusetts, which in December 2013, became the 10th official Trappist brewery in the world.

We brewed this beer on Fri evening, Aug 15, 2014. We ended after Midnight on Sat, Aug 16. It's a very long process for only a one-gallon batch, but it's a test to see if it's worthwhile to brew at a five-gallon batch. We'll know in a month or so.

Ingredients

This beer is suppose to have an ABV of 6.5%.

• North American 2-row Pilsner malt
• North American 6-row pale malt
• caramel Munich malt (60 L)
• 6.4 AAU Nugget hops (60 min.) (12.75% alpha acid)
• 1.2 AAU Willamette hops (10 min.) (4.75% alpha acid)
• 1 tsp. Irish moss (15 min.)
• Wyeast 3787 (Trappist High Gravity)
• Priming sugar (if bottling)

We did not use the Irish moss.

We'll probably use local honey for bottling.

Procedure

• 90 mash
  • first 75 minutes at 144 to 152 degrees.
  • fine 15 minutes around 162 degrees.
  • end at 170 degrees.
• sparge with 170-degree water
• 90 boil
  • added Nugget hops with 60 minutes left.
  • added Willamette hops with 10 minutes left.
• chilled wort to about 65 degrees.

Brew-day Notes

Fri, Aug 15 and Sat, Aug 16, 2014

At 8:12 pm, began mash step for Spencer Trappist Ale Clone per recipe in the May-June 2014 issue of Brew Your Own magazine. Except we're doing one gallon batch.

Mashed with 2.75 quarts of water.

"Rusty Cage" by Johnny Cage. Listening to Pandora.

Sparged with 4.5 qts. Started boil with approx 5.5 qts of wort.

Began boil at 10:33 pm. We have no Willamette hops. Oops. We'll substitute Tettnanger hops.

"Home" by Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros

3 grams of Nugget hops added with 51 min left.

Tettnanger hops added with 10 min left.

Boil ended at 12:04 am.

"The Funeral" by Band of Horses

We're trying to chill to 65 degrees per recipe. At 12:40 am, we're close.

Done chilling at 12:50 am. Added yeast, agitated, capped, and added blow-off tube. Finished at 1:00 am except for a little cleanup.

Fermenting

Started fermentation in dining room with temps in the mid 70s or warmer. Outdoor afternoon temps the first four days reached 80 to 83 degrees.

Fermentation got very active on Sat, Aug 16, and it quieted down on Sun, Aug 17. Muck blew off through the tube and into the plastic jug.

Photos

Every 10 to 15 minutes, we removed the lid from the pot, stirred the mash, and checked the mash temperature. The mash temp should be between 144 and 152 degrees. When the temp got low, we turned the stove burner on for a bit.

After mash ended, we dumped the grains into a very large mesh screen and collected the initial wort in a bowl.

Placed screen back over the now-empty pot and poured the initial wort collected in the bowl back through the grains.

Then we used the clean sparge water that was warmed to 170 degrees in another pot on the stove. After the clean sparge water went through the grains, we poured the wort back through the grains again.

After the sparge, the wort was brought to a rolling boil. Hops were added at different times during the boil.

After the boil, we chilled the wort in an ice bath in the sink.

Still chilling the wort. It was interesting how the sediment in the wort changed.

After wort chilled to desired temperature, and the carboy, funnel, etc. were sanitized sufficiently, the wort was poured into the funnel that contained a fine mesh screen that captured the hops sediment.

Capped with blow-off tube applied. Ready to ferment. The Belgian wit resides in a secondary in the background.