Trappist Ale Recipe Make yeast starter:
Make "grain tea": Make a grain tea by soaking the crystal and chocolate malts for 30 minutes in one gallon of 185-190 degree water. Collect
the liquid by pouring through a stainless steel strainer (sieve).
Boil wort: Collect grain tea, mix in malt extracts, 1 pound of blended honey (or clover honey), and water to bring the wort to volume. Boil for
15 minutes. Add 1 ounce of Bullion hops and boil for 30 minutes. Add 1 ounce of Cascade hops and boil for 60 minutes. Turn off the heat and
add 1/2 ounce of Czechoslovakian hops and steep (finish) for 20 minutes.
Sparge hops: Boil additional quart of water. Pour the hot wort through the stainless steel sieve into plastic bucket. Then pour boiling water
through the hops in the strainer. If your net volume of hot wort is less than 5 gallons, add boiling water to bring up to volume. Loosely place a
lid on the bucket.
Pitch yeast: Transfer cooled wort to sterilized carboy. Pour yeast starter into carboy. Seal carboy with blow-by tube.
Ferment beer: Ferment at about 70*F in dark. Replace blow-by tube with airlock when foam as subsided to 1/4 inch thick. Ferment for 5
more days.
Dry-hop beer: Add remaining 1/2 ounce of Czechoslovakian Sazz hops to beer while it is fermenting in the carboy.
Oak aging: Transfer beer to clean carboy after 10-14 days of dry-hopping. Add Oak to beer and place carboy in as cool place as possible for
one month. For a light oak flavor use one tablespoon per 5 gallon. More oak can be used for darker versions, and it is easy to ``over-oak''
your ale. A trick winemakers use: age a small amount of beer (1 gallon) with 2 tablespoons of oak. Then at bottling time blend to taste, with the
main batch.
Bottle: Prime with 2/3 cup molasses. Boil molasses with 1 cup of water for 20 minutes. Cool to room temperature, |