Barrel Aged Blend (It's a Trappist!)

As promised here is the update and recipe from my half of the blend. A few weeks ago my friend Mike and I brewed two separate beers an blended them together in a spent Balcony’s Blue Corn Whiskey barrel.

The brew day was efficient and also slightly problematic. We were able to brew two batches, with only one burner, in 6 hours. My half was a Belgian strong dark ale and Mike’s was an American strong ale, a la Arrogant Bastard. The issues we encountered were, my still leaky mash tun and my gravity being way too high. I was targeting 1.091 and ended up with 1.112, not sure how that happened, I’m pretty sure I didn’t use enough sparge water because I know i didn’t collect 7.5 gallons. To fix this we just topped it up with water until it matched Mike’s OG, which was around 1.07. I don’t have the recipe that Mike used but I can provide my half.

Recipe

• Batch size: 5 Gallons
• Est OG: 1.090
• Measured: 1.074
• Est FG: 1.022
• Measured: 1.014
• ABV: 7.8% 
• IBU: 31.8
• SRM: 25
• Boil time: 90 minutes
• Efficiency: ?? (est. 75%)

Grain Bill

• 84% - Belgian Pilsen - 14lb
• 9% - Dark Candi Syrup - 1lb 8oz
• 3% - Belgian Special B - 8oz
• 3% - Flaked Corn - 8oz
• 1% - Carafa II - 2oz
• 1% - Chocolate Malt - 2oz

Hops (Pellet)

• 2.0 oz - Hallertauer - 45 minutes
• 0.50 oz - Czech Saaz - 15 minutes

Yeast

• Trappest High Gravity (Wyeast 3787)

Mash Schedule

60 minute Saccharification Rest at 154F

Notes:
(3/24/12) - Brewed with Mike. As mentioned above ended up being well over the target OG, topped up with 2 Gallons of water for an OG of 1.074. Shook to aerate and pitched yeast at 70F.

(4/7/12) - Racked to barrel, blended 2/5 Belgian and 3/5 American. Remaining beer was racked to a secondary carboy and flushed with CO2. For what ever reason my gravity at the time of racking was 1.040. As soon as we blended the beer started to ferment again and bubble out of the blow off hose we installed. This continued to the next day. The gravity once blended was 1.025. I’m hoping the yeast will be eat it to under 1.020, we shall see.

(4/18/12) - Bottled with 1.5 oz of corn sugar. The OG was 1.014, which is about what I was targeting. We also topped up the barrel to compensate from the blow off with some of the Belgian version.

(2/20/13) - First Tasting. Very pleased with how this beer came out. Hopefully we can get around to bottling the barrel aged version soon.