luckybeagle
Making sales and brewing ales.
I'm brewing a Westy 12-inspired Belgian style Quadrupel (BDSA) beer here soon and am facing a slight dilemma: The recipes from CSI's website for Westvleteren 12, St Bernardus 12, etc. call for 6-8+ weeks of conditioning at 45F after two yeast dumps, which is a long time to tie up my fermentation chamber (8-10+ weeks in total).
I don't think the use of gelatin is all that traditional in Trappist-style ales, but to me it seems like the extended time in the fermenter/"secondary" is mostly to get the yeast to flocc out. I understand bulk-aging, but since this beer is going in the bottle for 6-12 months, I'm wondering if I can modify the process a bit:
Does this sound like an appropriate substitute for hogging 8+ weeks in my fermentation chamber? Or is the use of gelatin and fast-tracking the 45F conditioning period likely to have a profound negative impact on the finished product? The alternative is to not brew this beer for the foreseeable future.
Thoughts?
I don't think the use of gelatin is all that traditional in Trappist-style ales, but to me it seems like the extended time in the fermenter/"secondary" is mostly to get the yeast to flocc out. I understand bulk-aging, but since this beer is going in the bottle for 6-12 months, I'm wondering if I can modify the process a bit:
- Ferment at 63F with ramp to mid 70s over the course of a week. Hold at 75F-ish until FG is reached
- Dump yeast (I use a Fermzilla with yeast catch and plan to just keep the valve open until the yeast settles into it, then close the valve and dump the cup)
- Drop temp to 55-60F and hold for a week, potentially dumping another cup of yeast/sediment
- Crash to 33F, add gelatin and wait 2-3 days
- ---At this point I can either transfer to a CO2 purged glass carboy and condition in my garage for an extended period, or go straight to bottling---
- Rack to bottling bucket with 500ml starter, priming sugar, and bottle it. Bring bottles into the house and let sit for 3-4 weeks
- Transfer bottles to garage (stable 60F in the winter) and let sit until spring/summer/whenever garage gets above 65F-ish, then refrigerate the lot
Does this sound like an appropriate substitute for hogging 8+ weeks in my fermentation chamber? Or is the use of gelatin and fast-tracking the 45F conditioning period likely to have a profound negative impact on the finished product? The alternative is to not brew this beer for the foreseeable future.
Thoughts?