The Ocho

Updated 3/22 - Kegged. FG is a little high, but the fermentation looked like it's still active. Hopefully it'll settle down over the next few weeks. On the plus side, the beer was pretty tasty despite its simple recipe.
--

For my eighth brew, I whipped up a batch of the MoreBeer Belgian Trippel. Nothing fancy. Extract and candi sugar. No specialty malts or anything. Yet somehow it still took me just as long to brew. Probably due to the imprecise measurement of water for the boil, which resulted in the pot having almost 7 gallons after adding the extract, which resulted in me sitting there in the kitchen watching for boilovers while I waited for a gallon or so to leave. In the end I still had a little too much water (OG 1.070 instead of the target 1.075-1.080), but meh.

Batch #8
Belgian Trippel (MoreBeer Extract Kit)
Abbey Ale Yeast (White Labs P530)
--6 lbs German Pilsner LME
--3 lbs Light DME
--1 lb Clear Belgian Candi Sugar
--1 oz Vanguard 4.4% (60min)
--1 oz Sterling 5.0% (1min)
--1 Whirlfloc tablet
OG: 1.070
FG: 1.020
ABV: 6.5%
IBU: ~15

Pitched a little warmer this time, at about 75ºF. The recipe suggests fermenting at 70ºF for clean taste with less heavy alcohol, or in the mid-70s for more yeast emphasis. They suggest trying the other Belgian yeasts for different flavors. In the end, this should get us a nice 7% trippel-style ale. It's a nice golden color. I anticipate secondary in about a week, bottle in three or four weeks instead of kegging so we can see how it matures over the next several months to a year.

Bottling and Kegging

My fermenters are empty. The lady's Multibrown is sweet, but will be good in a few months, I suspect. The champagne yeast did about nothing to it, but after some conversation (over beer, of course) with the brew shop guys, between the recipe and the east coast yeast used, this is normal. The red is hoppy, delicious, and in a keg. The Guinness clone is not the right color, but has some of the right flavor notes. Again, hoppier than I wanted (my fault for being a dumb-dumb). Also kegged. St Pat's party in a month, here I come with a nearly complete kegerator.