Decided to get crazy this weekend and brew two beers at once. As you can see from the pictures above I went with a large and small batch. The large batch is a Belgian dubbel that should be spectacular. The OG came out at 1.075, so we're looking around 8.5% ABV. In addition to the light malt extract, I partial mashed Caramunich and Special B malts. During the boil I added 1 pound of brown Belgian candy sugar. The second beer that I brewed was really an afterthought. I had extra malt and some california ale yeast. I decided that we needed a west coast pale ale on tap while the belgian was fermenting. In the third picture I am trying to get the fermentation temperature down to around 65 - 68*F. This is a technique that I learned online. If you drape a wet t-shirt over a fermenting vessel and speed up the evaporation process by blowing on it constantly with a fan you can drop the temperature of a fermentation by 6-8 degrees. Usually I don't mind fermenting at the ambient temperature of our condo, but this belgian yeast strain really produces the best results if the fermentation occurs in the 60s. This is the first time that I have tried this. So far so good, the temperature was around 67-68 last time I checked. The only hassle is that you need to switch out t-shirts every 2-3 days or you will start to grow mildew. Nasty stuff. I'll let you know how it all turns out. Ask for a sample if you see me around.
-HolzBrew
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