Belgian Pale Ale

Taking a break from my "break" of brewing I wanted to enter a Belgian Pale for a competition coming up. The Peach State Brew Off 2010 will be judged on the 3/27 and I hope this can be done by the 20th so that I can enter it. The beer might be a bit green when entered but hopefully will score well. I wanted a fairly low gravity <6% abv, clean and easy to ferment. I wanted low hops and a yeast with high phenolic character. I went with Saaz for bittering and Styrian Goldings for aroma, though I doubt any of the aroma character will show up in the final beer. For the yeast I chose the White Labs WLP550 in hoping to give it the phenolic character I am looking for. I'll post more when I get the results from the competition if I can get it ready by then.

I bought a new brew pot the other day and used it for this batch. I got way more boil off than expected and only ended up with 5 gallons instead of 6, which messed me up a bit. I will know better for next time. Also I think I need to rethink my sparging methods as I dont think I am getting the efficiency I need to make quality beers.

Belgian Pale Ale

Malts:
10lbs: Franco Belg Pilsner
.5 lb: Caramunich I
.5 lb: Light Munich
.5 lb: Cane Sugar (Added at the end of the boil)
.25 lb: Flaked Wheat
.25 lb: Belgian Biscuit

Hops:
2.25 oz: Saaz 2.8aa @60min
1.0 oz: Saaz 2.8aa @20min
2.5 oz: Styrian Goldings 2.6aa @10min

Misc:
1 Whirlfloc Tablet

Target OG: 1.059
Target FG: 1.011
IBU: ~29

Actual OG: 1.060
Actual FG: 1.010
Apparent Attenuation: 82.6%

ABV: 6.7%
ABW: 5.2%

Yeast:
White Labs Belgian Ale (WLP550)

Hopville Recipe

Update 3.11.2010: Beer is fermenting like crazy. I was originally scared that the yeast was too old as I made a starter from a vial that was 1 day past its "best use" date. Beer has been fermenting starting at 65 and is now around 69 degrees. I'm going to let it slowly ramp up over the weekend, in hopes to further fermentation and get it cleaned up by middle of next week. I hate rushing beers, but hopefully it wont be too green from the competition.

Update 3.15.2010: Beer was still fermenting when I got home Monday afternoon from being away for the weekend. I took a gravity reading and it was 1.010 so I racked it over to secondary and am cold crashing it at the moment. The yeast in this thing is just awesome. It flocked and attenuated like crazy with 82.6% attenuation and I honestly think it could have went even more if I would have left it. Beer might be a tad bit on the hoppy side for the style, but we will see once its kegged. I am hoping to rack it over sometime in the next day or so so I can get it carbed up for the comp turn in by Saturday.

Update 3.19.2010: Kegged the beer up with 17 lbs of PSI hoping for a 2.4, 2.5 CO2 level. I could not get the beer carbed and bottled for the NHC or the PSBO this time. Oh well. I think it's a tad bit hoppy for the style anyway. I got the beer pretty clear in secondary, so hopefully it will end up being really clean. The beer has a nice spicy/earthy taste, which I think the earthiness comes out more than the spiciness and this is due to the hops. I will see next week how things are looking.

Update 6.14.2010: Update 6.14.2010: Scored a 30 in this years Brewmasters Open. Scoresheet