RECIPE: #54 Epoux Vient (Leffe Brune clone)

My buddy from church has been very gracious to us this past year.  I helped him install new lights in my house we bought in May, as well as new flooring in the bathroom, a new toilet, and a new sink.  He cut some slots in my new kettle lids for my chiller to come through.  He plumbed my utility sink in the brewhouse, and wants to weld me a 2 burner single tier brewstand.  He hasn't asked for anything in return for his work.  When he came to me and asked if I could brew him a beer for his wedding, of course I was up for it.  I asked what type of beers they would like.  They wanted something dark and malty.  I bought an Oatmeal Stout, Milk Stout, American Stout, and a Belgian Dark Ale.  We decided that we didn't want something too strong as we wanted people to have a couple pints and not get intoxicated, especially as the bulk of our church is going to be there including some that don't agree with us that alcohol is a gift from God for our enjoyment.  After tasting the beers it was fairly unanimous that the BDA was the best.  Malty, fruity, spicy, elegant.  


The beer was Leffe Brune, and I set out to brew a clone of it.  I located the recipe on line, set it to 10 gallons, and was ready to brew.  Then came the snow storm.  I had to brew it that weekend as I had to have it ready for the wedding, and I had my annual Christmas Party for the Youth Group the following weekend.  So I brewed, with snow all around, and no hoses (and the brewhouse was not plumbed yet).  I missed my mash temp by 15*F and had to do my first decoction ever on the fly, raising the temp 10*F, good enough for me, it was in conversion temps now at least.  After the brew was done boiling I chilled with snow and water in buckets running through my pond pump.  It took the wort from boiling to 62*F in around 40 minutes which isn't bad at all.

I also finished up my brewery logo and made a nice label for them which I put on the kegs along with a bumper-sticker for the brewery, kegged the beers, and set them to carbonate for the wedding.  The bitterness was a little low, but that's what you get when you use 2 year old homegrown hops.  It was a little sweet tasting as well, but the carbonation should help with that.  I named the beer "Epoux Vient" which is French for "The Bridegroom Cometh", fitting for a wedding beer, especially for a Christian wedding as the true Bridegroom is both the center of the wedding and the marriage.

I ended up hitting much higher efficiency than expected and got 1.5 gallons of 1.072 wort extra out of the deal which I pitched my culture of strawberry yeast from September 2012 onto.  It took a couple days more to start than the main batch, but it had the krausen drop in just over 2 weeks and had a pellicle forming by 3. 

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Stats:

Gallons: 10.5

OG: 1.064

FG: 1.012

ABV: 6.88%

IBUs: 19

SRM: 14

Efficiency: 91%

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Fermentables:

19.00 # Pilsner (2 Row) Ger (81.7%)

1.00 # Sugar, Candi - Amber (4.3%)

1.00 # Aromatic Malt (4.3%)

0.50 # MFB Kiln Amber (2.1%)

0.50 # MFB Munich (2.1%)

0.50 # MFB Chocolate Malt (2.1%)

0.50 # MFB CaraPils (2.1%)

0.25 # Honey Malt (1.1%)

Mash 10 hours @ 151

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Boil 90 mins

 90 3.00 oz Santiam 6.00%AA

 15 0.50 oz Saaz 4.50%AA

 15 0.50 oz Liberty 5.40%AA

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Kettle Additions:

Gypsum Mash 2/8 tsp, Boil 4/8 tsp

Epsom Salts Mash 3/8 tsp, Boil 2/8 tsp

Calcium Chloride Mash 1 tsp, Boil 1 2/8

Baking Soda Mash 2/8 tsp

Pickling Lime Mash 1 tsp

Yeast Nutrient 2 taps

Whirfloc 1 each

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Fermentation:

Cooled to: 62 *F

Wyeast 3522 Ardenes (1.2L + 1.8L starter)

68 *F 2 days

74 *F 10 days

65 *F 7 days

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12/6 Brewed alone, in the snow.  Pump was acting up and was losing prime, took forever to ge the water into the MLT.  Temp came in at 140*F.  Pulled 1 gallon of liquid through ball valve and brought to a boil, didn't budge the temperature at all.  Pulled 1/3 of the mash grain and liquid and stirred like crazy in HLT until 200*F, mixed it all back in and hit 151*F.  First ever decoction!  Left to rest overnight covered with heat blanket and sleeping bag.

12/7 Mash fell to 131*F around outer edges, 145 in center.  Drained first runnings into kettle and began batch sparge.  Noticed I was just over a gallon short on first runnings and added to sparge water.  Not enough room for all of the sparge water in the MLT, so I did a pseudo fly sparge (first time), began run off and slowly poured more hot water over mash paddle on top of liquid in MLT.  Got much higer efficiency than expected.  Ran off 13 gallons of wort and began boil.  MLT slowly drained another 1/2 gallon into pitcher, added near end of boil for the full volume as the boil off was higher than anticipated.  Had no hoses due to the snow, used buckets of snow and water with pond pump to chill.  Took 11 gallons of boiling wort down to 62*F in 35 minutes.  Transferred 4.75 gals each of 1.072 into 2 6 gal Better Bottles, and 1.5 gals into a 5 gallon, topped off 6 gallon with 1/2 gallon water each to bring to 5.25 @ 1.064.  Pitched decanted starter into full batches and wrapped in heating blanket, temp controller set to 68*F.  Added yeast cultured from strawberries in 2012 that had been stepped up to 1/2 gallon 2 months ago to the 1.5 gallon batch.  Signs of fermentation starting by bed time.

12/8  Nice thick krausen by morning before church.  Blow off by nightfall in the fermenter on the right.  Fermenter on the left is slightly behind.  1.5 gal sour shows no signs as of yet.

12/9 1.5 gal sour starting to show signs, progressing as day passed.

12/10 Bumped temp up to 74*F.  Sour has a nice krausen on top, thick and tan.  

12/20 Pulled sample with the groom for gravity and tasting, FG on one was 1.011, the other was 1.012.  Tastes good, bitterness is low.  Dropped temp down to 65*F.

12/29 Kegged.  Blended half of each fermenter into each keg and set in ferm fridge at 20psi, dropped to 11psi next morning for 2.4 vols CO2.  Sour is already forming a pelicle at only 3 weeks, krausen has dropped.  Need to move into gallon jugs for long term aging.