The Yeast Starter: Chimay

I'm preparing for one of my biggest beers yet. It is big in all ways- Big alochol content, big grain bill, big cost associated with it, and big chance of disaster. I am making a Chimay type beer, the closest thing to Chimay I know of, given what is available to the public. The only thing that is off for sure, is the second, proprietary yeast strain that Chimay uses when they bottle. I can't access that because it's, well.....proprietary to them.

In order to prepare for this beer I needed to create a yeast starter. Simply put, a yeast starter is an effective way to increase the cell count of viable yeast to better assist in the fermentation process. As i previously stated, this is a big beer, and by that I mean high alcohol, large quantities of grain needed. Going back to one of my previous posts, mashing the grains at specific temperatures allow conversion of the starches into fermentable sugars. Therefore, the more starches (grains), the more sugars can be extracted through enzymatic conversion (mashing the grains, aka steeping the grains) at specific temps. I've quickly bumped up from 5 gallon batches to 10 gallon batches, so I will use a 10 gallon batch in example. A typical ale, say a nice summer hefeweizen will maybe contain 16-18 pounds of grain for a 10 gallon batch. Each type of grain has an estimated 'output' of fermentable sugars. So 16 pounds of grain x may produce more fermentable sugars than 16 pounds of grain y, etc. Start utilizing 3 or 4 grains into a batch and you have to rely on software to do some calculations for you.

Since I am attempting to replicate Chimay, I thought of a few funny names, but chose the more appropriate one. Chimay Be Preggers, Chimayde Me Excited, and Chimay Be Back Belgian Dubbel. I went with the latter. Aside from rambling and back to the topic at hand, this 10 gallon batch doesn't require 16, 17, or even 25 pounds of grain. We're going to go ahead and use 29 pounds of grain for 10 gallons of beer.

What does 29 pounds of grain do to gallons of beer?

Well, it does a couple of things. One, it creates a high alcohol content. Two, it brings out the malt flavors as it goes into your belly. Part one is a no brainer based on what I just said above. Not only is it a no brainer, it's well received amongst my drinking friends. Part two is the tricky part. Beer isn't really supposed to be strong and it's not really supposed to taste like a shot of 151. With that being said, grain selection is critical in masking the high alcohol content. There are many malts that can do this, so let me share with you the recipe that Gook and I are cooking up this weekend.

GRAINS

19.7 lbs Belgian Pilsner

6.5 lbs Munich Malt 20 Lovibonds

1.10 lbs Caramunich Malt

1.10 lbs Special B Malt

HOPS

3.30 oz. Saaz @ First Wort Hop

MISCELLANEOUS

2.75 lbs Belgian Dark Candi Sugar

YEAST

White Labs WLP500 Trappist Ale

Original Gravity: 1.075

Final Gravity: 1.017

ABV: 7.59%

Continuing on.

We have 4 grains totaling just about 29 pounds, plus 2.75 pounds of belgian candi sugar. Is this starting to make sense now? If not, let me quickly walk through it. 29 pounds of grains will convert to more fermentable sugars than 15 pounds (which could be used for a summer hefeweizen or the like), plus there is 2.75 of dark candi sugar boiled too to add to the amount of fermentable sugars going into this beer. This is why I was saying all along how big of a beer this is. The original gravity is @ 1.075, my hefeweizen was like 1.048 and my orange pale ale was at 1.060.

Because there is so much fermenting that needs to occur in order to produce the alcohol content that we want, we need to make a yeast starter. One vial or packet of yeast just won't cut it. There are not enough viable cells to eat the sugars and nutrients and allow for proper fermentation, so we are going to increase the cell count through yeast reproduction. If you thought Ant Farms were cool, we heck, you can double, triple, quadruple, etc the size of your yeast colony. Go nuts!

So here's what I did tonight, and here is what all of you soon to be professional brewers can do as well.

HOW TO MAKE A YEAST STARTER

Items Needed

Stove

2 -4 quart pot for boiling

DME (Dry Malt Extract)

Water

Thermometer

Yeast

Flask or bottle or something to put liquid in.

aluminum foil

measuring cups

funnel

Sanitizer

Preparation

Sanitize flask/bottle, thermometer, aluminum foil, funnel (if applicable).

Take yeast out of fridge and allow it to hit room temperatue 70F or so.

This is a real simple process.

1.) Mix 2 cups of water with 1/2 cup DME or use this ratio to achieve desired quantities. 2 cups is in fact 500ml. I made a 2000ml starter so I used 4 cups water and 1 cup DME.

2.) Boil for 10 minutes and stir constantly, keeping heat controlled to avoid boil overs. Sugar (DME) and boiling water allow for a sticky mess.

3.) After boiling is complete (at this point the boil is now Wort), place stove pot in an ice bath in your sink or put the pot in your freezer. Use a sanitized thermometer to keep an eye on the temp.

Never pitch yeast above 90 F, you will straight up kill those little yeasties.

4.) Wait until wort is 75 or 70 and pour into sanitzed flask/bottle.

5.) Shake it around and get some oxygen in there.

6.) Pour vial or packet of yeast in sanitized flask/bottle.

7.) Loosely cover the top of flask or bottle with aluminum foil. Dont seal it or no oxygen/co2 can get in/out.

8.) Put it on magnetic stir plate and use it for brewday 12-36 hours later.

or

8a) If you dont have a magnetic stir plate, shake the crap out of it every 30 minutes (seriously) or it will just begin to proof and rise like a loaf of bread. You want the yeast to swim around in a frenzy and feed on the nutrients you just gave it, not sit around and die off.

That's it. So, the rule of thumb is typically if a beer is bigger than 1.060, you should create a yeast starter. Usually, the yeast package labeling will have some sort of guidelines.

There is more interesting stuff to come on this Chimay recipe. I have good reason to believe it very well could be 1.090 or 1.10, being a 10% beer. We'll save that for the next one.

cheers!