Rochefort 10 Clone-ish

[Crossposted to and .]

Click for gallery…

Well, after arriving home from consuming a few pints of a locally brewed Hefeweizen with friends I checked on my Rochefort 10 clone-ish and it seems to be fermenting. Yay! With an OG of 1.120 – 1.130 it’s definitely going to be strong, and I had some concerns about there being enough yeast to get things going. However, I did a two-pint starter (first pint made, then a second pint of wort added later) and it seems to have taken. There are bubbles ~6 hours after pitching…

Anyway, if you’re interested in the recipe, it’s available here: http://www.nuxx.net/files/beer5_notes.txt

The original intention was Rochefort 10 clone, but due to available grains, slightly varying hops, and other iffyness, I’m going to call it a somewhat modified clone-ish beer. Hopefully it’ll be good… There’s a lot of aging in store for this batch, and I can see it taking up through autumn before it’s properly aged, but that’s fine. Something of this strength needs some time to settle down.

If you’re interested, a few pictures from today’s brew are available here: http://www.nuxx.net/gallery/rochefort10clone

Here’s links to some of the individual pictures that I find notable:
· Partial mash, right after the grains were added.
· Wrapped up pot to keep the heat in during mashing.
· Grains before sparging.
· Grains after sparging. (Note how much lighter they are…)
· High res shot of sparged grains, great for wallpaper.
· 11 lbs of DME and 1 2/3 lbs of amber Belgain candi sugar.
· Hydrometer showing a rather high OG.
· Before fermentation began.

So, yeah. That’s it… Enjoy. Hopefully you’ll like this beer if you try making it, as well…