Houblon Bourreau v2 – Krepples Brew Log

An updated Terrapin Hopsecutioner Clone based on the tasting notes from original.

Prepare yeast starter. This is a big beer, it’ll need all the cells it can get.

Heat 6 gallons of water to 160°. (3 gallons of distilled water and 2 gallons of “spring” water.)

Gently dough in grains until all grain is covered by water.

Mash grains at 148° for 1 hour and 10 minutes.

Remove “grain bag“, rinse, squeeze and allow grains to drain. (Rinsed with 3 gallons of cold water to make squeezing less hot on the hands.)

Bring wort to a boil.

Once wort is boiling, add 1 oz Magnum hops and continue for 30 minutes.

Add 0.5 oz Chinook hops and continue boil for another 15 minutes.

Add 1.25 oz Centennial, 0.5 oz Simcoe hops and continue boil for 10 minutes.

Add 1 oz Amarillo Gold hops and continue boil for 5 minutes. (This is a good time to drop in the wort chiller.)

Reduce wort temperature to 68° and take OG reading.

Sufficiently aerate and transfer to primary fermenter.

Pitch yeast starter into fermenter.

Allow beer 1 week in the primary to adequately ferment and cleanup any diacetyl produced during fermentation.

Transfer to secondary for 1 week adding 2oz Cascade and 0.75 oz Centennial for dry hop.

Bottle and wait another 2 weeks or keg and carb.

Enjoy!

January 28th, 2018 Brew Day
- Because we were using distilled and “spring” water, we added ~1/2 tsp gypsum and 1/4 tsp epsom salts and mash pH stabilized at 5.2
- Pitched yeast at 72°.
- Fermentation chamber is 65°.
This recipe is adapted from from the original Houblon Bourreau.
16 hours, slight airlock pressure, but no visible activity after, so I pitched a backup Wyeast 1028 starter that was krausening.
24 hours, yeast is taking off, visible signs of krausen starting and frequent bubbles in the airlock.
32 hours, large krausen.
48 Hours, krausen began dropping out.
72 Hours, krausen has dropped out, still getting frequent bubbles in the airlock. Strong sulfur smell, which is not uncommon after adding epsom and gypsum. Fermentation chamber is still at 65°.
96 Hours, setup InkBird to raise fermentation temp to 72° with the hopes of reducing the sulfur and finishing the beer.
1 Week, brew is still at 1.024 and not finishing. Gave the carboy a good shake, removed from brew pot heat sink, added 1 tsp of yeast nutrient and pitched a fresh starter.
2 Weeks, gravity is still reading 1.024. Pitched a packet of Red Star Premier Blanc Yeast, formerly Champagne yeast, and started raising the fermentation chamber temperature back to 72°. (I had stopped controlling the temp four days after pitching the fresh starter and it had no impact.)
2018-02-15, gravity is still at 1.024. Bottled and kegged the batch. Used gelatin in the keg and hit with 30 PSI to force carb.