Belgian Tripel - Johnny Steyh

Water Volumes:
Wort - 11 gallons / 44 quarts
Grain Loss - 14 quarts (0.5 x 28)
Dead Space - 2 quarts
Boil Loss - 6 quarts (1.5 gallons per hour)
Trub Loss - 0.5 quarts
Shrinkage - 0.8 quarts

Total Water Needed: 67.3 quarts

May 29, 2019: Made a yeast starter with 2 pints of water and 1 pint DME. Pitched Imperial B48 Yeast and placed in the basement (about 72-75 F).

June 1, 2019: Mash tun was completely full after second infusion. The massive amount of grain in the mash tun caused a stuck mash. We needed to remove all the grain and water from the mash tun, fix the manifold, and then perform two separate mashes each with half the grain. Still finished with about 14 gallons of wort prior to boil.

OG: 1.086 (higher than target)

June 10, 2019: Transferred beer to secondary. FG: 1.028

June 18, 2019: FG: 1.016

First 10 gallon batch in the bottles were primed with 5.2 oz / 5 gallons of table sugar (2.3 volumes), but did not carbonate well in the bottles. Shaking the bottles helped increased carbonation slightly.

2nd 10 gallon batch:

Two mashes to avoid a stuck mash for the second brew session on 7/6/2019. New water volumes (per mash with 14.5 lbs of grain):

Wort - 5.5 gallons / 22 quarts
Grain Loss - 7.25 quarts (0.5 x 28)
Dead Space - 2 quarts
Boil Loss - 6 quarts (1.5 gallons per hour)
Trub Loss - 0.5 quarts
Shrinkage - 0.8 quarts

Total Water Needed: 38.6 liters.

First infusion: 145 F - 18.13 quarts at 157 F (30 minutes)
Second Infusion: 155 F - 3.7 quarts at boiling (30 minutes)
Mash Out: 170 F - 8.8 quarts at boiling (15 minutes)
Sparging: 8.6 quarts at 170 F (after recirculation)

OG: 1.083

FG: 1.018 (before transfer to secondary); 1.014 before bottling

First 10 gallon batch in the bottles were primed with 5.2 oz / 5 gallons of table sugar (2.3 volumes), but did not carbonate well in the bottles. For the second 10 gallon batch, we are increasing to 3.5 volumes or 7.2 oz / 5 gallons.

9/7/2019: First batch slowly getting better and more carbonated in the bottles. Second batch is nearly completely flat despite doubling the priming sugar. After several weeks, we uncapped all the bottles in the 2nd batch and added 2-3 mL of CBC-1 yeast properly rehydrated and started in a 1.040 gravity wort overnight (sucrose).

Third batch: brewed on August 10, 2019; OG = 1.090. Process identical to the second batch. Only difference was the yeast starter was started the morning of the brew day rather than the night before. Racked to secondary on August 24, 2019. FG = 1.030 and 1.038. Shook the secondary fermenters several times to try to get the yeast going. Bottled 5 gallons on 9/7 - FG still 1.038. Added 7.2 ounces of priming sugar and 1 mL of the CBC-1 yeast.

Added the remaining CBC-1 yeast to the 2nd 5 gallons as an experiment and will bottle in several days - hopefully FG will come down.