Sugar Plum BSDA

THE PLAN:

Not sure where this idea originated from, but over the last month I've been thinking about a new Christmas ale that I wanted to try out - a Belgian strong dark ale that smelled and tasted of plums and candi sugar, among other things. I've been scraping every inch of every book and internet page for more ideas. I tried a few beers too to get a feel for that style. I tried Rochefort 10, which I definitely did not enjoy; way too much scotch flavor. I tried Chimay Blue and that was nice, closer to what I would like, but not quite on the mark; I'd like to have more Belgian yeast bouquet, and definitely more dark fruit & sweet malty aroma. I did stumble on Corsendonk Christmas ale... something I've had quite a few times, and actually still have 2 bottles on in my "cellar". I'm hoping to try these and nail down any additional changes to my recipe I need to make, and collect the yeast for a starter to be used for this batch. If it works out, then I will have a great Christmas beer, which I plan to cork in 750mL Belgian beer bottles and save for our trip back to PA for Christmas. I'm excited :-)

RECIPE:
12# French/Belgian Pilsner
3# Munich
1# Flaked Oats
1/2# Special B
2# candi sugar (homemade)
star anise
cinnamon
coriander
Wyeast Belgian Abbey II - 1L starter for 30 hours on stir plate then another 1L of starter added and another 48 hours.

11/6 - BREWDAY:
Ohhhh, what a mess... but unbelievably turned out gigantic. I hadn't used my 3 tier set up in a while, so I thought what the hell. Well, that's the last time I use it. It is so effin hard to control my mash temperatures... I was even using 3 different thermometers and they were all giving me different readings. And as soon as I would turn off the burner, it seemed like it would drop 20 degrees... and as soon as I would turn it on, it would jump to like 160. I was was getting so pissed and frustrated that I almost gave up on the whole thing... until... I decided to check the gravity. In some crazy way, the conversions had happened and I had a huge gravity reading. 1.086. I decided to try and collect as much wort as possible, and ended up collecting 4 gallons of 1.086 wort. Couldn't believe it. So I sparged another 2 gallons and ended up with a pre-boil gravity of 17 Brix/1.070.

11/9 - CHECK IN:
Just a quick check in while switching the large blow off tube for the regular one.  Fuzzy reading, between 16 & 17 Brix = 1.035-1.042; Not as dark as I had hoped, fruity aroma, almost OJ, high alc taste + dark fruits... this is gonna be great!

11/13 RACK TO SECONDARY:
Fermentation has slowed way down, so I decided to rack to second today.
Brix 15/1.028, almost down to my target final gravity of 1.024.  WOW, it tastes amazing.  Dark fruits are there, some sweetness, malt, and alc.  I decided to pull off 8 oz and take to the beer tasting tonight.  Can't wait for this one to be ready.  Corks & hoods are ordered, should bottle this up the first weekend in December, but I may do it next weekend, which will have given it 2 weeks in secondary, and give it close to a month in the bottle before Christmas. 

12/4 GRAVITY CHECK:
Decided to pull a small sample to check the gravity, test the sinamar coloring extract, and do a tasting.  Poured a dark amber color, definitely not as dark as I was hoping for, but pretty clear... possibly crystal clear, just couldn't tell very well with the small sample.  Wreaked of fruits... plums, raisins... so cool.  Tasted the same... with hints of sugar and alcohol warmth.  I wanted the fruits to be big in this, and they were... it will change with time, but I'd say already that I would tame that back just a bit to allow some of the other stuff to come out.  Oh yeah... gravity was Brix 14.8/1.026... so not much different from 11/13.  I was hoping for it to go down a little more... but this is pretty dang good.  Rocking out at 11.6% now :-)

12/5 BOTTLING:
Bottling went well... added 1/2 pack of champagne yeast, rehydrated and pitched in bottling bucket after priming sugar and beer was added.  In hindsight, I think I should have pitched a belgian yeast instead of the champagne yeast... but whatever, we'll see how it goes.  I managed to get 19 750mL bottles corked, as well as 5 8.5oz bottles and 5 12oz bottles capped.  My buddy Dave has made a drawing for the label, so we'll be scanning that in soon and adding the name and other text to it.  I have high hopes for this one, keeping my fingers crossed!

12/16 CARB CHECK:
Christmas is nearing, and a couple people at my work won't be in next week that I wanted to gift a bottle of this to... so I thought I better check to see how the conditioning is going.  I chilled one of the 750mL bottles for a couple of hours, unwound the hood, and ended up having to use a wine opener because the cork was so cemented in there, I was never going to get it out by hand.  Big pop, so that was a great sign, I poured out into a goblet and definitely got about a 1/4" of soft off-white head.  I'd say that's a great sign, but I'm guessing it will take another 3 weeks for it to be fully primed... but, it should be good by Christmas.  Definitely not as strong of a plum smell as before, but still present.  The head dissipated rather quickly, but its to be expected at 10 days in.  Alcohol is definitely present, but has a pretty smooth finish.  Big fruit flavor, like biting into a plum - a little over the top, but hey, it's called Sugar Plum Fairy!  That being said, I would definitely cut the Special B in half if I brew this again.  Next up... labels!

12/20 LABELS!

Dave finished up the artwork, so I picked it up, scanned it in and started putting the final touches to it.  Here is the finished label in all its glory.  Nice job Dave!  This is technically the second beer I've put a label on, but the first one was just for fun and ended up looking nice.  I kind of hacked at the size until it fit on the bottle nicely, then sprayed with Elmer's spray on glue, and slapped them on!  Not much to it really.  Everything looks as good as I had envisioned it, now I just hope the beer lives up to it!

12/27 TASTING:
While we were back in PA over the holidays, I had a few friends over to my parents to taste some of my brews.  We saved this one for last, popped it open, and it poured nicely.  Everyone dug it, and none of the stuff I was worried about (over the top plum flavor, strong alc presence) were present, so I probably wouldn't change the amount of Special B or anything else in it.  Time will tell if I should alter anything in the future.  Only thing I would have liked more was a fuller carbonation.  Chances are, it will get there soon, but until then, this has turned out nicely... and to think, I ALMOST dumped it way back when I was mashing it!  Definitely has driven the point home to never give up on a brew.

Next update will be after the VT homebrew comp in May.  Want to sponsor this beer?  :-)

And a review from Mr. Don Osborn (starts at 3:33):