Three Nipple Tripel

Work has been keeping me busy and unfortunately has kept me from posting more often in my blog. I have two projects in the lab that are related on retroviruses and with limited down time brewing tasty beer occurs once every two weeks. One research project involves XMRV, a novel retrovirus associated with prostate cancer and chronic fatigue syndrome. I’m particularly interested in how the immune system can fight the virus naturally, and hopefully this will lead to some breakthroughs in understanding the virus’s weak points. My other project is on HIV, as I am trying to identify human genes that are required for HIV infection. Adding even more stress is that I will be presenting my finding on XMRV the end of this month at Cold Spring Harbor Labs (CSHL), a world-renown research institution where hundreds of scientists gather to share ideas. Keeping up with the Belgian theme, I decided to brew a Belgian Tripel based Randy Mosher’s Radical Brewing, called Three Nipple Tripel. There are some tweaks, here is the recipe below:

• 10 lbs of Pilsner Malt
• 1 lb of Vienna Malt
• 1 lb of Dememera sugar, added at 5 minutes
• 1 oz First Gold (60)
• 1 oz Saaz (0)

Mash in at 148°F and hold for 45 minutes.

I made a 1 liter stirring starter of Wyeast 3787 – Trappist high gravity and pitched it room temperature.

OG: 1.096

FG: 1.012

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Notes from Beersmith:

4/18/10: Brewday.

Everything went smoothly. Bought a new 10 gallon pot but still did not collect enough sparge water – my OG, although decent and spot on, could have been higher. What I though was 4-5 gallons in the kettle was actually 3.5. Much sugar (used demera) got stuck on the bottom of the kettle and took a hit in efficiency. Starter of 3787 reached its peak and pitched 1 Liter. Fermentation started slowly within an hour and is ramping up by next morning. Initial fermentation temp: 64F and will let this rise over time.

5/3/10: Racked 1/2 to keg. The other half was added to the raspberry dubbel since this brew came out to be pure raspberries. This beer attenuated VERY strongly – 11% ABV and will need to age for a long time. Spicy alcohol in the nose and taste. Hops and malt are minimal. Alcohol needs to mellow though.