New Beers, Part Zwei

We have been very productive of late and are looking forward to reaping the rewards in early October. I have several beers undergoing active fermentation or conditioning...

First up is Dubbel Trubbel, a Belgian abbey-style dubbel (based on a Northern Brewer kit with ingredients from American Brewmaster in Raleigh...it includes dark candied sugar and should be a perfect autumn beer):


I brewed this beer back on July 4, and it is currently undergoing secondary fermentation (should be ready near the end of September). Lately I have been dissatisfied with the carbonation of my beers, so I am going to experiment with this batch and carbonate with dry malt extract (DME) rather than corn sugar. Any thoughts on that?

Next up is Saison Jaison, a petite (i.e., less alcohol) Belgian saison-style beer that I brewed in early August. We just bottled it last week in an epic brew day:


We previously brewed a batch of this beer back in May to enjoy over the summer, and it was so good that I decided to brew it again. I didn't make any major changes to the recipe (actually, it's a Northern Brewer kit) except I didn't use hop bags this time, so we'll see if the hop flavor differs. I saved two 22-oz bottles of the first batch to compare with this one.

Besides bottling last week, we brewed two beers. The first was Northern Brewer's St. Paul Porter, which I first brewed several years ago while living in Brooklyn. Let's call it Publicum Porter:


Porters are a great fall/winter beer, and they are one of my (and my wife's) favorite styles. This was the best beer that I brewed before moving to NC. I am mostly a malt maven and yeast fanatic rather than a hop head, and the chocolate/caramel flavors of a good porter taste best when the air is cool and the leaves are falling. We brewed this porter in my brew kettle, which is only big enough for a 2-gallon boil. We followed the standard instructions with the exception of adding the DME as a late addition (15 minutes). The kit included Wyeast's Ringwood Ale yeast, and it took almost 24 hours for fermentation to begin, which had me a little worried (mostly because I am so used to Belgian yeasts that take off within a few hours). Once things got going everything looked good.

Finally, we brewed another Belgian-style beer last week, Northern Brewer's Le Petite Orange limited edition kit, which I'll call the Orange Bowl:


This beer does not fit into a defined category, although Northern Brewer describes it as a less malty dubbel. We brewed this in a 3-gallon kettle, which is the biggest boil I have ever done. We also added the zest of two oranges and two teaspoons of ground coriander at flameout, so the flavor profile of this beer should be very complex. It used Wyeast's Leuven Ale yeast, and it proved to be a beast. At the last minute I realized that I didn't have a third airlock for this beer, so we set up a blowoff tube instead and it was probably a good thing. This was one of the most vigorous fermentations that I have ever experienced, and the yeast smells like dirty feet...don't take this to be a bad thing, as Belgian yeasts are usually a little off the wall. I am really looking forward to trying this beer.

What do y'all think?