Sorry to teleport you guys but I did not want to derail the thread this came from.
I’ve been very much interested in this particular topic for a few reasons:
1.) I absolutely adore Chimay’s beers. There are others more complex, but nobody matches them for consistency and overall I just love the flavor
2.) I’ve been trying to get into some of the deeper factors that influence attenuation, ester production and overall flavor profile of Monastic yeast in general, and Chimay in particular.
To your point Denny, I think that using the available strains (WL500 and WY1214) means doing it different than the monks. Trying to avoid the flavors you and Jon described means fermenting at around 66 °F for me, lower for you.
Chimay themselves starts at 68 °F (per BLAM, among others) and finishes in the high 70s to Low 80s °F. With that said, they are using the “mother” strain.
“Yeast” has a very interesting point buried inside of it about the Chimay yeast that I feel speaks to a point you made Jon:
So they are not repitching, as most may think, meaning a new pure culture is built up for every batch. Now it has been said that when Father Theodore originally isolated and cultivated the yeast, he did so with temperature tolerance in mind.
This may explain their fermentation schedule and why they can adhere to it when doing so for us means a different, undesirable profile.
I’m interested to see where we go with this discussion.
Yeah, more coherent info for sure. I forgot the part ablout them using their pure strain each time (been a while since I read BLAM). I chalked it up to mutation. Regardless, the issue of fermenting under pressure may well ‘unlevel’ the playing field for us, too. I honestly don’t think I’ve ever used 500, but I’ve used a ton of 1214. It’s a great yeast but damn, it’s one temp sensitive mother. Slight changes to temp schedule make a noticeable difference. I must’ve confused my luck with 63-64F with what I’d read in BLAM. Need to go back and read it through again (obviously).
The blurb about pure yeast is actual from the Zainasheff/White book.
I’m a big fan of the fermentation chapter in BLAM. Is has a boatload of information about all the interrelated “levers” one can pull to become a monastic yeast whisperer
1.) Yeast growth is a major player in ester and higher alcohol production
2.) Temperature obviously plays a major role
3.) OG plays a role as does the amount of attenuation
4.) The amount of aeration is a factor
5.) The presence of fusel alcohols accentuates isoamyl acetate (banana/fruity)
6.) Increase temperature typically means increase ethyl acetate, floral and fruity notes
7.) Decreased temperature suppresses esters and accentuates phenols
8.) Higher pitching rates lower ethyl acetate. Very high or very low increases esters
9.) Fermenter geometry affects ester production
You can see that, with the exception, in most of our cases, of Fermenter geometry, that we have a fair bit of control over the flavor profile of these Belgian yeast. It’s all about find out which levers work best in tandem with one another.
That would definitely be a reason they start out higher in fermentation temperature. If you are suppressing esters with your fermenter geometry but are in a beer group that makes its bones in estery beers, you have to make up for it in other ways, namely attenuation, higher gravity and higher fermentation temperature.
You start to see how the pieces fit together: Conical vessels, low pitching rates, high attenuation and gravity plus higher temperatures…
The use of wheat in Chimay recipes seems odd to me. It always has.
Yet if you take into account the great influence DeClerck had on the brewery, and how the classic 4 step mash he advocated is likely still used, you can see that any benefits to head retention wheat may have is simply making up for the fact that head is being impaired by the protein rest.
So…
Skip any ingredient based head retention techniques on your next Chimay and instead use a 63/72/77 °C step mash for 25/30/10 min in their place.
β amylase acts optimally at 62 °C and that can change slightly from malt to malt based on the gelatinization temperature.
As for the mashout, that temperature promotes the development of foam positive glycoproteins and since most of not all people can implement that rest with no issues, it’s a no brainer for most.
Bryan has said many times that once you get to a place where you have the “bedrock” of your skill set and technique down and you are trying to make small incremental improvements towards the best beer you can make that there are certain +1s you can implement. So where things like limiting O2 in mashing may be +50s towards major improvements (if you subscribe to what we have on our site) then the mash out step would be a +1.
