Black tripel? Say what?! Yeah, we’re going there. The recipe for this black tripel Belgian specialty ale was shared with Chop & Brew by Duluth, MN, homebrewer and musician Jimi Cooper. The inspiration for Jimi’s Paint It Black Tripel was the Black is Back black tripel recipe by Charlie Papazian as published in May/June 2013 edition of Zymurgy. See Chop & Brew Episode 78 for our tasting notes. Thanks to Jimi for sharing his beer and recipe with us. Check out his bands The Fractals and DANCE ATTIC.

Paint it Black Tripel

All-Grain with Step Mash
Target OG = 1.082
Target FG = 1.018
Target ABV = 8.3%

GRAIN & FERMENTABLES

• 12 lbs pale malt
• 1 lb Belgian debittered black malt
• 1.5 lbs light Belgian candi sugar

HOPS

• 1.0 oz Willamette [4.7%aa] – 60 min
• 0.5 oz Styrian Golding [3.8%aa] – 60 min
• 1.0 oz Mt. Hood [6.1%aa] – 1 min

YEAST

• Wyeast 1288 Belgian Strong (Yeast Starter)

PROCESS

Heat 3.25 gallons mash water heated to 142°. Add grains. Rest mash at 132° for 30 min.

Heat 1.6 gallons water to boil. Add to mash to raise temp to 155°. Hold for an additional 30 minutes.

**If you undershoot the step mash temperature by a few degrees, here is a possible workaround. Drain a small pot of wort and heated it to near boiling on the stove. Add it back to the mash to increase the temperature be a few degrees.

Heat 3.5 gallons sparge water to 170° to raise temp to 167° and sparge.

Collect about 5.5 gallons wort. Add 1.5 lb candi Sugar. Bring to a full vigorous boil.

Add kettle hops per schedule above. Add 1 teaspoon Irish Moss (with wort chiller, if applicable) at 10 minutes before flame-out. 

I didn’t have control of fermentation temperature at the time of brewing this beer. So, I let them ferment in the basement at about 67-70 degrees. And I don’t have notes on how long I left it in primary, but I’d guess for a week and a half. Then racked to secondary for a week, which is the typical norm for me depending on when I have time to bottle).