starter: (thurs night) 1 cup wheat DME, 20 oz water, 5 tettnanger hop pellets; boiled 10 min. 1 tube White Labs Bastogne Belgian Ale (WLP510) best before 6/08/06, pitched at 78°. basement temp is 68°.

brewday: decided to add a bit of chocolate and change the name to "dirty blonde". will see how this all works out. the basement temp is a few degrees low for a belgian (68°), so am going w/a T-bath: 70°. pitched the yeast at about 78°. the wort was unusually "flat". but aeration was as usual. the chocolate? a fair amount of the chocolate ended up sticking to the hop bags. the yeast being used is seasonal => it will be very difficult to reproduce this beer :)

rackday: no foam, some yeast on top, fair bit of slurry, including the reserved water nearly filled carboy (will need to extract some before adding primer yeast)

bottling: 5 large, 43 regular. leftovers nice

starter: (weds night) 1 cup wheat DME, 20 oz water, 5 galena hop pellets; boiled 10 min. sanitize equipment. aerate. 1 tube White Labs Belgian Abbey Ale (WLP530) best before 4/15/07, pitched at 75°. basement temp is 70°.

trying Mango puree instead of juice this time. some sugar was added to this stuff for some unknown reason. I tried to pick the one w/the least added sugar at the Indian Food Store. my choice was based on the lowest amt of sugar per serving in the nutri-info section.

decided to drop the 1/2 lb candi sugar since more sugar went in from the mango pulp (compared to juice in the past)

brewday: replaced some of the usual styrian goldings flavor hops w/ fuggles (using up older supplies). basement temp 70°. the wort was not as foamy as expected, hopefully there is enough O2 in there. pitched @ about 75°

rackday: very sludgy at the bottom, wasn't able to get as much beer out as usual, will end up w/fewer beers

bottling: 41+4 large. leftovers were good w/a hint of sour. Very clean.

starter: (weds night) 1 cup wheat DME, 20 oz water, 5 hop pellets; boiled 10 min. sanitize equipment. aerate. 1 tube White Labs Belgian Ale (WLP550) best before 11/27/07, pitched at 74°. basement temp is 71°. Boiled 3 gal water. The yeast had some gas, must be ready for replication!

Brewday: doubled chocolate. Not much foam w/pitch (77°). Hope O2 is ok. Alphonso slightly higher sugar content than previous mango syrup.

rackday: mucho slurry leftover at the bottom, seems as if the mango sank (yellowish cast to the slurry). So I racked again in 2 weeks.

bottling: 42+4. Still a fair amount of yeast living at the top, but the rack was clear. Leftovers (not much to taste) were somewhat unusual. The concern is that fermentation did not complete, but the brew was not overly sweet. Expecting good gas.

starter: (weds night) 1 cup wheat DME, 20 oz water, 5 hop pellets; boiled 10 min. sanitize equipment. aerate. 1 XL smack pack Wyeast 1214 Belgian Abbey mfg 10/14/08, pitched at 74°. basement temp is 66°. Boiled 3 gal water.

brewday: used german munich instead of german vienna (random act). Dropped hops at 0, 30, 45 and 58 minutes. Basement temp is 67°, wort temp was 75°. I added the Mango gradually during the first 1/2 hour, keeping the boil. Had plain light DME leftover, substituted for 2 1/2 lb extra light DME. One concern: pouring in chilled water did not result in a foam, hopefully aeration is satisfactory. Perhaps the chocolate inhibits foaming.

rackday: didn't get as much as I'd hoped out of this one because it was very unsettled at the bottom => tossed more slurry than usual.

bottling: 42+4, insufficient leftovers to get a sense of the flavor

the flavor is terrific, best ever for this style ... need to figure out how I did it!

starter: (weds night) 1 cup wheat DME, 24 oz water, 5 hop pellets; boiled 10 min. sanitize equipment. aerate. 1 XL smack pack Wyeast 1214 Belgian Abbey mfg 11/16/09, pitched at 80°. basement temp is 68°. Boiled 3 gal water.

Going to try replacing/augmenting some of the mango syrup w/chunks of mango (from frozen) in the fermenter (got idea from Extreme Brewing by Sam Calagione)

brewday: basement temp 67°. I added the mango syrup at 55 min, and the mango chunks at 60 min. Letting the mango chunks stew in the wort for 20 min before starting the cool-down in the sink. Heading off now, w/ 7 min left to check that the temp still exceeds 170°. It does, 195°. The wort temp was 135° when transferred to the fermentation bucket. I scooped out the mango chunks first before pouring the rest through the strainer. After pouring the 2 3/4 gallon of chilled water into the wort the temp was about 70°. As before I was not able to create a foam, perhaps the chocolate inhibits foaming. The yeast is in. Once the activity of initial fermentation settles down I plan to send in the rest of the mango pulp. I used half as much as in the last batch, and froze the rest for later. The chocolate: I chopped it into little pieces, melted it w/some water and threw it in w/about 5 minutes remaining in the boil.

Weds following: fermentation has slowed down, time to give it a kick w/the rest of the mango syrup (425g). Boiled 2 cups water, poured in syrup, left heat on medium until about 190°, turned heat off, once it reached 175°, about 15 minutes, put heat on low for remaining 5 minutes. Moved to sink w/a few inches of cold water in it. Waited 20 more minutes, the temp was below 100°, which is the limit of the candy-makers thermometer I was using(it has a nice clip) and poured it into the fermenter.(I didn't see noticeable extra activity when I checked about a day later.)

rackday: lots and lots of slurry in the bottom, discarded nearly a gallon. The fruit was floating on top. Tried a little bit (taken past the middle of the rack): definitely lots of alchohol, also a sharp, perhaps citrusy, taste. Topped off with about a quart of water left over from the chilled water. Also, the initial part of the rack was quite opaque, took awhile to reach semi-clarity, the liquid in the carboy is an orange tinged w/brown.

bottling: 43+4, leftovers had a sharp citrusy tinge, could turn out well. Fair bit of yeast floating on top before bottling, and streaming in a mist while racking, may carbonate quickly.