Westvleteren XII Clone - Silver Medal Winner

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This sounds like an absolute beast of a beer, I'm well up for having a crack at it!

I'm curious to whether I could bottle it before crashing/lagering? Is it better to bulk age a beer than letting it age in the bottle? Also, what did you use for priming?
Go for it, it's a simple recipe but a great beer. The lagering/bulk aging probably aren't necessary at all, so I wouldn't worry about that. Bulk aging apparently speeds up the conditioning, but I'm not sure how much evidence there is to support that. I just primed with table sugar as I always do. A couple of things I'd probably change, swap 500g of the pilsner for 500g munich malt, and I would ramp the temperature up more slowly, maybe only 0.5°C per day for the first few days.
 
Hmmmm, interested in your candi syrup. I've looked into home made, but it looked right complicated. You literally just boiled muscovado sugar?
 
Hmmmm, interested in your candi syrup. I've looked into home made, but it looked right complicated. You literally just boiled muscovado sugar?
Yep. A few drops of lemon juice helps speed up the inversion but it's not required.
 
https://joshthebrewmaster.wordpress.com/2010/11/27/how-to-make-belgian-candi-sugar/

I used this process when I had a go, was relatively easy to follow, they use cream of tartar but any food-grade aacid will do the trick. Though it's difficult to get anything close to dark without using food-grade lye (anyone know where i can get some?!). Using the muscovado sugar will definitely give the color and flavour. I assume you use the dark stuff, not the lighter muscovado?
 
In my Pannepot brewday thread here I have a quick little how-to for the candi syrup. For that one I just used white sugar so it wasn't quite as dark.
 
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