Help with Belgian, well all of it.

here's 1 i did , my fav belgian to date (not including a wit i did) just add some dark candy syrup to darken and increase abv if waned
KG
82% 5.500 Dingemans Pilsner
15% 1 Dingemans Belgian Pale Wheat
2% 0.150 Dingemans Aromatic

1% 0.070 Dingemans Belgian Biscuit Malt
Mash 65 108%
6.720
Specific Gravity
1.061 OG
(1.055 to 1.064)
15.0° Plato
1.015 FG
(1.014 to 1.016)
3.8° Plato
Color
19° EBC
9° SRM
Gold to Copper
Mash Efficiency
67%

Hops

Use Time Grams Hop Variety AA » IBU
boil 60 min 28 Perle ~ leaf 7.3 » 19.4
boil 30 min 15 Perle ~ leaf 7.3 » 8.0
boil 15 min 15 Saaz ~ leaf 3.4 » 2.4
boil 5 min 7 Saaz ~ leaf 3.4 » 0.5

Bitterness

30.3 IBU



Belgian Ale (WLP550)
Ale yeast in liquid form with medium flocculation and 75% attenuation


Alcohol
6.1% ABV

i think i would add around 200g of biscuit malt instead of 70g , honestly a nice drink (was none left )

Best I can do Nick is to suggest you have a word with phettebs, he's a big Belgian style brewer.

or lancsteve :thumb:

we have dona a few blonde belgians but if you want a dark beer you need the book called brew like a monk. Ill take a look for you Nick and post up a dark recipe later

Heres one Nick for you to try
the recipe does not give specific weight so you will have to work it out etc on beersmith
achel bruin extra
pilsner malt
chocolate malt
adjuncts sucrose and dark caramel sugar
saaz hops
westmalle yeast

pitch at 17-18 deg cclimb to 23 degc over 8 days
secondary ferment at 0 degrees 3 to 4 weeks.

OG 1.090
IBU 28

From what I have read most belgian beers are deceptively simple, it is all about the yeast really. I liked wlp550 when I used it to make an Enkel but you might want to try a different yeast for a dubbel or dark strong. McChouffe is the a dark beer made by the brewery that 550 supposedly comes from.

Look to get some of your colour from dark sugar and be careful not to over do any crystal or dark malt component. Belgian dark beers aren't anything like a stout in my experience.

I would start fermentation at a lowish temperature (say 17/18) and then let it rise after a day or two as Mark suggests. Some of the belgian yeasts can give you a huge amount of estery flavour if you let them get warm in the first couple of days. This combined with the use of sugar should give you the low FG that makes strong belgian beers deceptively drinkable. I'm not a fan of huge banana flavours in belgian beers but if your wife likes Karmaliet then you may want to let the yeast warm up a bit more early on. WLP500 is supposed to throw a lot of banana if you aren't careful, lancssteve and I made a dubbel using wlp575 that had a crazy level of bubblegum the first time I had a go at belgian beers so you do want to be careful with the fermentation IMO.

You can download a characteristic chart for their belgian yeasts on the whitelabs site.

Below is the recipe we used and ideas on how to make it better. You can find the brewday on Jim's

Dubbel Trubbel

Based on recipe in Radical Brewing with a few adaptations for what I had...

Batch size 24 litres
Grain weight 6.51 kilograms
Efficiency 80%
Original gravity 1.066
Expected Final gravity 1.015
Calculated Alcohol (by volume) 6.8%
Bitterness (IBU) 40
Color (SRM) 17.8°L
Yeast: White Labs WLP575 Blelgian Style Ale Blend

Grains/Extracts/Sugars 6.51 kilograms
Marris Otter (Pale) 38ppg, 2.5°L 3.8 kilograms 58.4%
Munich (Light) 34ppg, 10°L 1.16 kilograms 17.8%
Dry Candi - Amber 32ppg, 70°L 0.7 kilograms 10.8%
Biscuit 35ppg, 25°L 0.3 kilograms 4.6%
CaraRed 35ppg, 40°L 0.3 kilograms 4.6%
CaraMunich 34ppg, 50°L 0.2 kilograms 3.1%
Special B 30ppg, 140°L 0.05 kilograms 0.8%

Hops 70 grams
Aurora hops 7.8%, Whole 70 grams

Additions - 10 grams
Whirlfloc Fining 5 grams
Coriander Flavor 3 grams
Orange peel (Bitter) Flavor 2 grams

Mash
Target 63°C = 17.43 litres @ 69°C

Sparge 25.71 litres @ 78°C

Boil 90 minutes,
Aurora hops 7.8%, Whole 35 grams - 90 minutes

15 minute additions
Coriander Flavor 3 grams
Orange peel (Bitter) Flavor 2 grams
Whirlfloc Fining 5 grams

Steve's conclusions on how to improve it.

Simpler... No coriander or orange peel, much less crystal, just aromatic or biscuit + munich + maybe a little bit of ONE crystal... Use blend of EKG + Saaz + Styrian Goldings or just saaz or styrian goldings rather than 'super styrian' aurora...

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I would add, better temperature control, especially in the first 72 hours of fermentation.

Thanks Guy's, just back from hard weekend working. Going to try and read up your reply's now and make a plan :thumb:

Edit

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book ordered

Sounds good to me , yeast I've got the wlp550 very fruity but I liked it

What hell OG are you expecting MD?

Muddydisco said:

Right been playing with your recipes and thoughts in Beer smith and come up with this, Please give me your thoughts. Have gone for some of the easier malts to get.

25ltr Batch
5.526 kg Pilsner (2 Row) UK (2.0 EBC) Grain 1 75.6 %
0.548 kg Munich Malt - 10L (19.7 EBC) Grain 2 7.5 %
0.278 kg Caramunich Malt (110.3 EBC) Grain 3 3.8 %
0.278 kg Special B Malt (354.6 EBC) Grain 4 3.8 %
0.278 kg Aromatic Malt (51.2 EBC) Grain 5 3.8 %
0.410 kg Candi Sugar, Amber (147.8 EBC) Sugar 6 5.6 %
57 g Tettnang [4.50 %] - Boil 90.0 min Hop 7 22.5 IBUs

90 min boil, 90 min mash @ 65c
Est Original Gravity: 1.066 SG
Est Final Gravity: 1.011 SG
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 7.2 %
Bitterness: 22.5 IBUs
Colour 33.9 EBC

Now the choice of yeasts?? I'm thinking along the lines of WLP550 pitching at 18c for 2 days then 1c step up each 24hrs to 24c.

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Try 1.066 which put's it right in the Middle ages and Monastic brewing in more ways than one

evanvine said:

What hell OG are you expecting MD?

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Thats at the starting end of belgian 7.2% (about the most i can handle too lol) many go way above that :shock:

pittsy said:

many go way above that :shock:

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We're into the realms of Barley Wine aren't we. :shock:

There is a wonderful pub in Gent ,Belgium that servers more beers than anywhere in the world (they say) and it has a large menu on the wall that starts at the top at around 7% and goes up and up to around 18% , they only swerver half pint type glasses :wha: wonder why lol, i aim to go there (my good lady has)

mmmm i bet not many people walk out of that pub in gent lol :drunk: :thumb:

pittsy said:

There is a wonderful pub in Gent ,Belgium that servers more beers than anywhere in the world (they say) and it has a large menu on the wall that starts at the top at around 7% and goes up and up to around 18% , they only swerver half pint type glasses :wha: wonder why lol, i aim to go there (my good lady has)

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They say in Belgium weak beer is for those who like to ****, strong beer is for those who like to drink.

pittsy said:

There is a wonderful pub in Gent ,Belgium that servers more beers than anywhere in the world (they say) and it has a large menu on the wall that starts at the top at around 7% and goes up and up to around 18% , they only swerver half pint type glasses :wha: wonder why lol, i aim to go there (my good lady has)

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Theres a similar place in Brugge.... a tiny little cafe type place down off a side-street somewhere.

I do like Flanders. Beer. Stew. Chips. Chocolate. What's not to like? Plus you can hop on the train down to Ieper and witness 'last post' at the Menin Gate.

De garre? Best bar ever

Theres a similar place in Brugge.... a tiny little cafe type place down off a side-street somewhere.

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Does anybody have any more info on this place?

PS Is it not Bruges, or am I thinking of a different place?

It will probably be de garre, it's amazing brew there own beer that you can only buy there. Would recommend to anybody, it's perfect. I go to Brugge every year and spend 9/10 of my time there

If you are ever in the Cheltenham area, a new pub The Sanford has got a few Belgians in there, one bottle in there was £30, dunno what it was though :shock:

Imagine being able to clone that for around 50p a bottle :clap:

http://www.thisisgloucestershire.co...tory-18778199-detail/story.html#axzz2VHaGvlow