Belgian golden ale

[rickthebrew]

I`m a big fan of belgian ales and i`m also aware that quite a few on the forum brew to this style so i`m after a few pointers for a golden ale! I`ll be doing a grain/hop/yeast order next week so any help would be great - any tried and tested recipes and most importantly yeast choice - i was thinking wlp500 or maybe a bottle conditionded yeast recovery.
I`ll be making my own candi sugar also from Franklin`s excellent blog

cheers - my motivation for this was finding two chimay ale goblets in a charity shop for a pound - just need the ale to fill them

 

[RobWalker]

Just posting to subscribe so I can see how this goes. I've had enough of experimenting and just want to make good beer, so maybe a nice basic belgian would do me a world of good!

good luck to ya :)

 

[rickthebrew]

:thumb:

 

[richc]

If you're after something like Duvel then the recipe is basically pilsner malt (5-6kg) and sugar (1-1.5kg). Mash at a low temp and add about 25 IBU of hops, probably noble, at the start of a 90 minute boil. Ferment with WLP-570.

If you want something more like Chimay White then you should follow the lower end of the above recipe, perhaps adding a little aromatic or biscuit malt and a little bit of late hops. Then ferment with WP-500 or 550....

 

[rickthebrew]

Cheers - has anyone had good results recovering the yeast from some duvel? I have a couple bottles in and might just give it a go

 

[artiums_enteri]

Richc is right on the money with the grist. I typically use aged out whole noble hops so they give me an old cheese aroma and taste pretty funky. Low IBUs is the goal here with flavor derived from the aged lupin glands in the hops.

Wyeast makes a Belgian strong strain I really like. I usually do a big starter with 2-3 smack packs per 5 gallons. These are high gravity beers so a lot of viable yeast is needed. The yeast likes to ferment hot compared to other strains. This is quite happy and does well up around 72-82* F.

Sometimes I'll add wyeast's Brett or funky strains if I want a more sour beer. Otherwise I just bottle the strong golden after 4-6 months in thick Belgian bottles with corks and a wire basket. There it sits for another 3-4 years.

Hope some of this helped.

 

[rickthebrew]

:thumb: cheers chaps - :thumb: i am going to start with a duvel type ale - and then will be doing some more belgians through the summer as the air temp is warmer, fancy getting a dark trippel bottled for xmas in the future

 

[mattybabsy]

making a duvel clone tomorrow- harvested yeast from 3 bottles no probllem

 

[rickthebrew]

cool - what is your recipe?

 

[mattybabsy]

british pilsner malt (5kg) it was on sale- wanted to see what difference would be here wit a belgian pilsner
1.2 kg table sugar

40g slov styrian goldings 90 min
55 g " 30 min
55g saaz flame out


add sugar towards end of boil. mash around 65

 

[pittsy]

if you want to do duvel then its
Belgian aromatic malt 140 g
German crystal malt (carahell) 70g
Belgian 2 row pale malt 5 kg
Belgian clear candy 540g
Cane sugar 650 g
styrian golding hops (8.5%) bittering (57g if aa is 4.25%)
styrian golding hops 14g flavour hop (if aa is 4.25%)
czech saaz flavour hop same as goldings 14g
irish moss
czech saaz (aroma hop) 14g
yeast
1st choice wyeast 1762 (wlp540) or
2nd choice wyeast 3522 (wlp550)

thats what it says in a book i have :thumb:

 

[pittsy]

p.s this 1 i did and it was fab

% LB OZ MALT OR FERMENTABLE PPG °L
82% 12 2.007 Dingemans Pilsner 38 6 ~
15% 2 3.274 Dingemans Belgian Pale Wheat 34 2 ~
2% 0 5.291 Dingemans Aromatic 34 30 ~
1% 0 2.469 Dingemans Belgian Biscuit Malt 0 33 ~
14 13
Batch size: 6.1 gallons
Original Gravity
1.060 measured
(1.060 estimated)
Final Gravity
1.011 measured
(1.015 estimated)
Color
10° SRM / 19° EBC
(Gold to Copper)
Mash Efficiency
67% measured
hops
USE TIME OZ VARIETY FORM AA
boil 60 mins 0.988 Perle leaf 7.3
boil 30 mins 0.529 Perle leaf 7.3
boil 15 mins 0.529 Saaz leaf 3.4
boil 5 mins 0.247 Saaz leaf 3.4
Boil: 7.9 avg gallons for 60 minutes
Bitterness
26.8 IBU / 7 HBU
ƒ: Average
BU:GU
0.44
yeast
White Labs Belgian Ale (WLP550)
ale yeast in liquid form with medium flocculation and 75% attenuation
Alcohol
6.5% ABV / 5% ABW
(6.0% est. ABV / 5% est. ABW)

 

[rickthebrew]

Thanks - some great info and recipes to crack on with !

 

[rickthebrew]

60kg of stock arrived from the malt miller the other day so tha`ts my next 500 pints sorted :
1.6kg of light candi sugar in the freezer so will be brewing my Duvel tommorrow - will be aiming for around 6.5 - 7% as I haven`t more than forty small bottles and the rest will be in pint bottles :lol:

Recipe being tweaked at the moment - great info on the forum and two books I highly reccomend;

brew like a monk - stan hieronymus
clone brews - tess and mark szamatulski (american book with loads of recipes covering many beer styles :) )

cheers

 

[rickthebrew]

Looks like i`ll be doing 40litres,,

8kg Dingemans pilsen malt
1.2kg light candi sugar

50g styrian golding -90mins
50g styrian golding - 30mins
30g saaz - 30mins

recovered Duvel yeast starter

If it finishes around 1006 -1008 then i`ll be looking at 6.5% approx, I will mash in at 65degrees - nice simple recipe for the first go - i`m resisting the temptation to add any aromatic or biscuit malts! Would like to see how this is then experiment more with my dubbels etc

 

[rickthebrew]

I bottled this last Thursday and I was a bit worried initially, it finished at 1006 and was there for three days before I bottled - I used a Duvel starter built up from a couple of bottles and it went off like a rocket and smelling and tasting fine. It was really cloudy when I bottled but tasted very much like Duvel - if i had the facility to crash cool before bottling this may have helped drop the yeast out - however after around 4 days it started to clear really well and a taster last night was spot on - I primed quite high and I`m really pleased with the result - these will be knockout in a few weeks ( yes beer never ages well in my house - only the RIS has been aged properly :lol: well most of it )
So a little patience with the yeast or some crash cooling and a very simple recipe with a great result - at 6.8% just go easy as I could sup this all evening as the alcohol is fairly mellow in taste with that lovely pronounced Duvel flavour, chilled and bubbly and frothy perfect for this weather


So next up some more belgians with recovered yeast - will be using the aromatic malts and some different candi sugars ( do make your own its so simple)

:thumb: :drink:

 

[pittsy]

He's a lovely Belgian recipe , it was 1 of my best


% KG
82% 5.500 Dingemans Pilsner 82% 10 ~
15% 1.000 Dingemans Belgian Pale Wheat 73% 3 ~
2% 0.150 Dingemans Aromatic 73% 49 ~
1% 0.070 Dingemans Belgian Biscuit Malt 0% 54 ~
6.72
Batch size: 23.0 liters
Original Gravity
1.060 measured
(1.060 estimated)
Final Gravity
1.011 measured
(1.015 estimated)
Color
19° EBC / 10° SRM
(Gold to Copper)
Mash Efficiency
67% measured
hops
USE TIME GRAMS VARIETY FORM AA
boil 60 mins 28 Perle leaf 7.3
boil 30 mins 15 Perle leaf 7.3
boil 15 mins 15 Saaz leaf 3.4
boil 5 mins 7 Saaz leaf 3.4
Boil: 30.0 avg liters for 60 minutes
Bitterness
26.8 IBU / 7 HBU
ƒ: Average
BU:GU
0.44
yeast
White Labs Belgian Ale (WLP550)
ale yeast in liquid form with medium flocculation and 75% attenuation
Alcohol
6.5% ABV /