Beglian Blond recipe subs

Australia & New Zealand Homebrewing Forum

Help Support Australia & New Zealand Homebrewing Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

Muz

Well-Known Member
Joined
14/11/17
Messages
134
Reaction score
21
I'm looking to brew the following recipe from BYO.com and wanted to check with the collective brains trust (you) that my substitutions are going to work out. I always find adapting recipes to stuff that's actually available at my local store to be difficult. I've stuffed it up in the past by making assumptions and it ruined the whole beer.

Anyway, the recipe is:

19 L
OG = 1.052
FG = 1.006
IBU = 35
SRM = 4
ABV = 5.9%

3.3 kg Pilsner malt
0.24 kg Crisp crystal malt (38.5 EBC)
0.67 kg dextrose (15 min.)
6.25 AAU Warrior® hops (90 min.) (11g of 16% alpha acids)
1.95 AAU Brewers Gold hops (45 min.) (9.2 g at 6% alpha acids)
1.9 AAU Brewers Gold hops (15 min.) (8.9 g at 6% alpha acids)
23 g German Tettnang hops (0 min.)
Wyeast 3787 (Trappist High Gravity Ale)

I usually get my brewing ingredients from Grain and Grape - https://www.grainandgrape.com.au/

I was thinking the Dingemans (Belgian) Pilsner malt as I don't know the difference between all the pilsners malts but this one is Belgian so...

Crisp crystal malt has me stumped. Is crisp just a brand or does it have another meaning?
I was thinking ½ Carahell (20-30 ESB) and ½ Joe White Cara 40-60 ESB. This should balance out the colour right?

Warrior and Tettnang hops they stock but Brewers Gold I was thinking of just using Cascade? Or is there a better sub?

Thanks. It's just a lot of effort to brew and I want to be 100% on this stuff.

Cheers.
 
I was thinking the Dingemans (Belgian) Pilsner malt as I don't know the difference between all the pilsners malts but this one is Belgian so...

Crisp crystal malt has me stumped. Is crisp just a brand or does it have another meaning?
I was thinking ½ Carahell (20-30 ESB) and ½ Joe White Cara 40-60 ESB. This should balance out the colour right?

Warrior and Tettnang hops they stock but Brewers Gold I was thinking of just using Cascade? Or is there a better sub?

Thanks. It's just a lot of effort to brew and I want to be 100% on this stuff.

Cheers.

Dingemans will be perfect for this sort of beer, but unless you're crazy sensitive to flavours, most of us probably wouldn't notice the difference between Dingemans and something cheaper (but still good) like Best Maltz.

Crisp is just a brand - that's likely just their light crystal, so easily replaceable. Just look at how they describe the character of it and make sure that it sort of matches what you'll sub it with. I wouldn't put any mid-to-dark crystal in, as it'll change the flavour profile.
I personally don't like any crystal malt in my belgians, only pils malt with a little dex, wheat malt or vienna if needed.

For the brewers gold hops, again, just try to match the flavour and aroma profile of it to another hop, or google a hop substitution chart and go by that
 
Any hop with Gold related names are usually breed from Goldings (Nugget, First Gold, Brewers Gold, Bullion.....and many many more) so its often a pretty good sub, most of the daughters are breed for disease resistance, better yields, easier picking...

Agree that any UK light/pale Crystal Malt would be a fair trade, could getaway with some CaraHell or CaraMunich 1 but I would go with one of the UK light Crystal malts.
Its only about 5% of extract, an addition that size is probably going to be more for hue than even colour or flavour, moves the beer from yellow to golden in colour, given that I would look seriously at CaraHell or one of the UK Cara Malts, both of which might fit nicely into the expected flavour of a Belgian Blond.
Mark
 
So I went with Weyermann Caraamber. It seemed to be a good sub. For the hops I went with Northern Brewer and it was in a substitution chart and had a similar alpha acid %. I'll try and remember to report back on how it turn out. Thanks all for the advice.
 

Latest posts

Back
Top