Belgian Ale Yeasts

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Snow

Beer me up, Scotty!
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I recently scored two foils of the Wyeast 3944 Belgian Witbier and the Wyeast 1214 Belgian Ale. I am planning to make a Belgian ale, relatively dark and complexly malty, in the order of a 1060-1065 OG. Can anyone suggest which out of these two yeasts would be best to use? Does anyone have any experience with the particular flavour profile of either of these yeasts? The Wyeast website is a bit vague, but mentions that the 3944 produces dominating phenols and the 1214 produces estery and is good for high gravity beers. I'm leaning towards the 1214, with a cool ferment to keep the esters down.

Any comments?

Cheers - Snow
 
Hi Snow,

The 1214 Abbey is the go for a traditional Belgian Ale.

The Belgian flavour is directly proportional to the increase in fermentation temperature.

With a belgian -- do use sugar as an adjuct. The Belgian Ale book gives a short quote from a belgian brewer explaining the reason they use invert sugar. They are aimimg for a dryish beer with medium body and a pleasant alcoholic kick. Many get equally good results with plain sugar or Demarara Sugar, one I have personally used in a couple of Belgian beers.


Enjoy the experience and don't Americanise the recipe. Go for the esters and phenolics that make this such a wonderful style. You will achieve that with the choice of yeast.


Have fun

Steve
 
Hey thanks for the advice Chiller. FWIW, my proposed partial mash recipe is:

2.5kg German Pilsener
150g melanoidin
150g Caraaroma
250g Caramunich
150g Amber
30g Chocolate
700g inverted sugar
1.5kg light DME
35g Tettnanger - 60 mins
20g Goldings - 15 mins
20g Hersbrucker - 15 mins
2L starter Wyeast 1214 Belgian Ale yeast

66C single infusion mash - 60 mins
60 min boil.

Re your comment on the fermentation temp. What do you think of 18c for this yeast? Too cool to bring out those flavours or just right?

Cheers - Snow
 
Hmmmm the belgian ale book says Belgian brewers use little crystal and chocolate malts then boil for longer to get that dark color.

A customer at the shop wanted to brew one of these: they created 10L of wort, brought to a boil, skimmed the foam, then simmered the wort very softly overnight and the next day they had lovely dark brown wort.

The amber needs to be mashed with some pale malt

Jovial Monk
 
Jovial_Monk said:
Hmmmm the belgian ale book says Belgian brewers use little crystal and chocolate malts then boil for longer to get that dark color.

A customer at the shop wanted to brew one of these: they created 10L of wort, brought to a boil, skimmed the foam, then simmered the wort very softly overnight and the next day they had lovely dark brown wort.

The amber needs to be mashed with some pale malt

Jovial Monk
i think the book mentions that technique for oud bruins in particular. but elsewhere it says they do use darker malts (as well as dark candi sugar) to get colour as well. no rules in belgian brewing... depends, that recipe will be malty, a long boil for colour will make for a more caramelly beer.

i'm going to have to try out the overnight simmer myself sometime though. sounds like it could be tasty in a big 12%er.
 
Jovial_Monk said:
Hmmmm the belgian ale book says Belgian brewers use little crystal and chocolate malts then boil for longer to get that dark color.

A customer at the shop wanted to brew one of these: they created 10L of wort, brought to a boil, skimmed the foam, then simmered the wort very softly overnight and the next day they had lovely dark brown wort.

The amber needs to be mashed with some pale malt

Jovial Monk
So you think 400g of crystal is too much, JM? I actually have it in there for flavour, not necessarily colour, but if that much pushes it beyond style then I can drop some. I've seen heaps of recipes with combinations of specialB, Biscuit and Belgian aromatic and the malts I have included are suggested replacements.

I assume the 2.5kg of pilsener is enough pale malt to convert the amber?

- Snow
 

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