Belgian Strong Ale Hopping And Steeping Advice

[sinkas]

Hi all,
I am about to embark on my slight basterdization of DeeBee's "Blunt Instrument Ale"

Below my basic recipe:

2kg DME
1.5kg liquid wheat malt extract
250g Cararoma
1kg Chinese fake belgian candi sugar
1/3 tablet of whirlfloc
Styrian Goldings pellets for bitterness
Saaz pellets for flavour and aroma
Wyeast 3522 Belgian Ardennes high gravity yeast

Hops additions
(AA) Minutes Grams IBU

Styrian Goldings (3.8%) 60 60 17
Saaz (3.6%) 30 15 5
Saaz (3.6%) 15 15 3


The things I am most unsure about is the Hops weights and boil times, and whether the 250g cararoma is enough/toomuch

I have the yeast in a 1litre starter at the moment, will it be ok for me to tips off 500ml for use later and pitch 500ml to the brew after only 48 hours in the starter?

The AA rating of the hops seem quite low compared to the raitngs in my Promash programme..

Any comments warmly recieved.

Cheers

Case

 

[GMK]

What Beer style/commercial beer are you trying to emulate.
What OG are you aiming for.
Also - what IBU's do you want.

If u provide info on these - then it is easier for us to provide comments and additional info.

 

[warrenlw63]

Sinkas,

Second what GMK says.

That notwithstanding if it's a Belgian ale on the strongish side I'd hop to around 25 IBUs. You don't necessarily have to use one for bitterness and one for aroma either. Mixing them up will add to the complexity.

Cut the CaraAroma by about 100g. May overwhelm too much. If that puts the colour too light maybe try a bit of Carafa I to take up the slack.

Cararoma is a pretty strong crystal malt if abused.

Yeast is a great choice (3522). Gives the beer some really nice spice/phenolics (pepper?) and leaves the beer with a pretty nice malt sweetness too. Try not to ferment too low or it's pretty sluggish. 20c or a little higher to if you really want extra phenolics.

It's the best all-round Belgian yeast you can get IMO. Suits just about all the styles if handled correctly.

Here's a recipe I did a couple of years ago. You get what I mean with the specialty grains and replace the Pils malt with malt extract. Chinese lump sugar works well. Seem to be pretty similar to raw sugar.

Only thing I would have changed in hindsight would be 2kg Dark Munich in lieu of 2kg Pils Malt.

Trappist 23 Litres OG 1.085 - 28 IBU - 27 EBC

7 kg Weyermann Pilsner Malt
250g Weyermann Cara Munich II
150g Weyermann Cara Aroma
100g Weyermann Acidulated Malt
100g Weyermann Carafa I
60g Flaked Wheat
900g Chinese Yellow Lump Sugar

20g Kent Goldings pellets (-6% AA) for 75 minutes
20g Saaz pellets (-4% AA) for 75 minutes
5g Kent Goldings pellets (-6% AA) for 30 minutes
20g Saaz pellets at end of boil
15g Kent Goldings pellets at end of boil

Wyeast 3522. Fermented at 18-20c

Warren -

 

[sinkas]

Hi there,
Sorry guys,
Belgian strong ale
OG about 1075-1085
IBU 21-25

Cheers

Case

 

[warrenlw63]

Sinkas,

Sounds similar to what I posted above. As I stated probably a good idea to swap the Pils malt for malt extract and do something similar with the specialty grains. Also mix your hops up a bit for added complexity.

If you decide to follow your own advice re; the Cararoma additions. I'm sure it will still be a very good beer. Your yeast choice will really do the job nicely.

Warren -

 

[sinkas]

hi there Warren,
So do you think 250g for cara aroma is too much, shoudl i back it off to 150g as you suggest?

Case

 

[warrenlw63]

Sinkas,

If it were me I'd back off to 150g. If colour is an issue just bring it up with a small amount of Carafa I.

If you've never used Cararoma a little really goes a long way. 150g in a 23lt batch will really bring out the plum/raisin profile you're most probably looking for.

Warren -

 

[Hophead]

Guys, anyone?

Chinese yellow sugar/Chinese Belgian sugar

What exactly is this and where did you get it.


C&B

 

[warrenlw63]

Hophead

It's just a form of raw sugar in big chunks (not palm sugar). Visually similar to Belgian Candi. Just go to any of the now frequent Vietnamese grocery stores in the burbs. Usually can be found in clear, yellow or brown varieties. Usually about $2 for a half kilo box.

Warren -

 

[barfridge]

I have recently done 2 Belgians, one darker and heavier than the other.

The recipie of the first was:
Recipie - Belgian Strong Ale
Rochefort Clone

Grains:
Pilsner 5kg
Cara Munich 1kg
Candi Sugar 450 grams
Cara Aroma 300g
Flaked Maize 300g
Carafa Special III 50g

Hops Schedule:
Styrian Goldings 30g @ 60 minutes
Hallertau 20g @ 30 minutes
Hallertau 10g @ 5 minutes

Yeast:
Wyeast 1762 Belgian Abbey II

Other Additions:
Whirlfloc, quarter tablet @ 15 mins

Statistics:
Batch size: 20 litres
OG: 1.077 (assuming 70% efficiency)
Colour: 24.9 SRM
Bitterness: 34.8 IBU

For the 2nd batch I was running low on some grains, so I went without the cara munich, and reduced the cara aroma to 200g. At the moment, while both beers are young, the 2nd version is a better drinkier, due to less crystal used. But I plan on keeping the first batch for a good period of time, and I think it will develop into a better beer than the other batch.

The other thing I cant recommend enough is drying the beers out. This is done by using the candi sugar and flaked maize, and also by culturing up a nice large yeast starter and aerating the wort. I managed to get the FG of the first batch down to 1.012 from 1.077, which meant they yeasties worked bloody hard.

Good luck with it, its my favourite style of beer.

 

[warrenlw63]

Barfridge,

How'd it go with 1kg of Cara Munich? That's going to have some pretty out-there sweetness.

Warren -

 

[barfridge]

It is sweet, but not cloying. It just added to the thickness of the mouthfeel, it's almost a beer you can chew on. With a 1.012 FG its definitely not too sweet.

Which is the reason I brewed the other batch, to give me something to drink now while this one develops over the next few months.

 

[warrenlw63]

Keep us posted on that one Barfridge. Sounds nice. B)

Make sure you give it a hefty amount of carbonation. That will support the body nicely.

Warren -

 

[JasonY]

I brewed one last weekend and it is now happily fermenting along. Gave it a good size starter and airated well with an aquarium pump for about 90mins on and off. Hoping that it will make it down to 1.015 or less but as barfridge says the yeast will be working hard. Hopefully the sugar content (its not candi, but caramelised cane sugar with some citric acid) will allow this to happen. Its not as dark as I wanted it but I didn't want to add any more xtal.

From the taste tests so far I am worried about having used the 48g of saaz for bittering. I can taste them quite strongly atm, hoping their impact on the flavour will drop off. Not the biggest fan of saaz but this was kind of a brew to use up ingredients I had lying about.

Hoping it will be palletable.


Recipe Specifics
----------------

Batch Size (L): 23.00 Wort Size (L): 23.00
Total Grain (kg): 7.04
Anticipated OG: 1.074 Plato: 17.91
Anticipated EBC: 14.4
Anticipated IBU: 27.8
Brewhouse Efficiency: 75 %
Wort Boil Time: 75 Minutes

Grain/Extract/Sugar

% Amount Name Origin Potential EBC
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
57.2 4.03 kg. Kirin Pilsner Malt Australia 292.97 3
19.9 1.40 kg. Weyermann Pilsner Germany 317.42 4
9.9 0.70 kg. Candi Sugar (clear) Generic 384.25 1
4.3 0.30 kg. Hoepfner Munich Malt Germany 317.42 18
2.8 0.20 kg. Hoepfner Melanoidin Germany 309.07 40
3.0 0.21 kg. Weyermann Caraamber Germany 309.07 70
2.8 0.20 kg. TF Caramalt UK 284.01 38

Potential represented as IOB- HWE ( L / kg ).


Hops

Amount Name Form Alpha IBU Boil Time
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
48.00 g. Czech Saaz Pellet 3.50 17.4 60 min.
28.00 g. Perle Plug 3.20 8.6 60 min.
14.00 g. Hallertau Hersbrucker Plug 2.50 1.7 15 min.


Yeast
-----

WYeast 1214 Belgian Ale

 

[seanmac1904]

I used .5kg of yellow rock sugar in my second-last placing ESB (28.5/50) I made recently. It may not be a factor, but it didnt seem to ferment too cleanly with S-04.
It might be different in a belgian style but it had quite a white wine aroma to it.
of course, this could be unrelated to the sugar and totally due to some other part of my process.
thought I would add it as a data point

put it this way, it wont be going in any more ESB's

cheers

Sean

 

[sinkas]

Hi all,
Thankyou all for the tips and reccomendations.
The brew is now bubbling away, however I madea stuffup, and mixed up the saaz and goldings, so I guess the flavours may be a little different.
OG came out at about 1065 i think..not wquite as high as I thought.
One question:
After 24 hours the brew was showing no signs of life, so I put together another starter of 1litre. Then after one more night, the thing was going crazy bubbling, so I am left with a starter I possibly dont really need.

My query is, can I just throw this extra yeast in, or will it screw up the brew?

Will I notice the mixup of the saaz and goldings in the final flavour?

Cheers

Case

 

[warrenlw63]

Case,

Keep the extra yeast for bottling. If the brew is firing adding more yeast will do no harm OTOH why bother wasting it.

Mixing up the hops will do no harm. As I stated earlier it will add to the complexity.

Warren -

 

[sinkas]

Hi all,
Well I took a gravity reading this morning, it is already down to 1030, so that seems to be a good start to me.

It is still on all the gunge from the hops pellets, is this a bad thing, should I consider racking early to get it off this stuff, or can I just wait until its nearly fermeted out to rack?
It tastes quite belgian, so I am happy, hopefully it will keep on blubblin'

Cheers

Case

 

[sinkas]

Sorry, has anynone got any comments, re leaving the brew on the remains of the hop pellets?

 

[THE DRUNK ARAB]

RDWHAHB :beer:

C&B
TDA