Rochefort 10

[Cloud Surfer]

Belgium dark strong ales are my all time favourite beers. This is going to be my first go at making a quad, though I will brew a ton of these, so it's really just the start of the journey. These are the beers I want to get good at, and will be the main reason I move over to AG eventually. For now I think I have an extract recipe that will make a nice beer in the Rochefort 10 style. But for anyone playing along at home who have made these before please feel free to offer any advice.

Recipe looks a bit like this-

4.5kg Briess Pilsen Light Extract
1.5kg Caramunich
500g Flaked Wheat
1.35kg D-180 Candi Syrup
200g Belgium Soft Blonde Sugar
45g Hallertau Mitt (60min)
45g Styrian Goldings (15min)
Wyeast 1762

As far as I can tell, that's pretty much how the Monks make it, and I'm only cheating by using Pilsner extract instead of doing it from grain. I'll steep the Caramunich and Flaked Wheat and get the boil going from there with the hop additions. Then add the Pilsen extract and sugars in the last 10 minutes. That should get me very close to the Rochefort numbers with an OG of 1.097 and ABV of 11%.

I'll make a big starter, and then pitch it at around 20C rising to about 24C by day 7. This seems one of the most critical parts of making a quad to get the proper ester profile. The fermentation schedule is one thing that will take me some brews to sort out. I'll keep it in primary for 3 to 4 weeks then do the pressure transfer thing into keg and bulk age at 12C for 3 to 6 months before transfer to bottle for bottle conditioning with a small, fresh yeast addition.

Anyway, that's the plan.

 

[onemorecell]

Looks great!

I've got a recipe for St Bernardus ABT 12 that I've been meaning to brew, which looks quite similar - except for colour I've got Aromatic malt (570g) and Carafa III (300g). So my only question would be, are you going to get enough colour from the caramunich & candi syrup?

(also that's a lot of caramunich for my tastes)

 

[Cloud Surfer]

Yes I’m not sure about the colour because I’ve never used 3 packets of D180 in a brew before. It doesn’t seem enough to get that deep Rochefort 10 colour, but I’ll soon find out.

They do use a lot of Caramunich. I have had to increase it a little in this recipe because I’m steeping the grains and don’t get the efficiency of mashing. 1kg would be standard if this was an AG recipe, but that would leave me low on the OG.

 

[Cloud Surfer]

ABT 12 would be close to my favourite quad and no doubt I’ll have a look at that one sometime.

 

[MHB]

I cant see the Flaked Wheat doing you any favours unless its mashed, you will extract a fair amount of Glucan and perhaps some proteins but suspect it might add a gluey flavour and quite a lot of haze.
Mark

Edit
Abbot 12, Westvleteren 12 are among the best beers I've ever had. Mind you the Westie Blond is ridiculously good.
M

 

[Cloud Surfer]

I cant see the Flaked Wheat doing you any favours unless its mashed, you will extract a fair amount of Glucan and perhaps some proteins but suspect it might add a gluey flavour and quite a lot of haze.
Mark

Yes, I spent hours last night trying to figure this out. It’s an important part of the original recipe, so I don’t want to toss it out, but I am concerned about how the Flaked Wheat will proceed through steeping. I read it needs to be steeped/mashed with another grain, so I can’t even steep it by itself to see what happens.

How does mashing eliminate the chance of a gluey flavour compared to steeping?

 

[kadmium]

Yes, I spent hours last night trying to figure this out. It’s an important part of the original recipe, so I don’t want to toss it out, but I am concerned about how the Flaked Wheat will proceed through steeping. I read it needs to be steeped/mashed with another grain, so I can’t even steep it by itself to see what happens.

How does mashing eliminate the chance of a gluey flavour compared to steeping?

I believe that you need malt with a Diastatic Power high enough to convert itself and also the wheat, otherwise you are essentially just making clag (old school glue) by steeping the wheat and extracting the glucan from the wheat. The enzymes and temps involved in mashing convert the glucan into fermentable sugars. I am sure MHB can explain in more details.

As far as I know, you would want Malted Wheat (that has been malted to allow self conversion) but unmalted, flaked cannot convert on it's own. The issue is that Caramunich is a crystal malt and therefore will not convert the wheat either.

Raw wheat - Will need a cereal mash to help gelatinise
Flaked / Torrified Wheat - Has been gelatinised, and will convert in a mash with other base malts
Malted Wheat - Has been malted and will convert itself

I believe. So hence, you will essentially end up with the gluey / gelatinous aspects of the wheat and it won't contribute any sugars. Ditching it won't affect your OG, but I guess they are adding it to get some sort of body / mouthfeel?

This might be out there, but perhaps something like a Carapils would be better suited?

 

[kadmium]

Yes I’m not sure about the colour because I’ve never used 3 packets of D180 in a brew before. It doesn’t seem enough to get that deep Rochefort 10 colour, but I’ll soon find out.

They do use a lot of Caramunich. I have had to increase it a little in this recipe because I’m steeping the grains and don’t get the efficiency of mashing. 1kg would be standard if this was an AG recipe, but that would leave me low on the OG.

A quick entry into Brewfather predicts the colour to be around 81 EBC which is black as black. The D180 syrup has an EBC of 355. But who knows, that's based on 21L

 

[Cloud Surfer]

Between you guys and google I’ve figured out a lot in the last hour. I realise now the subtle difference between steeping and mini-mashing, and it seems I’ve really been mini-mashing this whole time.

As per Kadmium in #7 if I get some Pilsner malt and put the Flaked Wheat with it and do a mini-mash it will convert. Please tell me I’ve finally got that sorted.

Then I can drop the Caramunich back to 1kg which matches the original recipe and maintain the target OG.

I forgot about the colour in Brewfather and see now it gives me 81 EBC as well in 21L. That will work.

 

[MHB]

Pretty much YES!
Use about 1-1.5kg of Pilsner malt, follow the mash temp/time for the original recipe (looks like the Candi Syrup Inc one)
Generally with a good base malt you can convert up to 40% adjunct, without having to bust a nut, should get enough out of the Pilsner and Wheat to replace one of your 1.5kg jars of LME (or close to)
As for the colour here is a link to how the colour is measured, I have done something similar in EBC and agree with his conclusions, just convert to sensible units. Nice to have a UV/Vis spectrometer under the bed, for those occasions when you really have to know .
D-180 or 354.6EBC is the as is colour, to get the diluted colour you need to know the volume start and finish and shove that in to C1V1=C2V2 (1kg is around 750mL)

Hope it goes well, one of the truly great beers.
Mark

 

[Cloud Surfer]

Thanks Mark. I’m glad I posted and avoided making Rochefort 10 glue. That part was worrying me.

Anyway, being an AG recipe it says-

Mash-in 64C 60 minutes
Mash-out 77C 15 minutes

I’m not exactly sure how Mash-out works in AG, but if I hold the grain in 64C water for 45 minutes, then remove and rinse with 77C water, will that be good enough for this mini-mash?

One of the things I’ve really enjoyed so far has been using the different grains, and learning how they work. With everything I know now, I’m so close to just buying a Brewzilla or something and being done with it.

 

[Cloud Surfer]

Another question. Recipe says do a 90 minute boil. What does 90 minutes achieve that 60 minutes doesn’t?

 

[philrob]

Another question. Recipe says do a 90 minute boil. What does 90 minutes achieve that 60 minutes doesn’t?

MHB has answered this before in this forum:
https://aussiehomebrewer.com/attachments/02_-_the_function_of_wort_boiling1-1-pdf.109697/

 

[MHB]

Mash out is raising the temperature of the malt and water to a higher (77-80oC) to kill of most enzymes and improve the fluidity of the liquor. Basically it runs out quicker.
Easiest way is to just stir some boiling water into the mash until you reach your target temp. you can do the calculations if you like, they will tell you how much to add and are going to be very close.

90 minutes, well lots, you get more from your hops, you reduce the high molecular weight proteins, strips out more undesirable volatiles, develops more colour, concentrate the wort more... 90 minutes is my default boil for most styles, go back 20-30 years and 120 minutes was standard. 60only cuts the mustard if you are getting at least 8-10% evaporation in that time, without scorching the wort.
Mark

Decent read attached.

Ya know me too well philrob, just got there too fast.
M

 

[Cloud Surfer]

That's good info on the boil timing.

So for the AG brewers, at the end of the Mash-out time do you remove the grain and rinse it before proceeding with the boil? So far with the mini-mash technique I've been using I remove the grain from the wort and rinse it with water at about 70C before discarding the grain.

 

[MHB]

We are on a roll so
Truth is it all depends how hard you are willing to work for more extract.
Mark

 

[kadmium]

That's good info on the boil timing.

So for the AG brewers, at the end of the Mash-out time do you remove the grain and rinse it before proceeding with the boil? So far with the mini-mash technique I've been using I remove the grain from the wort and rinse it with water at about 70C before discarding the grain.

That's refered to as sparging.

If you do Brew In A Bag, sparging is not required but some do. I would suggest the following:

Buy a Muslin bag or BIAB bag from home-brew shop.

Heat water a few degrees above mashing temp, and add grains. Stir in and ensure no dough balls (balls of dry grain like when you add milo to cold milk)

Heat on the stove gently if required. Hit about 65c and then wrap in a towel, and let sit for an hour.

Stir in some boiling water to hit the Mash Out temp or direct heat on the stove gently. Be careful not to scorch the bag or the grains.

Lift bag out, and pop into another pot to drain. I squeezed the bag to get more liquid out. (Don't start a squeeze vs no squeeze debate)

Then I would set off doing the boil, adding hops etc.

 

[kadmium]

That's refered to as sparging.

If you do Brew In A Bag, sparging is not required but some do. I would suggest the following:

Buy a Muslin bag or BIAB bag from home-brew shop.

Heat water a few degrees above mashing temp, and add grains. Stir in and ensure no dough balls (balls of dry grain like when you add milo to cold milk)

Heat on the stove gently if required. Hit about 65c and then wrap in a towel, and let sit for an hour.

Stir in some boiling water to hit the Mash Out temp or direct heat on the stove gently. Be careful not to scorch the bag or the grains.

Lift bag out, and pop into another pot to drain. I squeezed the bag to get more liquid out. (Don't start a squeeze vs no squeeze debate)

Then I would set off doing the boil, adding hops etc.

Oh and I would go about 2L per kilo of grain minimum, with 3kg of grains need about 6L plus 3L grain, go more if you can. BIG W sell 20L pots for $20

 

[MHB]

Rinsing the wort from between the bits of malt isn't really the aim. remember just short of 1l of water is in each kg of malt. Thar water has the same gravity as the wort (say 1.050), by surrounding the grist with fresh hot water the sugars will migrate out of the grist and into the water, pushed by osmotic pressure until a new equilibrium is reached.
Traditional batch sparging allows this to happen a couple of times, obviously each batch will have a lower extract content than the one before.
Sparging is a slow even addition of hot water added to the top of the grain bed, as it migrates down it gets stronger and stronger, but the water behind it is at a lower gravity so it can extract more...
A modern "High Speed Lauter" is typically 120+ minutes to sparge effectively, and that is through a grain bed only 200-250mm deep.

Most home brewers just aren't that patient, so grab some quickly, cop the slightly reduced efficiency and just buy a bit more malt..
Mark

 

[Cloud Surfer]

That's refered to as sparging.

If you do Brew In A Bag, sparging is not required but some do. I would suggest the following:

Buy a Muslin bag or BIAB bag from home-brew shop.

Heat water a few degrees above mashing temp, and add grains. Stir in and ensure no dough balls (balls of dry grain like when you add milo to cold milk)

Heat on the stove gently if required. Hit about 65c and then wrap in a towel, and let sit for an hour.

Stir in some boiling water to hit the Mash Out temp or direct heat on the stove gently. Be careful not to scorch the bag or the grains.

Lift bag out, and pop into another pot to drain. I squeezed the bag to get more liquid out. (Don't start a squeeze vs no squeeze debate)

Then I would set off doing the boil, adding hops etc.

That is exactly how I do it. Except for the Mash-out step which is new to me, and I drain my grain bag directly back into the pot then rinse with 70C water.