Strong belgian style beer from kit?

[manticle]

Commercially available dark syrup will add deep dried fruit and toffee notes to a dark strong or dubbel. For a golden, tripel or other pale beer I'd suggest you'll get little that makes it worth the money. Dex will do pretty much the same job.
You can make candy sugar yourself but if you ever go down the dark strong road, I can almost guarantee you won't make anything like the dark commercial stuff which is worth every cent.

 

[shacked]

That helps a great deal

Cool mate. Let us know what recipe you end up going with and keep us posted on the results!!

 

[eMPTy]

Cool mate. Let us know what recipe you end up going with and keep us posted on the results!!

Will do.

I've decided I am going to try make a yeast starter with La Trappe Quadrupel. The success or failure of that will probably impact on any recipe.

 

[mongey]

as a strong belgian whore I have done the mangroves jacks can and the 5 litre ESB FWK golden beligan and the ESB FWK dubbel

out of the 3 the dubbel came out the best and closest to what I wanted . its was ball park of a chimay blue. obviously not as good but it was def ballpark

the 2 belgian styles were drinkable but more comprable to a leffe blond which I do like but isnt my favourite beer

 

[eMPTy]

as a strong belgian whore I have done the mangroves jacks can and the 5 litre ESB FWK golden beligan and the ESB FWK dubbel

out of the 3 the dubbel came out the best and closest to what I wanted . its was ball park of a chimay blue. obviously not as good but it was def ballpark

the 2 belgian styles were drinkable but more comprable to a leffe blond which I do like but isnt my favourite beer

http://www.esbrewing.com.au/beer-making/wort-kits/finest-round-wort-kits/finest-round-belgian-dubbel-wort-kit.html

That the dubbel one you refer to mate? That does look a very interesting base.

edit: although finding someone with it in stock looks problematic at the moment.

 

[mongey]

Yeah Thats the one . I think their brewer left and they have all his receipies but no one to make them

http://www.esbrewing.com.au/beer-making/wort-kits/finest-round-wort-kits/finest-round-belgian-dubbel-wort-kit.html

That the dubbel one you refer to mate? That does look a very interesting base.

edit: although finding someone with it in stock looks problematic at the moment.

 

[eMPTy]

Yeah Thats the one . I think their brewer left and they have all his receipies but no one to make them

Well that's a major shame. Was ready to just give that a go pretty much. Now i'm back to deciding which direction to head in...

 

[eMPTy]

Appreciate any feedback on the below (given i am very new to brewing). I do not know what the balance might be for something like this. I got it together by looking at various other recipes and adding here or there. In the end I am leaning a dark strong ale. I believe the combination below would hit a OG of ~1.100, but as mentioned - this could be way off and would rather feedback now before i invest time and $$$.

1.7kg Coopers Dark Ale
1kg Light LME
2kg Dark DME
0.5kg Wheat Dry Malt
250g Special B
200g Grain Infusion Pack Cara Malt
500g Dark Candi Sugar
500g Dextrose
12g Saaz

So. Thoughts?

 

[manticle]

I would still go pilsner base and all light malt extract, buy some d2 syrup and steep half that spec grain amount and use 1262 (two packs). Add 200 g dextrose to the kit, add the candy in 200 g increments after ferment as slowed, as suggested earlier. Also stryian goldings really work in belgian beer and play well with saaz.
Loads of yeast and good conditioning time are essential (I'd recommend 3 packs for 1100 but you'll probably balk at the price).

 

[wobbly]

eMPTy

Do you have a copy of ianH excel spread sheet for kit and extract recipes if not do a search for it as it will help you with your recipe formulation

Using the spread sheet and assuming 23lt brew, Saaz boiled for 60 mins and T58 yeast used then the specifics look some thing like this

OG = 1.087 (mid point target 1.075)
FG = 1.022 (mid point target 1.010)
IBU = 45 (mid point target 20)
EBC = 93 (mid point target 23.6)
Alc = 8.8%
Balance value = 1.07 (mid point target 0.72)

According to the "guide lines"
OG and FG look OK
IBU mid point target 20 high at actual 45
EBC mid point target 23 actual very high at 93

Cheers

Wobbly
Edited as in the previous post I only had half of the DME

 

[eMPTy]

I would still go pilsner base and all light malt extract, buy some d2 syrup and steep half that spec grain amount and use 1262 (two packs). Add 200 g dextrose to the kit, add the candy in 200 g increments after ferment as slowed, as suggested earlier. Also stryian goldings really work in belgian beer and play well with saaz.
Loads of yeast and good conditioning time are essential (I'd recommend 3 packs for 1100 but you'll probably balk at the price).

Thinking about it and a quick google search reveal pilsner base is probably not a bad shout. As for the all light malt extract, why that do you think over the dark? The d2 syrup i had looked into but had struggled to find viable stockists, do you happen to know of any? Can't say i'm familiar with 1262.

As for the yeast, i've yet to decide on a strain but that was in my mind. Also was considering splitting it up into a few batches with different yeasts to try test the differences.

eMPTy

Do you have a copy of ianH excel spread sheet for kit and extract recipes if not do a search for it as it will help you with your recipe formulation

Using the spread sheet and assuming 23lt brew, Saaz boiled for 60 mins and T58 yeast used then the specifics look some thing like this

OG = 1.078 (mid point target 1.075)
FG = 1.015 (mid point target 1.010)
IBU = 48 (mid point target 20)
EBC = 91 (mid point target 23.6)
Alc = 8%
Balance value = 1.32 (mid point target 0.72)

According to the "guide lines"
OG and FG look OK
IBU mid point target 20 high at actual 48
EBC mid point target 23 actual very high at 91

Cheers

Wobbly

I did have a very quick look at that spreadsheet. Thanks for your breakdown as I am not particularly familiar with its use. Looks like it needs a little bit of work still.

 

[manticle]

My apologies - 1762, belgian abbey 2 from wyeast.
D2 should be available from craftbrewer, grain and grape and online brewing supplies. There's possibly som joints in Sydney too. Really does bring a lot to the party.
Reason I suggest light malt is that most dark strong types will have a mainly pils/pale base, possibly some dark crystal and a wack of dark, fruity beet sugar for colour, flavour and abv.
It can be tempting to throw everything at a beer like this due to complexity of commercial examples but generally better results come from simplifying, pitching enough healthy yeast and fermentation and conditioning schedule.

 

[eMPTy]

So something more like that would be far closer to guidelines? Obviously the EBC is still over the top due to the dark candi, but i don't mind that idea. Otherwise amber would bring it down to within the markers.

So perhaps not the worst recipe and worth giving a go? Possibly subject to some of manticle's suggestions, especially if i can obtain the d2 syrup instead?

And the yeast, while i have the T58 there is still TBA.

edit: having just looked at the price of candi syrup (by the time it gets posted to me) i am not sure i can justify it

 

[antiphile]

Probably not what the OP wanted, but Coopers have a super easy kit recipe for a 6% Abbey Blonde on their site.

 

[eMPTy]

Ended up buying all the ingredients more or less in the image above. Also manticle, forked out for the d2 syrup. Figured it should be worth it after the amount it has been talked up here and elsewhere. May as well try the best.

 

[shacked]

Interested to see how this one turns out mate. Are you going to brew this weekend?

 

[eMPTy]

Would have loved to this weekend, but had to source some of that stuff off the Internet. My local doesn't seem to stock much. Ideally it all arrives fairly quickly and I'd brew Wednesday or Thursday next week. Will just have to see.

 

[eMPTy]

Oh, and because it was cheaper i bought my yeast online too, so will have to do some thinking and build up an appropriate stater.

 

[eMPTy]

So life got in the way of this, I finally got it done yesterday. This was significantly more involved than anything I'd done previously so I expected plenty of room for the unexpected in terms of outcome. That said, I think I did everything as I should have.

When I took the OG reading though I hit closer to 1.110 than the 1.094 expected. I was wondering if anyone may have had an idea as to what may have happened to cause this?

I did multiple partial boils if anyone thinks that may have had a significant impact and then combined all in the fermenter.

 

[shacked]

Nice one mate. Did you make a starter / pitch a lot of yeast??