Dark Belgian Strong Ale

[Pale_Ale]

Hi guys,

I'm going to brew up a Belgian this weekend and want to get your thoughts before I put it down.

The goal is to create something of a Dark/Brown Belgian Strong Ale. Something in the vein of Forbidden Fruit or Leffe Radieuse. I'm not trying to replicate any particular beer, but just wanting to create a strong, dark belgian type beer with complex nutty flavours, nice toffee overtones and just that 'belgian' taste that is so hard to put your finger on! And I want all this from an extract recipe with dried yeast!

So here's my initial thinking on it:

Brewer Batch 12.00 L

Recipe Characteristics
Recipe Gravity 1.087 OG Estimated FG 1.022 FG
Recipe Bitterness 24 IBU Alcohol by Volume 8.8%
Recipe Color 11° SRM Alcohol by Weight 6.8%

Ingredients
Quantity Grain Use
1.50 kg Amber D.M.E. extract
0.50 kg Dextrose extract
0.50 kg Brown Sugar extract
0.30 kg Wheat DME extract
Quantity Hop Form Time
8.00 g Simcoe pellet 60 minutes
15.00 g Saaz pellet 15 minutes
15.00 g Saaz pellet 0 minutes

1tbsp crushed coriander
T-58 Belgian Ale yeast
--------------

So with a ABV of 8.8% I'm somewhat close to the style at least in alcohol content!

Anyhow would appreciate any feedback!!

Cheers,
Pale

EDIT: Added yeast type

[warra48]

[chadjaja]

I've made this and it turned out pretty decent. Was originally Lethals recipe from here. He used bottle cultured chimay blue yeast from memory but the board is still out on if that is anywhere near the yeast they actually use or simply a combo of the yeast and the one they add at bottling.

ldme 2.3kg
black grain (crushed) 30g
soft dark brown sugar 400g
blended honey 250g
bittering hops hallertau 40g 40 mins
bittering hops goldings 20g 40 mins
T58
final volume 15litres

Temp is pretty forgiving with 18-22/23 degrees to get the phenols needed.

Actually put in 500g of honey bumping up the alc%. I've only had the one bottle at 3 months but soon to crack another this weekend at the 6 month mark to assess. Alan I made it with should be able to describe the beer more and he is a huge fan of what we made.

6.8% is litle low for STRONG belgian ale. Even leffe blonde is about that %.

Next batch we do I'm adding belgian candy sugar instead of the brown sugar and swapping the t58 for a proper strong belgian liquid yeast. Will also prob leave it in the primary a lot longer too.

[Pale_Ale]

Sorry, it's not a style I brew.

What yeast are you planning to use?

T-58.

I like the idea of honey so I'll sub the 500g dex for 500g honey. Should add a bit flavour wise too.

Thanks, anything else?

IBUs - ok at 24? Maybe I could even go a little bit lower. Simcoe will be smooth enough but perhaps it's worth taking it down just a tad.

[chadjaja]

Hydrate your dry yeast as well to give it a good start. Some say you should also raise the temp a few degrees towards the end of the fermentation too for this style.

This style beer has a low bitterness but you still need enough to off set it being too sickly sweet.

Have a look at this page too if you want to travel down the candy road.
http://oz.craftbrewer.org/Library/Methods/Sanders/candy.shtml or you can buy it by the bottle from craftbrewer. Thats what i'm going to do in the future and subtract the brown sugar addition.

This is great brew for those red wine snobs that wont touch my 'yobbo' home brew with a hearty meal or after meal drink. Most don't realise its even beer

[Pale_Ale]

Thanks for your ideas chad...

Some say you should also raise the temp a few degrees towards the end of the fermentation too for this style.

Any references on this one?

Have a look at this page too if you want to travel down the candy road.

You know what, I think I do want to travel down that road. So I'll scratch the brown sugar and sub with 400g Candy Sugar. the candy should make it a little darker too which will be a plus. I'll get a thermometer today - has anyone used the meat thermometers with the stake-type sensor?

Revised recipe:

Ingredients

Quantity Grain Use
1.50 kg Amber D.M.E. extract
0.50 kg Honey extract
0.50 kg Candy Sugar extract
0.30 kg Wheat DME extract

Quantity Hop Form Time
8.00 g Simcoe pellet 60 minutes
15.00 g Saaz pellet 15 minutes
15.00 g Saaz pellet 0 minutes

1tbsp crushed coriander seeds
T-58 Belgian Ale yeast

Cheers,
Pale

[Pale_Ale]

Got a candy thermometer last night so I'm all set to make half a kilo of inverted sugar to put in this brew.

I've also made another change - golden syrup instead of honey to make it slightly darker (it was a little light in colour at least for a dark belgian)

Quantity Grain Use
1.50 kg Amber D.M.E. extract
0.40 kg Golden Syrup
0.50 kg Candy Sugar extract
0.30 kg Wheat DME extract

Quantity Hop Form Time
8.00 g Simcoe pellet 60 minutes
15.00 g Saaz pellet 15 minutes
15.00 g Saaz pellet 0 minutes

1tbsp crushed coriander seeds
1 rind from an orange
T-58 Belgian Ale yeast

Putting it down on Sunday, any final thoughts are appreciated, otherwise I'll post the results once done. I have a good feeling about this one.

[PJ_1004]

Hi there,

I've been reading through this thread recently and thought I'd give something very similar a go. I've only brewed two beers so far so am very new at this, but have an affinity to the Leffe range of beers and quite like the Belgium style.


I've just put down the following brew two weeks ago:

Quantity Grain Use
1.70 kg Mangrove Jack's Belgium Ale
1.50 kg Amber D.M.E. extract
0.40 kg Golden Syrup
0.50 kg Dark Candy Sugar granules

Quantity Hop Form Time
15.00 g Cascade pellet 60 minutes
15.00 g Saaz pellet 20 minutes
15.00 g Saaz pellet 0 minutes

3tbps crushed coriander seeds
1 orange rind
Belgium Ale yeast (from Mangrove Jack's kit)


I brewed this at a hotter temperature than either of my previous beers and kicked it off at 40 degrees Celsius.

I'm surprised that it wasn't slightly higher, but the S.G. read a potential 7.05 % alc. when I threw it together. One week later, it has already dropped to 1.2 % remaining. Will be interesting to see how it continues. I was hoping for an alc % slightly higher - somewhere around 8.5% would have been nice but I'm sure the end result will be delicious.



How did yours turn out in the end??

[rotten]

I brewed this at a hotter temperature than either of my previous beers and kicked it off at 40 degrees Celsius.

Firstly welcome to the forum mate. Is that quoted ferment temp correct? I would suggest 18-22 c max, I'm surpised your yeast would still be alive at that temp. I don't know anything about that yeast but crikey that's hot. What temp did the kit instructions say to ferment at, out of curiosity?
Cheers

[earle]

If its a belgian yeast is it better to pitch it around 18-20C then bring the temp up over the first few days of fermentation. Planning a belgian ale soon also with T-58 and I think I read somewhere that you want a bit higher temps to get the belgian flavours out of the yeast. Agreed that 40C is way too high though.

[speedie]

T 58 has a dehydrated ring to me
come on all you liquid culture dudes lift your game

[warra48]

T 58 has a dehydrated ring to me
come on all you liquid culture dudes lift your game

You're not looking hard enough, speedie.

I posted this on 15/12/10 in the "What are you brewing?" thread.

This one's mashing right now:

Belgian Dark Strong Ale (sort of in style)
Batch Size 23 litres
Estimated Color: 43.3 EBC
Estimated IBU: 27.1 IBU
Anticipated OG about 1.080

4500.00 gm Pale Malt, Ale (Barrett Burston) (5.9 EBC)Grain 75.00 %
480.00 gm Munich I (Weyermann) (14.0 EBC) Grain 8.00 %
400.00 gm Special B Malt (354.6 EBC) Grain 6.67 %
250.00 gm Caramunich II (Weyermann) (124.1 EBC) Grain 4.17 %
150.00 gm Caraaroma (390.0 EBC) Grain 2.50 %
120.00 gm Maris Otter (6.0 EBC) Grain 2.00 %
100.00 gm Amber Malt (85.0 EBC) Grain 1.67 %
126.00 gm Strisslespalt Plugs [2.50 %] (60 min) Hops 27.1 IBU
0.50 items Whirlfloc Tablet (Boil 10.0 min) Misc
1 tsp Yeast Nutrient (Boil 10.0 min) Misc
1 Pkgs Trappist High Gravity (Wyeast Labs #3787) Yeast-Wheat
750 mil Belgian Dark Liquid Candy Sugar, to be added in two increments through fermentation.

Mashing at 64.8ºC (close enough to 65ºC for me).
Used rainwater, appropriately adjusted for the style of this brew.

[earle]

T 58 has a dehydrated ring to me
come on all you liquid culture dudes lift your game

Such a useful answer to my question.

[speedie]

from the passage to you earl have you used T58 in any of your brews dude!

[speedie]

give me your address and i will post all of my old (T58)stock too you!

[PJ_1004]

Firstly welcome to the forum mate. Is that quoted ferment temp correct? I would suggest 18-22 c max, I'm surpised your yeast would still be alive at that temp. I don't know anything about that yeast but crikey that's hot. What temp did the kit instructions say to ferment at, out of curiosity?
Cheers

Thank you - sorry I didn't respond sooner. For some reason I didn't get a notification that someone had replied

Beer tastes really good and fermented out quite well over the course of a week. Definitely faster than I would have liked but none-the-less very tasty. Hot weather here at the moment too so a faster ferment time was expected I suppose. Got a full 7.05% abv out of it though.

Just put down another on Saturday in an attempt to further perfect the same beer. Turned out that by throwing in the coriander seeds it clogged up my bottler Have taken someone's suggestion to steep the seeds for 20 minutes and then strain the liquid in, discarding the seeds. Also dried the orange peel first in the oven on low for an hour.
I swapped the golden syrup out and replaced with Molasses which is tasting really nice in the sample I took and also added an extra 1.5kg malt.

It has ended up as a potential 10.85% abv and over the past three days has already fermented down to 2.4% remaining so I'm really happy with that. Probably class it as a Quadrupel I'd say.

[PJ_1004]

Meant to add that the latest brew went in also quite warm at 34 degrees C and took three days to drop to 27 degrees C. Still warmer than probably best for the yeast but so far so good.

[Oliver]

For some reason I didn't get a notification that someone had replied

Hi PJ,

Notification of replies is not enabled by default. To enable it go to the "User Control Panel", click on "Board Preferences" then select "Edit posting defaults".

Enable "Notify me upon replies by default".

Cheers,

Oliver

[PJ_1004]

Ahh... Thanks Oliver. Quite a hidden away setting

Cheers,
PJ