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G'day again,

Given our current crop of warmish weather, I think my attempts at brewing a low-alcohol lager may have to wait a little while.

So, to best capitalise on the climate, I think I'll go for the opposite. I'm thinking a Chimay Blue clone. Quite possibly it's the polar opposite of a light beer in every way. And given the high gravity, I suspect this is going to need at least six months in the bottle to mature, so if I want a serious winter warmer, now is the time to brew.

My initial thoughts are to follow the recipe contained in Mike Rodgers-Wilson's book "Brewing Crafts" fairly closely. However, I'll throw the recipe up here for you guys to examine to see if there's any easy-ish improvements I can make. An all-grain is beyond my technology at this stage, but I'm happy to do an extract brew, particularly if the finished product is around 9.3%...

Here's the recipe, all honours to Mr Rodgers-Wilson:

Makes 15l.

Yeast starter made from a bottle of Chimay Blue
2.3kg LDME
30 black grain crushed
400g soft dark sugar
250g blended (not Eucalypt!) honey
40g Hallertau @ 30-40 min
20g Goldings @ 30-40 min

My only concern is a probable lack of head retention due to the alcohol content, although I don't recall Chimay having a massive head either.

Any thoughts?

G'day Lachy,
Good luck in making a decent Blue clone - not having a mashtun / all grain recipe will make the challenge all the more harder, but not entirely impossible.

IMHO, if you're planning on doing an extract based Chimay Blue clone, you'll need to pay careful attention to the grains, sugars, hops and yeast that you use in conjunction with the malt extract. The dregs from the bottle are a good start - so to is a smackpack of Wyeast 1762 - Belgian Abbey Ale II...

In terms of grains, I would use Chocolate Malt for the "black Grain" addition if you want to darken it further....the soft dark sugar should be invert or clear Belgian Candy sugar that you can either make yourself or buy from a half decent HBS. I would also steep some crystal malt. Ideally, either Belgian Aromatic or Special B malts would be used.

And for those brewers who want to do an all grain Chimay Blue clone, here's a recipe I've been working on that may be a decent starting point for the clone:


Trough Lolly's Chimay Blue Clone
Grains:
4.8kg Belgian Pale Malt (or Vienna if you like)
1.1kg Belgian Cara-Pils
200g Light Crystal Malt
220g Special B

Sugar:
500g Belgian Clear Candy sugar

Hops:
7.0% Cluster (20g for 90 minutes)
4.25% Hallertauer (12g for 20 minutes)
5.5% Styrian Goldings (12g for 20 minutes)
3.75% Saaz (30g for 2 minutes)
Optional:
2 teaspoons Irish Moss (for 20 minutes)

Post boil volume = 19L
OG: 1.085 FG: 1.014
9.2% Alcohol v/v
6 days in primary, 27 days in secondary - months in the bottle!

Cheers,
TL

Hmm... I like the way you're thinking. Chocolate and crystal malt would definitely be a good bet I think. The fermentable sugars and the right hopping schedule are going to be the really tricky bits.

Good luck in making a decent Blue clone - not having a mashtun / all grain recipe will make the challenge all the more harder, but not entirely impossible.

I agree wholeheartedly... at the very least, cloning Chimay Blue is a mighty task. I mean, it's Chimay Blue. It's the Trappist Uberbeer. Doing a decent extract brew with limited equipment will probably be nigh-impossible. However, if I can create something that comes close to serve as a winter warmer, I'll be happy.

Again, this is a recipe for me to cogitate on.

Lachy.

Have a read through this post.

http://www.homebrewandbeer.com/forum/vi ... php?t=2031

Lachy wrote:if I can create something that comes close to serve as a winter warmer, I'll be happy.

while cloning a near-perfect chimay blue is far from easy, making a good strong dark belgian ale isn't, IMO. they're my favourite style of beer by a long shot too

Hi guys,

I've been reading through my Brewing Crafts book and have decided I want to have a go at the Chimay recipe at the top of this post.

The recipe calls for 2.3kg of dry malt extract.

I just wanted to find out whether there would be any advantage in using some liquid malt extract in combination with dry malt rather than using just dry malt extract?

If so how much liquid and how much dry extract would you recommend?

Thanks for your help!

Jimmy

if you want to use liquid, go about 20% more liquid than dry, to compensate for the water content.

kiwijimbob wrote:I just wanted to find out whether there would be any advantage in using some liquid malt extract in combination with dry malt rather than using just dry malt extract?

We've just had an argument about this, but I can't find the thread, so I'll summarise from memory.

Diffs between liquid and dry malt:
- liquid contains 20% water.
- liquid is packaged in a can, which may keep it fresher, or it may impart twang.
- you generally need to use the whole can with liquid; dry is generally easier to handle and you can use fractions of a package easily.
- kevnlis reckons liquid imparts more body. I reckon that it shouldn't matter, and that it's the mashing schedule of the manufacturer that's important.
- dry might be processed more (in order to remove the last 20% of water) which man adversely affect initial freshness.

kiwijimbob wrote:If so how much liquid and how much dry extract would you recommend?

If you want to use liquid, then work out how many whole cans you need to use, then make up the remaining fraction with dry.

I did this one

LDME 1kg
Liquid Extra Pale Malt 1.5kg used this because I thought I had another 2kg at home but it was Wheat Malt
black grain (crushed) 80g Edit....In pot at 66 degrees celcius for 1 hour, strained and sparged into pot
soft dark brown sugar 400g
Yellowbox honey 250g
bittering hops hallertau 38g....again, all I had
bittering hops goldings 20g
Safale S04 yeast
final volume will be 15litres

I think I did the boil for about 40 Minutes....

The original recipe that Lethal posted is on P2.

Belgian


Cheers

Boonie

Thanks for the quick responses guys!

rwh wrote:We've just had an argument about this, but I can't find the thread, so I'll summarise from memory.

Here it is.

Cheers,
Greg

i made the recipe a while ago that is in that book, and if i tried it again i'd leave out the brown sugar and honey, as TL said, use a belgian candi sugar, also some crystal or belgian specialty grains, perhaps even a small amount of smoked grain.

Would like to try the AG TL posted.