Yardy, don't know that much about the style myself but have tried a couple of my brothers HB's done in the style and they were bloody marvelous. Also like every description I've read and quite like the idea of having a light bodied but high alc/vol brew
. Hence the liberal use of sugar in Belgian brews.
From what I gather, Belgians are low hopped, so I don't plan on any further additions. Aparently in this style, hop flavour is just used for balance and shouldn't be prominent. The guy at the HBS actually suggested I go for a draught instead of the sparking for the kit component. He reckoned the hop in the sparkling might be a little too bitter for the style
I don't actually know what hops were in the steep, bought it as a pre-mix and didn't think to ask about the hop component until I got home. It's a mix intended for European style brews.
Used the citric acid for sugar inversion as per the article
http://oz.craftbrewer.org/Library/Metho ... andy.shtml
just added more than recommended as I thought it may be a substitute for the lack of using orange (probably completely off track but oh well
)
I'm just as much in the dark as you, but will let you know how it turns out. I'm pretty keen on this one.
Cheers, Ed