Duvel like Recipe?

**cercueil** · 04-23-2008, 08:29 PM

Hello All. I am new to this forum. I am a newbie and brewed 2 kit beers that came out pretty good. I want to "make" my own recipe for a belgium duvel like beer (Extract). I ran across some recipes and came up with the following (depending upon what my home brew shop has). Any comments or suggestions are greatly appreciated. I also had a question about the aging of Belgian Beers. How long do they need to age? Some recipes call for 2-6 months. Is this the norm for Belgium beers or is that just for Belgian Strong Ales? Thank you for your help.

.25 lbs. Belgian Munich or Belgian Pils
.25 lbs. Belgian Biscuit or German 2-row Pils or Belgian Cara-Pils

3 lbs. Dry Extra Light Extract
6 lbs. Liquid Light Extract

1 lbs Belgian Candy Sugar Clear
1 lb corn sugar?

2 oz. Saaz pellets (boiling) or Styrian Goldings
1 oz. Kent Goldings pellets

WYeast 1728 Scottish Ale or WYeast 1388 Belgian Strong Ale

.5 cup corn sugar (bottling)

landhoney · 04-24-2008, 02:28 AM

The Scottish is not right, 1388 is the correct Duvel yeast though. I recommend going to the Jamil Show archives on www.thebrewingnetwork.com and listening to the Belgian Strong Golden Ale show. Your recipe looks pretty good, part of the reason to listen to that show is to learn about how to do a mini-mash with the extract to make it more fermentable and getting the dryness you need for this beer. Good luck.

count barleywine · 04-24-2008, 04:32 AM

Jamil provides a Duvel clone in Brewing Classic Styles. Its pretty easy, goes alittle something like this: 8.4lb pilsner LME, 3lb cane sugar, no grains, 2.25oz czech saaz for 90 min. His recipes are based on 7gal boils, but you can do 3.5gal with half the malt, the rest added at flame out. Hop additions remain the same. His recipes are really on point, and I'm also looking to pitch this onto a Belgian cake this week. Good luck.

-He also recommends pitching the yeast at 64deg, then ramping to 82deg as fermentation progresses.

brewt00l · 04-24-2008, 12:08 PM

A couple things to consider...depending on how close to duvel you want to get. Like mentioned WLP570 or 1388 is the way to go. It's an all pils brew with a light srm so definitely go with pilsner extract if possible and late addition. Hops are typically listed as Styrian Goldings & Saaz. I would also consider going with a partial mash and using pils in place of some extract & skipping the additional specialty grains. You can go w/ 2lbs of cane if you want to skip the candi. The ramped up ferment temps is also something to consider to keep the esters & phenols in check while getting the attenuation you want to keep the beer nice and dry.
http://www.duvelusa.com/uploads/news/thedevilmakesyou.pdf

**cercueil** · 04-24-2008, 03:07 PM

Thank you all for your help. I am going to listen to that show and definitely do some more research before I brew this one. I'm probably going to make it in about 2 months so maybe I will leave it outside to ferment to get the temperature higher.

sconnie · 04-24-2008, 04:22 PM

I've never brewed a Belgian strong ale, but I just wanted to point out that your grain selections that you've put as "this or that" are far from interchangeable. Belgian pils is NOTHING like Belgian Munich, and Biscuit, 2-row, and carapils are also all very different. My guess from the flavor profile of duvel is that you don't need any of those grains if you're doing extract, just a very pale pilsner extract and sugar, but again i've never made one.

**cercueil** · 04-24-2008, 08:17 PM

sconnie...Thanks for that advice. I'm new to brewing so I dont know the grains that well. From the consensus here it looks like you dont need any grains at all. Do all belgians beers take a long time to bottle condition or is is just the high gravity ones?