strong dark belgian recipe. whad'ya think?

tell me what u think of this Belgian Strong Dark Ale recipe.

7.9# Light LME
2# High Malt Glucose
1# Special B malt
1# Inverted Sugar
8 oz Amber Malt

2 oz Hallertau 60 minutes
1 oz East Kent Goldings 30 minutes
1 oz Saaz 15 minutes.

Yeast cultured from a bottle of Chimay Red.

If you get a hold of dark candi sugar, use that instead of the invert.

I think that's a touch too much special B. I'd shoot for like .5lbs of that and maybe add in some caravienne or some other specialty to add complexity.

Do you have any chinese supermarkets around you? We have this place called "Hong Kong Supermarket" in Jersey here that has basically belgian candy sugar for $1 lbs. Much cheaper than using all that pricey HBS stuff.

You can easily make your own dark candy sugar. THere are plenty of procudures available online..but I will give you basic outline.


1. get a sack of sugar
2. add some water to the sugar to make a paste and put it in a pot
3. add a pinch of citric acid
3. keep the mixture between 260 and 275 until you reach the color you want. A nice amber candi too me about an hour
4. bring up to the hard crack temp, 300,l and then pour on some cookie sheets to cool overnight
5. Crack it up, put in bags and freeze it.


there you have it.

OUtside of that I am unsure of your recipe.

Special B is strong stuff, but is widely considered necassary for belgian dubbels and dark strongs.

I bet you would make a better dark strong ale like this

10 pound pilsen extract
2 pound dark candi sugar
8 oz special B

I would have put Pilsen extract in, but its not readily available for me so i went to the closest thing that was.

And so you think the hops are okay as they are?

Pivot said:

I would have put Pilsen extract in, but its not readily available for me so i went to the closest thing that was.

And so you think the hops are okay as they are?

Click to expand...

The hops are nice, to be honest you could ditch the 30 minute addition....


I have recently cultured the chimay yeast myself.......so you are in for a treat. I actually tasted my starter and it was awesome!


The key the belgian beers is the yeast, light body and extreme attenuation. Light extract will be fine, you would make a great beer with light extract and dark candi alone. The yeast is the trick.

so would it be unpleasent if I added the full pound of Special B instead of the half pound? or is it just not to peoples taste to use that much? only cuz I have a full pound of it and would have no other use for the other half and would end up throwing it out probably

It could very well be unpleasant. It is strong stuff. 1/2 pound is considered a lot in an all grain recipe, I am not sure how much of the flavor will come out when steeped, but you can try it if you want.

haha okay. ive never used it before so I was curious, but if thats the case then im only using a half pound of it haha. thanks !

just saving you from a potential mistake. I used to use far to many specialty grains in my brews.......soon you come to realize that they are to be used in moderation and that they are only a part of the equation.

Let us know how the chimay yeast works out for you, I can give you some advice on using it. Start the fermentation in the mid sixties for a few days and then ramp it up. I let mine get up to 75 degrees and it still took 3 weeks to fully attenuate. The yeast is slow but get's the job done nicely.

I have a tendency sometimes to get into my new beers a little bit too early, but this one is going to be my babyy. im going to give it as much time as it needs!

and thanks im going to do what you said with the yeast. sounds goood

If you want to do it chimay style, give it 3-4 weeks in primary, rack it to secondary for a month, and then bottle it. Wait at least 6 months before touching the stuff.

The chimay you drank was aged 18 months in the bottle.

Here is a great little recipe to enjoy belgian yeast if you are impatient.

6 pound light DME/LME
1 pound candy sugar
20 IBU of whatever you have
Chimay Yeast

let it ferment for 3 weeks, bottle it for 3 weeks and enjoy.

I'd add about 6 oz of flaked oats to it.