Westvleteren 12 clone competition & swap - Page 9

juvinious · 11-08-2009, 05:06 PM

Damnit my computer died sometime yesterday so I wasn't able to check up on the results immediately. Congrads KingBrianI, interestingly iirc, your recipe was done with stepped sugar additions correct?
I was totally surprised that my traditional did the better of the both Saq's and Freeze's.
And more surprisingly is that Saq's new world recipe bested the traditional ones. All in all this was a fun run and I hope we get another swap/comp sometime next year and see how our process evolves.

KingBrianI · 11-08-2009, 06:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by juvinious

Damnit my computer died sometime yesterday so I wasn't able to check up on the results immediately. Congrads KingBrianI, interestingly iirc, your recipe was done with stepped sugar additions correct?
I was totally surprised that my traditional did the better of the both Saq's and Freeze's.
And more surprisingly is that Saq's new world recipe bested the traditional ones. All in all this was a fun run and I hope we get another swap/comp sometime next year and see how our process evolves.

Thanks, I added the candi syrup at high krausen and the candi sugar a day later. I think what might have given my traditional a bit more complexity is that I did several large decoctions, whereas I think mostly everyone else did only a small mashout decoction. It will be interesting to see the tasting notes to see whether the difference was evident. Saq, do you plan on summarizing the findings from the different methods is some form? I think it would be very interesting to study.

saq · 11-09-2009, 02:32 PM

KingBrianI,
Yes, I'm going to be pouring through the recipes today in addition to drinking some of the extra bottles we didn't get through at the competition (almost all only needed the one bottle with 3 judges).
Its going to be tough though, because there were so many similarities. All of them were fairly good representations of the style of Dark Strong Ale as compared to Westvleteren. That being said there were a lot of differences in body, flavor characteristics etc. I'll see if I can pull anything out of the recipe sheets.

KingBrianI · 11-09-2009, 02:59 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by saq

KingBrianI,
Yes, I'm going to be pouring through the recipes today in addition to drinking some of the extra bottles we didn't get through at the competition (almost all only needed the one bottle with 3 judges).
Its going to be tough though, because there were so many similarities. All of them were fairly good representations of the style of Dark Strong Ale as compared to Westvleteren. That being said there were a lot of differences in body, flavor characteristics etc. I'll see if I can pull anything out of the recipe sheets.

Great, I look forward to seeing it. Drinking through the leftover bottles sounds like fun!

juvinious · 11-09-2009, 03:51 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by KingBrianI

Thanks, I added the candi syrup at high krausen and the candi sugar a day later. I think what might have given my traditional a bit more complexity is that I did several large decoctions, whereas I think mostly everyone else did only a small mashout decoction. It will be interesting to see the tasting notes to see whether the difference was evident. Saq, do you plan on summarizing the findings from the different methods is some form? I think it would be very interesting to study.

Well I went with a double decoction, though unfortunately screwed up and boiled for 90 mins and had to add additional sugar at high krausen to make up for the undershot OG.
But yeah I agree, I can only assume a heavy decoction schedule and 120 min boil are key to get the complexity in the beer which you managed to achieve.

I'll be interested also in his summary of findings, especially since he'll be mulling over the recipes while imbibing the remainder of the libation.

Freezeblade · 11-09-2009, 04:02 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by KingBrianI

Thanks, I added the candi syrup at high krausen and the candi sugar a day later. I think what might have given my traditional a bit more complexity is that I did several large decoctions, whereas I think mostly everyone else did only a small mashout decoction. It will be interesting to see the tasting notes to see whether the difference was evident. Saq, do you plan on summarizing the findings from the different methods is some form? I think it would be very interesting to study.

Well, I did a pretty big decoction on mine, from 122 to 146, then up to 156. although my protein rest was a bit long (it was my first decoct) so that might have screwed some stuff up. I would love to see tasting notes though.

saq · 11-09-2009, 05:33 PM

I think one of the biggest indicators of flavor is going to be percentage of gravity by sugar. I did about 13% in my new world vs 17% in my traditional. Considering we don't know how much sugar they add this could be an important factor. Some of the entries did taste a little thin.

saq · 11-10-2009, 02:02 AM

Ok, a couple of notes from reading through the recipe sheets and the score cards. I don't have Bokonon's entries so the summary is a little incomplete.

The good:
They were all very good examples of a westvleteren 12 style quadrupel. Aside from one flat one and one that didn't seem to carb up well they were without serious flaws.

The bad:
The differences aren't significantly pronounced and peoples entries are similar enough you could write all the variation between #1 and #8 to the brewers personal influences and minor things like water profile, fermentation temperature and sugar recipe.

What we learned

Aroma

Not much to say here as everyones beer (even the flat ones didn't do too bad) had some great aromas. If anything the Westvleteren was par for the course. I think the recipe is pretty hard to do wrong (barring defects/infections) in the aroma department. ALL of them had some complex malts with significant and wonderful cocoa notes. Lots had some dried/candied red/brown fruit, and some had a nice candied/burnt banana. Two had some vegetal/bean-ish notes which weren't bad, as the Westvleteren actually had this character as well. Not sure what causes this, but I think everyone did well here.

Appearance

Color
Most of the entries were lighter than the real thing. As I suspected 80 SRM is insufficient, even with putting all 3lbs of candi sugar in at the beginning of the boil. I believe my 3rd batch (which went into the Cuvee de Tomme project) was nearly spot on and that had 3lbs of 160 SRM D2 sugar. My New World recipe (26 srm) was close but still a bit lighter. One of Bokonon's entries (probably new world) was darker than mine and really close to the darkness of the real thing. If you want to come close to the "real thing" shoot for 30-32 SRM minimum.
However, they were all MORE THAN sufficiently dark for entry as a 18E and I didn't feel that any of them were too light. Your personal preference here.

Clarity
We ran the gamut here, some hazy entries, some fairly clear entries and two nearly brilliant entries and nobody used finings. The real thing was pretty clear despite is considerably dark color. Only the really hazy ones probably got a ding for being too hazy, but they didn't get dinged as badly as ones with carbonation problems.

Carbonation
For the most part everyone scored perfect here aside from two with issues. The real thing was fairly inline with those that entered beers as 2.8-3 vol/CO2. Interestingly my New World I did at 2.6 vol/co2 and it did well enough

Flavor

Bitterness
This varied little and more or less close enough. That being said a lot of the entries were 4-5 months old at this point. If you want it drinkable younger maybe cut the bitterness down to about 30-32 IBU. Again your personal preference.
Interesting note: A few people had 120 minute boils & hop additions for their traditional and KingBrianI had a 60 minute hop addition. I don't think it mattered at all.

Hoppiness
This style is not supposed to have any real noticable hop characters and nobodies did. Whats interesting about this is that KingBrianI had some 15 and 0 minute hop additions whereas most other people's last hop additions were 25-45. Again giving it 4-5 months and the low IBUs is going to render this aspect moot. You could make your brewday easier by having less additions, maybe not even bothering with finishing hops.

Overall Flavor

Some were a little lighter in malt flavor/biscuit/bread but none got too heavy, I think the amount of sugar is part of the deal here. We ranged from 12-19% of the gravity from sugar, though its hard to just look and see what peoples efficiencies were. Some very un-scientific measurements based on the data we have makes me think somewhere in the middle is a nice balance of malt/sugar flavors and body. A good number of the beers were similar to Westvleteren, with some with more malt/body and some with less malt/body. I think 14-16% is a good target, and you can probably get away with more sugar if you do a big decoction on a traditional recipe.

All had a good amount of esters (within style) but some were a little less than Westvleteren and I think one got dinged for being "too clean". On the recipe sheets I'm also noticing a near correlation in lower fermentation temperatures with reduced esters comments. First place had a fermentation temp of 82, second place had a fermentation temp of 84, and third place had a fermentation temp of 81. A lot of others only got to 80. I think this aspect is pretty important and 82-84f is probably the ideal target.

As with the aroma, all of the beers had a very significant nice cocoa note.

Mouthfeel
As mentioned in the Overall Flavor aspect, some were a little lighter in body and richness than Westvleteren 12, but were well represented for the style . However none of them were cloyingly sweet nor too dry and fairly well balanced overall. Hard to say here as the grainbills and proportions are all fairly similar. Given that a new world recipe did so well against so many traditionals I think that some residual body from the grain must be at play, large decoctions will help this aspect but must be balanced with the amount of sugar.

Overall
Overall this was a really good competition and project, with most people's scores being 38 or higher which is "Excellent" by the BJCP. I think everyone that participated and didn't have issues have beers that are worthy of any competition, and the ones that did have issues were fairly minor and could be easily fixed.

My takeaway from this is that both the new world and traditional recipes can get pretty damn close! I am glad I decided to do a new world recipe as I feel it provided valuable input for judging, but will probably continue to brew the traditional recipe in the future. When I do The Pious #3 (last one didn't count because it went into the bourbon barrel for souring right away) I will go with the same recipe I have posted in the other Westvleteren thread but adjust the sugar to 15% of grist.

KingBrianI · 11-10-2009, 02:12 AM

Cool info, thanks for taking the time to put it together!

saq · 11-10-2009, 02:18 AM

Here is what I think The Pious #3 recipe will be and I think it will be pretty damn close to the real thing.

Recipe Specifications
--------------------------
Batch Size: 5.50 gal
Boil Size: 8.27 gal
Estimated OG: 1.092 SG
Estimated Color: 33.8 SRM
Estimated IBU: 35.2 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 70.00 %
Boil Time: 90 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amount Item Type % or IBU
8.00 lb Pale Malt (2 Row) Bel (3.0 SRM) Grain 42.11 %
8.00 lb Pilsner (2 Row) Bel (2.0 SRM) Grain 42.11 %
1.00 oz Northern Brewer [8.50 %] (90 min) Hops 25.7 IBU
1.00 oz Styrian Goldings [4.10 %] (20 min) Hops 7.0 IBU
0.50 oz Hallertauer Hersbrucker [2.80 %] (20 min)Hops 2.4 IBU
3.00 lb Dark 2 Belgian Candi Syrup (160.0 SRM) Sugar 15.79 %
1 Pkgs Abbey Ale (White Labs #WLP530) Yeast-Ale
1lbs sugar added to beginning of boil, 1lbs added to last 5, 1lbs added in secondary.

Mash Schedule: Decoction Mash, Double
Total Grain Weight: 16.00 lb
----------------------------
Decoction Mash, Double
Step Time Name Description Step Temp
10 min Protein Rest Add 32.00 qt of water at 137.5 F 132.0 F
30 min Saccharification Decoct 8.79 qt of mash and boil it 151.0 F
30 min Saccharification Decoct 4.85 qt of mash and boil it 159.0 F