Dubbel Recipe

Looking to make a good Dubbel. If anyone has really good Westmalle or Maredsous 8 recipes that would be helpful, but this is what I am thinking so far:

65% Belgian Castle
9% CaraMunich
7% Aromatic
2.5% Special B
1 % Carafa III (for color)
16% Turbinado Sugar
wy3787


Comments? Thanks

I would probably reduce caramunich and combination of special b and aromatic to 3%-4% of grain bill and replace carafa III with chocolate malt (1%-1.5% of grain bill) for color. I use pale malts (usually maris otter) for the base of my dubbels. The most important thing is probably the yeast (and your fermenter temp control) and you chose the Westmalle yeast. Please report back on what you choose to do and what the results are!

If you're going with a "modern" recipe, I wouldn't sweat the base malt too much. I used 76% Briess Pilsner, 7% Caramunich, 3.5% Aromatic, 3.5% Special B, and some homemade dark candy syrup. One 90 min hop addition and Wyeast 1214. Mine ended up being a near clone of Chimay Red, but of course I was using the 1214 yeast. In your case, as the previous poster mentioned, you're right on target with 3787 for Westmalle.

So, I have made the changes and this is what its come to

67% Belgian Castle
7% CaraMunich
4% Aromatic
3.5% Special B
1.2% Carafa III
17% Turbindo

I have a Tripel going right now that I pitched at 66, then when it had started going I rasied to 68, and after 48 hours I will ramp up to ~73-75 to finish. I am also planning on cold crashing these beers for about 1 week at 38 instead of my normal 3 days. I'm using yeast from a cake of a 1054 and the starter from the Tripel was a monster so I will hopefully get some good attenuation.


What did you guys mash at? I am thinking 150ish?

Probably your beer will reach full attenuation within 4-7 days.

I don't like ramping up to the higher temps for a dubbel - you get full attenuation without raising the temperature, and personally I don't like the extra banana in the beer. But mainly, it is just that you will get full attenuation if you stay between 66-72 degrees (and the low end makes better flavor, in my opinion!) 150 sounds like a good mash temp.

meadowstream said:

Probably your beer will reach full attenuation within 4-7 days.

I don't like ramping up to the higher temps for a dubbel - you get full attenuation without raising the temperature, and personally I don't like the extra banana in the beer. But mainly, it is just that you will get full attenuation if you stay between 66-72 degrees (and the low end makes better flavor, in my opinion!) 150 sounds like a good mash temp.

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I thought that if you kept the beer in the low end during the first 48 hours or so, that was when most of the flavors were created by the yeast. After that window, I thought the yeast would not produce any "off" flavors associated with the higher temp. Am I wrong? Or is it differnet with Belgian yeast?

I think you are right about temperature control during peak fermentation activity being important, but fermentation continues for a time after peak and ongoing organic and inorganic reactions continue, too, for days or longer.

I was only describing my approach and you may end up making great beer with your method - and I am looking forward to hearing your description of how your brewing and fermentation process went, and your description of how your beer tastes, too.

meadowstream said:

I think you are right about temperature control during peak fermentation activity being important, but fermentation continues for a time after peak and ongoing organic and inorganic reactions continue, too, for days or longer.

I was only describing my approach and you may end up making great beer with your method - and I am looking forward to hearing your description of how your brewing and fermentation process went, and your description of how your beer tastes, too.

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What kind of ferm schedule do you normally use?

coypoo, I pitch somewhere around 80 deg and then bring the temperature down over the next few hours to ~65 before letting it rise to 68-69 on its own during the 36-48 hour peak fermentation period. I set my temp controller to 70 with a 5 degree diff and let the temp fluctuate between 65 adn 70 for a few days before gradually dropping the beer a degree or so every day to ~55 degrees. Eventually, I bottle and cork and condition at 70 deg for 2-3 weeks.

The slow decline to 55 is interesting. What kind of attenuation do you normally get?

Coypoo - my dubbels range from 1.084 to 1.067 (and points between) and they always seem to finish at 1.012. I should probably start blending so that they are more consistent, but I am still trying variations of recipes to see what I like best.

1084 to 1012 is pretty serial attenuation (85%). Hopefully I can get above 80%, although I missed my mash temp and was a little high and stirred it for a while to bring it down but I'm not 100% sure the wort will be as fermentable as possible.


Hopefully I'll remember when I brew it (very end of May) to post back some results.

Attenuation with recipes that have some sugar component should be high. I bet your mash will be plenty fermentable - you probably did not denature your enzymes (unless you were at a really high temp for a long time.) You can check with an iodine test how fully your mash is converted before moving on to sparge and boil.

With over 10% crystal malt, the kind of attenuation (between 80-90) most Belgian breweries get may be difficult, even with sugar. If you really want to keep all of that crystal malt, I'd mash lower than 150. Maybe 145-146.