The Strange Batch of Fr. Jekyll and Br. Hyde

I feel like having a very fruitful holiday season. I'm taking a week off, my wife is taking our daughter out of town for a few days, and I'll be home alone with my little man (toddler, junior brewer, especially loves to help me turn apple juice into "beer").

I have four beers I want to try in two weeks:

Sahti (don't know much about it, but intrigued)
Midas Touch (wife loves it)
Dubbel (haven't done one in a while)
Something Wild (Oud Bruin or Flanders Red)

Since I won't have a ton of time to execute, I thought maybe I could combine the dubbel and the wild into a single mash and boil and, of course, inoculate and ferment according to different schedules.

Double, for example, this 5g dubbel recipe:

• 5.5 lbs. Belgian aromatic pale malt
• 1 lb. carapils or dextrin-type malt
• 2 lbs. crystal malt, 20° Lovibond
• 1.5 lbs. Belgian biscuit malt
• 2 lbs. dark candi sugar
• 1 oz. Styrian Goldings (5.5% alpha acid, 5.5 AAUs): 0.5 oz.
(2.75 AAUs) for 90 min., 0.5 oz. (2.75 AAUs) for 45 min.
• 0.75 oz. French Strisselspalt hops (4% alpha acid,
3 AAUs) at end of boil
• 1 pt. starter of yeast from Chimay bottle

OG: 1.070
SRM: 25
IBU: 20

And follow this procedure:

1. Mash at 150 for 60.
2. Boil for 90 adding hops as indicated.
3. Cool, split, pitch yeast evenly.
4. Ferment for 1 week, rack both batches to secondary.
5a. For the dubbel, age a few weeks, bottle, condition, enjoy.
5b. For the wild, add oak cubes, pitch a sour blend bugs, and age for 1 year +/-.

So, what do you think?

I did something similar recently (July) with the second runnings of a barley wine I made. I shot for a 1.090 OG on the BW, and then about 1.030 (ended up about 1.040 after some extra efficency) for a table beer that I fermented with saison yeast then aged for 5 months on Brett.

I actually employed some calcs from this article on Parti-Gyle brewing. A good resource to start if you're looking to do a single "brew day" and end up with two beers of differing strengths.

Cheers,

Brewing Techniques is an awesome resource, thanks!

However, my thought was to make a single, 10g (maybe 8g) batch and split it in the fermenter.

Thanks,

Killinger said:

Brewing Techniques is an awesome resource, thanks!

However, my thought was to make a single, 10g (maybe 8g) batch and split it in the fermenter.

Thanks,

Click to expand...

In that case, everything looks fine. I do it all the time. The only thing I'd suggest is to let the sour beer dictate how long you age it. Keep tabs on the gravity and the flavor profile, and bottle it when you get what you want.

Cheers,

If it were me I would probably boil up some Maltodextrin and add it to the sour fermenter so the sour bugs have something to eat for the long haul. There really aren't a lot of unfermentables in the grainbill, and the maltodextrin will give you those. Just a thought!

Wait, wait, wait: Belgian Aromatic as base malt? Does it even have enough surplus diastatic power to convert the other grains? And will it taste good? It's usually recommended in the 10% range; a really pungently malty malt.

I snagged the ingredients and proportions right off BYO. I would be tweaking it here and there. I guess my fundamental question is: can you use the same recipe for a dubbel and a oud bruin (with significant divergence in the secondary)?

I guess the answer is yes, although I should consider feeding the bugs in the secondary.

Sound right?