Belgian something or another

Well, I've been messing around with this recipe. Here's where I'm at right now. I'm pretty sure I'm making this more complicated than it needs to be. Also, this has basically turned into more of a BIAB, instead of a the typical extract w/ specialty grains type that I've brewed so far. Based on what I've read about the Wyeast Belgian Ardennes yeast, it might attenuate down a bit further than what Hopville calculated. So, if might be well above 9% by the time it's done.

One thing I'm wondering about this recipe is whether I should do a 'bulk aging' or just age it in the bottles for a good long while. I'm looking to possibly do this brew in early August and aim to have it ready to drink by Christmas time. Is that enough time for a beer this big to be ready?


% LB OZ MALT OR FERMENTABLE PPG °L
44% 6 0 Northern Brewer Amber Malt Syrup 36 10 ~
15% 2 0 Belgian Pale 37 3 ~
11% 1 8 Belgian CaraVienne 34 21 ~
11% 1 8 Belgian CaraMunich 33 47 ~
7% 1 0 Belgian Candi Syrup A 36 45 ~
7% 1 0 Corn Sugar (Dextrose) 46 0 ~
4% 0 8 Belgian Special B 30 170 ~

Batch size: 5.0 gallons

Original Gravity
1.088 / 21.1° Plato
(1.079 to 1.092)

Final Gravity
1.023 / 5.8° Plato
(1.020 to 1.025)

Color
25° SRM / 49° EBC
(Brown to Dark Brown)

Mash Efficiency
75%

Hops
USE TIME OZ VARIETY FORM AA
boil 60 mins 1.0 Sterling pellet 6.3
boil 45 mins 0.5 Sterling leaf 6.3
boil 30 mins 0.5 Mt. Rainier pellet 6.8
boil 20 mins 0.5 Mt. Hood pellet 6.0
boil 15 mins 0.5 Mt. Rainier pellet 6.8
boil 10 mins 0.5 Sterling pellet 6.3
boil 5 mins 0.5 Mt. Hood pellet 6.0
dry hop 7 days 1.0 Citra pellet 11.0

Boil: 3.5 avg gallons for 60 minutes

Bitterness - 32.2 IBU / 9 HBU

Wyeast Belgian Ardennes (3522)

Alcohol 8.7% ABV / 7% ABW
Calories 291 per 12 oz.

Mostly looks pretty good. One thing I would change is to limit the types of hops by cutting the citra dry hops as these are fairly different from the boil hops and you already have three types going on. That's also a whole lot of caramel malt, I would cut out a pound of both the caravienne and caramunich.

+1 on cutting back on cara. Would probably choose to bottle after 3-4 weeks and let sit for 8 weeks.

Yeah, I went a little overboard on the Cara malt. Would it be better to eliminate one of them completely? Or just cut back on both? I'm definitely interested in layering for a more complex flavor profile, but I wasn't completely sure it made sense to go with both of those grains.

NB Amber LME contains Pale Malt and C60, so you already have quite a bit of maltiness there. And I'm not sure on the fermentability of that stuff, but I'd guess it finishes higher than you may want. If it were me, I'd use a lighter extract (Pilsner?) and keep ~8oz of the Cara malts - I prefer the complexity of those vs C60.

Good yeast choice. I'd count on it finishing below 1020.

I just checked out this website: http://www.yeastcalc.com/

According to their calculations, I would need to do about a 2.5 Liter starter with an OG of 1.037 to get enough yeast growth for this recipe. I used the option of intermittent shaking, because I don't have a stir plate. Does that seem about right?

That is based on reducing each of the Cara malts to 1 lbs instead of the 1.5 lbs. listed above.

Can you just use a smack pack instead of 2.5l starter w/o stir plate? Only 5 gallons...?

meadowstream said:

Can you just use a smack pack instead of 2.5l starter w/o stir plate? Only 5 gallons...?

Click to expand...

Big difference in cell count there...

You could do a 1L starter, cold crash, decant, and step up to a 1.5, and that will give you the pitch rate you need, or a 2

I've actually never done a starter yet, so I appreciate the suggestion. How long would the 2-step starter take, in comparison to a bigger initial starter?

And yeah, I used the Brew Pal app, and it says the batch should use almost 300 billion cells for optimal pitching. And a smack pack only has 100 billion. So, I'm pretty sure I want to give the starter a try for this batch. I'm moving in the next couple months, so I won't be brewing this until at least the end of July.

One thing I'm wondering about is the aging process. With this being such a big beer, I'm guessing it would be good to age it a bit. Would it be good to do some bulk aging for a while? If so, could I hold off on the dry hopping until it's already aged for a month or so? That way the hop aroma wouldn't diminish as much, right?

Wyeast designs their smack packs for use with 5 gallon batches.

But not all 5 gallon batches are created equal. A 5 gallon batch of 1.040 or so would be no problem with a single smack pack. I've done that. But this batch is looking to be above the 1.080 mark, even after reducing the Cara malts a bit. A single smack pack might eventually ferment it down, but probably not very efficiently and probably with some off flavors from stressing the yeast.

I'll probably push the temps towards the higher range to get more of that Belgian character, but I don't want whatever flavors might come from stressing the yeast.

signpost, that is common wisdom that I see posted here often. Can't say there is no validity to it, but I have never seen attenuation or flavor issues - and is this likely with robust and flavorful Belgian yeasts?

I make 2 liter starters for my 15 gallon batches with a stir plate and have seen people say that you would need gallon+ starters... but my Belgians are very good and no off flavors are evident. I suspect that if you aerate/oxygenate your yeast, have 50% less yeast than optimal, and ensure that yeast nutrients are present in sufficient quantity, then you won't have an issue with off-flavors or attenuation.

What is it that you think will stress the yeast? Are you worried about temperature issues, nutrient issues, oxygen issues, or something else?

Dry hops should be added at the end of secondary or primary if you do not plan to do a secondary. A week will probably be enough. Leaving the hops for to long might create a grassy/skunky flavour.

Doing a secondary condition in the fermenter will be a bit faster since there is more yeast in the fermenter than in bottles. Doing aging in secondary however has the risk of oxidation.

That's 26% crystal. Blam suggests not exceeding 7% crystal over 40 love. I've found Belgian dark strongs turn out a lot better getting flavor from candi syrups vs crystal malts.

Looks like you're going for something like outblack?

signpost said:

And yeah, I used the Brew Pal app, and it says the batch should use almost 300 billion cells for optimal pitching. And a smack pack only has 100 billion. So, I'm pretty sure I want to give the starter a try for this batch.

Click to expand...

yep, you'll definitely want a starter. smack-packs leave the manufacturer with 100B cells, but that count starts diminishing almost immediately. play with mr malty to see how quickly the population dies off (hence the importance of getting fresh yeast!).

signpost said:

One thing I'm wondering about is the aging process. With this being such a big beer, I'm guessing it would be good to age it a bit. Would it be good to do some bulk aging for a while? If so, could I hold off on the dry hopping until it's already aged for a month or so? That way the hop aroma wouldn't diminish as much, right?

Click to expand...

i'm a proponent of bulk ageing, so do it if you can. you want to hold off on dry-hopping until the end of bulk ageing. if you want to dry-hop for 7 days, then add the hops to the bulk ageing container 7 days before bottling (i.e. the last 7 days of bulk ageing, and remove the hops just before you bottle).

Wyeast recommends a 1.5 L starter with your OG you are shooting for:

See here.

They say about underpitching:

"Under-pitching on the first brew will not only produce an aroma and flavor profile that is less than desirable, but will also lead to less consistency and fewer generations of use from that culture."

Here is what they say about High Gravity Brewing.

I like using step starters because it is less stress on the yeast, but I do a lot of high gravity batches. A Wyeast Smack Pack should be good for a 2L, You wouldn't really need to step in order to get your proper inoculation rate.

All a step starter is, is essentially making a small bit of beer say 1L to start out with, siphoning or decanting the beer out of it after crashing it and sending the yeasties to the bottom, then using that cake to make say a 1.5L starter, this increases your Inoculation rate, and stresses the yeast less. I always thought of it as, well you don't pitch a vial into a 1.1 wort, because it will cause off-flavors (although off-flavors are technically only off-flavors if you don't desire them, in some cases perhaps some people do), so for the really high gravity beers where I need huge cell counts I step it up. I think you would be fine with just a 2L, or you could step 1 to 1.5. Some would probably say in this case, not needing any more cells than you do, that would just further risk contamination or something. Dunno, many here are wiser than I, I just like math.

I am pretty comfortable with my sanitation regime, so stepping up from 1L to 1.5L seems to provide a big bang for what it requires. The time and planning aren't a problem. I'm a teacher and plan to brew this while I'm off for the summer. The extra couple days for stepping up the starter isn't a problem.

Also, I've never done a starter, as the biggest beer I've done so far was about 1.062 and I just pitched 2 smack packs. I probably didn't need the 2 full packs, but that was my first batch and I was way too much of a noob to try a starter at that point. I know that compared to many of you, I am still definitely a noob, but I have had a voracious appetite for reading and doing research on the whole brewing process and feel comfortable trying for the optimal pitch rate rather than whatever would be easiest/quickest/least risk.

So, I'm kind of excited to do the starter and even step it from 1L to 1.5L. According to the yeastcalc site, stepping it up like that gives much more growth than doing even a 2.5L single step starter.

Well, it's been a while, but I'm finally getting ready to brew this batch. Just got the starter going and I'll be brewing tomorrow afternoon.

I've made some changes to the recipe (lowered the amount of the darker grains, eliminated the dry hopping altogether, and came up with a hop schedule that approximates the continual hopping idea from Dogfish Head), so I may post an updated version a little later.

I'm getting excited.

The BIAB plan for mashing the grains went out the window when the bag ripped. So, I ended up doing a loose mash in my kettle, then strained out the grains. The yeast starter worked out great. There was airlock activity within only a couple of minutes of pitching. I nailed all of my overly-complicated hop additions (didn't RDWHAHB until after I pitched the yeast). The hops smelled amazing and I think the blend is going to make another appearance in future brews (sterling, mt. rainier, mt. hood, styrian goldings).

I'm psyched that this batch is in the carboy instead of a bucket so my dad will be able to watch the activity (it is sitting in his basement). He was really fascinated by the process, so I really enjoyed the brew day even though it took a whole lot longer than it should have.

Good day. Hopefully a good brew.

Took a gravity reading yesterday while preparing to bottle a different batch. All of the various calculators I had plugged the recipe into said the FG would only ferment down to 1.021, or 1.019 at the lowest. Yesterday's reading was at 1.012, so I guess I had some over-achieving yeast.

I poured some in a glass as a sample. The aroma and taste were pretty much dead on what I was hoping for. Rich, malty, caramelly, fruity, and spicy with a complex, but subdued hop profile. No single aspect of the aroma or flavor dominates. Many layers balanced evenly. I'm going to transfer to secondary in the near future for some bulk aging before I bottle it.

With my lower than planned OG, it looks like this brew is close to 8% ABV. It was supposed to be slightly higher than that, but I'm happy with this first attempt of this recipe so far. I've already started making a few adjustments to the recipe for when I get around to a 2nd attempt.

So, I decided to just go ahead and type up a full/detailed report of my brew day. Nobody else might read this or comment, but I wanted to share it anyway.

Yeast:

1.5 L starter made from one smack pack of Wyeast 3522 Belgian Ardennes

I made the starter the day before I intended to brew, but my schedule changed and it had 2 days to ferment out before I brewed. So, when the fermentation was finished, I put it into the fridge until brew day. Then took it out of the fridge as I was starting to prep for the brew in order to let it come to room temp before it was time to pitch it.

Fermentables:

2 lbs. Belgian Pale malt
1 lbs. Belgian CaraVienne
1 lbs. Belgian CaraMunich
8 oz. Belgian Special B

6 lbs. NB Munich LME
1 lbs. Belgian Candi Syrup - Amber 45
1 lbs. Corn Sugar

I intended to do a BIAB mash for the 4.5 lbs of grain, but the bag didn't cooperate. So, I ended up with the grains loose in the kettle, and then had to strain them out. I lost control of my mash temps just a bit, which might have contributed to lower efficiency. Also, I might not have used enough water to sparge/rinse the grains.

Hop schedule:

60 minute boil

0.5 oz. Sterling at 60 min.
0.5 oz. Sterling at 55 min.
0.25 oz. Sterling at 47 min.
0.25 oz. Sterling at 40 min.
0.25 oz. Mt. Rainier at 34 min.
0.25 oz. Mt. Rainier at 28 min.
0.25 oz. Mt. Hood at 24 min.
0.25 oz. Mt. Hood at 21 min.
0.25 oz. Mt. Rainier at 18 min.
0.25 oz. Mt. Rainier at 15 min.
0.25 oz. Sterling at 12 min.
0.25 oz. Sterling at 10 min.
0.25 oz. Mt. Hood at 8 min.
0.25 oz. Mt. Hood at 6 min.
0.25 oz. Styrian Goldings at 4 min.
0.25 oz. Styrian Goldings at 2 min.
0.25 oz. Styrian Goldings at 1 min.
0.25 oz. Styrian Goldings at flameout

This was my attempt to approximate a continuous hopping (ala Dogfish Head). My wife was keeping an eye on the hop schedule. I was keeping an eye on the clock. My dad was hanging around asking all kinds of questions and smelling the hops constantly. It was a fun and busy boil. Nailed all the timings and didn't have anything even close to a boil over. Although, the only time it started to really foam up at all was actually near the end of the boil. In the last 10 minutes, every hop addition caused some foaming. A fair amount of stirring kept it at bay, though.

Chilled the wort down below 100 F within 20 minutes. Then got it down to 80 F by the 30 minute mark. At that point, I poured it into the fermenter and added the top-off water. This was when I made one of my mistakes. I added too much water. I shook the daylights out of it to combine the wort and added water, then took a gravity reading. Ended up with 1.070 for the OG, which was quite a bit lower than I expected. Most likely because of the extra water added and also lower than expected efficiency from the mash. But anyway, the added water and time taken for the OG reading got it down to 73 F and I went ahead and pitched the entire 1.5 L starter and got the airlock in place. Adding too much water to top off and then adding the full 1.5 L starter made my 5 gallon recipe into a 5.5 gallon batch. I took a couple minutes to organize a few things so they would be ready to be cleaned. Then before taking the carboy to the basement, I already noticed some fermentation activity. Letting the starter come up to room temp and pitching the whole thing made for the quickest starting fermentation I've ever had.

Anyway, took it to the coolest spot in the basement (had another batch sitting at a steady 68 F) to keep the fermentation from getting too hot. Left it there for 2 days and it stayed at about 73F the whole time. Then moved it upstairs where it was able to rise up to a steady 75 F and it actually hit 77 F briefly before calming down.

It has been sitting at about 73 F since then. I took a gravity reading a few days ago when I was bottling another batch. It was at 1.012, which is significantly lower than any of the predictions from various online/app calculators. Although, I'm sure they just figure the predictions based on the published attenuation predictions from Wyeast, which I'm sure are conservative estimates.

I'm planning on doing a fair amount of bulk aging (at least a few more weeks or so), so I will be transferring it to secondary in the near future. I'm just waiting, because I want to brew another batch that I can pitch right on top of the yeast cake from this batch.

So, I guess that's it for now. I know this reiterated some of what I wrote in other posts, but I wanted to get as complete an account of that brew day as possible and have it all together as one post. This was my first attempt brewing from an original recipe, so the more details I keep track of, the more control I'll have over what I adjust when I brew it again. I was in the middle of reading Brew Like A Monk on this brew day, and have since finished the book. I definitely took some pointers from the book and will use the information therein as I make adjustments and create other new recipes in the future. Very good book.

Sounds like a fun brew day.

Holy hop schedule batman...wow, bet that keep you busy. Takes some serious concentration to keep all that straight.

Well, it's been five months since I brewed this batch. And just a couple months since it was bottled. At this point it is tasting better and better every time I crack open a bottle.

The first couple bottles I tried (2 & 3 weeks after bottling) were not very good at all. There was pretty much a complete lack of aroma and flavor. I think that was from a combination of super hot alcohol presence and the CO2 not being thoroughly absorbed into the liquid. So, the CO2 dissipated quickly after pouring, taking most of the aroma with it. Then the alcohol over-whelmed everything else.

Luckily, I didn't post a stupid 'is my beer ruined' thread. Believe me, I thought about it. When I did go to bottle, I found that the airlock on the secondary had gone pretty much dry. So, as I tasted the first couple bottles, I thought all of the aroma 'escaped' through the airlock. Then I thought it must be oxidized. All kinds of crazy thoughts went through my mind making me regret ever brewing the batch.

I didn't panic too much though. I just decided to let it sit. The original plan was to let it age until Christmas time. So, after those first couple bottles, I didn't try it again until Thanksgiving. I put a couple bottles in the fridge about 3 or 4 days before Thanksgiving and they were significantly better than what I had tasted before. Some dark fruit flavors were starting to come forward, and I was actually able to detect some sort of aroma. It was the hops! Great Scott! I thought all hop presence would have faded in the months since the brewday, especially with the airlock going dry. But no, the hop presence was actually coming forward more and more every time I cracked a bottle open.

I just had a bottle last night and the fruit flavors are blowing me away at this point. It was my first beer of the day, and dinner had been a few hours earlier, so my palate was pretty well fresh for getting the full flavor of the brew. Man, was it good. Delicious fruity flavors that seem to be getting brighter as it ages (even some cherry notes, along with the dried/dark fruit I had noticed earlier). Spicyness from the hops and yeast melding together. The hop bitterness is starting to cut through the fruity malt flavors. I can imagine if this ended at a higher OG, it could very easily have been cloying because of a combination of real sweetness and the perceived sweetness of the fruit flavors.

I have had a few bottles over the last couple weeks and it is noticeably different and better every time. I think I'll get a few chilling for Christmas and New Years, then set aside a good number to age longer. I might save some for NEXT Christmas and brew a new batch (with some alterations) in the meantime for comparison.

On Thanksgiving, I planned on sharing this and samples of a couple other batches with whoever wanted to try them, but nobody was really interested in beer that day. As this gets better and better, I'm perfectly OK with nobody else wanting to try it. More for me that way.

The main change I'm planning on making the next time around is aiming for a higher OG and ABV, and also switching to pilsener as the base malt/extract and a darker candi syrup. That might mean I have to brew it earlier in the year to have it ready for next Christmas, but I'm ok with that. I will keep a closer eye on the airlock, though.

congrats on the tasty beer. as you've discovered, big beers need time. Save as many as you can for 6+ months.

the aroma did not 'escape' through the dried airlock. even if there is liquid in there, escaping gases will blow through that liquid - so dry or not, the same is going to happen. the liquid does nothing to "retain" aromas. it only acts as a one-way valve to prevent outside air (which contains oxygen and contaminants, things best left on the outside) from getting in. in many instances you wouldn't want to keep those aromas. some fermentations are downright stinky. do a search on this forum for "rhino farts".

Yeah, I've figured that out by now. My newb-brewer brain just went stupid when the beer didn't taste the way I thought it would. I was trying to figure out what I had done wrong. Turns out my mistake was just plain impatience, and luckily that mistake can be fixed pretty easily in this situation.