Belgian Quadrupel recipe translation

I am thinking of brewing a Quadrupel but I only have grain percentages. Could anyone here translate those percentages into Lbs or ounces of grain for me? This will be for a 5 gallon batch.

Thank you and here is the grain bill

OG: 1.093
AE: 1.018

Grist:
Pale 2-Row – 90.6%
Special B – 1.9%
Aromatic – 3.7%
Cara-45 – 1.9%
Cara-20 – 1.9%
17.81oz Dark Belgian Candy Sugar added at start of boil

I don´t have brewing software here at work but you´ll need your estimated efficiency to do so.

I don't normally get the best efficiency so probably around %60

13.5 lb Pilsen
9oz Aromatic
4.8oz Cara-45
4.8oz Cara-20
4.8oz Special B
1lb Candi syrup

That'll get you 1.094 OG and 1.024 FG (probably closer to 1.019 if you use WLP500 - I get ~80-82% attenuation with it).

EDIT: this was written for 85% efficiency...

Okay, try this:

18 lb Pilsen
12oz Aromatic
6.4oz Cara-45
6.4oz Cara-20
6.4oz Special B
1lb Candi syrup (Add this at the last 5 minutes of the boil, not in the beginning)

Think I could benefit from adding more Candi sugar? Thanks alot for the translation.

I was considering the Wyeast 3787. Do you think that the WLP500 would be a good choice?

i really need to get a good beer program. do you have a recommendation for mash temp on this style? I have never made a Quad before.

Do you have an iphone/android phone? Beerpal is awesome, and it's $2 for iphone.

I'd mash between 150 and 152. I should have asked, are you making your own sugar, or using syrup or hard rock candy?

With the syrup, you add it at the end of the boil (5min addition) and I'm not sure how to add the hard candy. Probably earlier like you originally mentioned.

bbarnumboy said:

Think I could benefit from adding more Candi sugar? Thanks alot for the translation.

I was considering the Wyeast 3787. Do you think that the WLP500 would be a good choice?

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Candi sugar is an overpriced joke. Go with turbinado, jaggery, or just plain table sugar. Seriously. And yes, you could go as high as 20% on the sugar to help reach that og and dry out the finish.

Wlp500 is delicious, but I like 530 more for triples. 550 is also good. Really just pick a number, They're all delicious.

Also I disagree with the poster above me about when to add the sugar. Adding at the start of the boil contributes to delicious melanoiden production, which would be undesirable in a BGSA, but perfect in a quad. Be careful though, as the high gravity will affect hop utilization.

BudzAndSudz said:

Candi sugar is an overpriced joke. Go with turbinado, jaggery, or just plain table sugar. Seriously. And yes, you could go as high as 20% on the sugar to help reach that og and dry out the finish.

Wlp500 is delicious, but I like 530 more for triples. 550 is also good. Really just pick a number, They're all delicious.

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Well this is a quad. WLP500 is the most fruity, WLP540 is medium fruity, and WLP550 is most spicy/least fruity of the 3 Belgian Dark Strong strains from White Labs.

Also, I know you can produce different shades of invert sugar at home with beet or cane sugar and some acid and another chemical that I cannot remember (DAP?), but according to the sugar producers (I know, they are biased) there is no substitute for the syrups. I'm going to attempt a dubbel after the 1st of the year with homemade sugar in place of CSI's D-180 and WLP500 with the same grain and hop bill. We will see...

Thanks for the help guys. I am going with Candi sugar from the Homebrew shop and I will add it at the beginning of the boil to help said melanoiden. I am going to to probably use 1.5 lbs of sugar instead of the 1. I will go with the fruitier of the yeast, being the WLP500

Think 2 lbs of sugar is overdoing it?

thanks for all of the help guys.

This BYO article again recommends adding the syrup towards the end of the boil: http://byo.com/stories/wizard/article/section/121-mr-wizard/2402-can-you-explain-more-about-brewing-with-belgian-candi-sugar

2lbs of sugar won't even be close to overdoing it.

Again though, the "Belgian candi sugar" they sell you at your LHBS is literally just refined sugar (the same crap you buy at the grocery store) but for 10x the price. It's exactly the same. I highly urge you to go with something like turbinado so you can get some nice flavors and still save money. It's also available literally everywhere.
If you want to be super authentic, go with beet sugar. It's most white sugar at supermarkets, an exactly what they use in Belgium. I guarantee none of those Trappist monasteries use candi-sugar, it's a scam.

JordanThomas said:

This BYO article again recommends adding the syrup towards the end of the boil: http://byo.com/stories/wizard/article/section/121-mr-wizard/2402-can-you-explain-more-about-brewing-with-belgian-candi-sugar

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I'm sure it's a tomato/tomahhhto kind of thing

Jamil Zainasheff and Gordon Strong both advocate for the beginning of the boil, but beer is beer and it will be good, so go for whatever you really want. Just be sure to adjust your IBU's to compensate for the changed hop utilization.

BudzAndSudz said:

Candi sugar is an overpriced joke. Go with turbinado, jaggery, or just plain table sugar. Seriously. And yes, you could go as high as 20% on the sugar to help reach that og and dry out the finish.

Wlp500 is delicious, but I like 530 more for triples. 550 is also good. Really just pick a number, They're all delicious.

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The OP mentioned candi syrup not candi sugar. If it is in fact a dark syrup then the flavor you get from D-180 or D-2 is much different than the sugars you mentioned.

There is a difference between Candi sugar and table sugar. Table sugar is sucrose (glucose+fructose). Candi sugar is derived from sucrose but exists as the separate glucose and fructose sugars (an invert sugar). When yeast metabolize sucrose they must create the enzyme invertase to do so. With Candi sugar this enzyme creation is not necessary or required.

Some say that using candi sugar instead of table sugar produces less stress on the yeast since they don't have to produce an enzyme to hydrolyze it. But how knows......

Yup what i don´t understand is this: to make and invert sugar from table sugar you need heat and an acid. When you add table sugar to the boiling wort, you already have the heat and the wort is more acidic than plain water, woulnd´t the table sugar invert anyway?

beergolf said:

The OP mentioned candi syrup not candi sugar. If it is in fact a dark syrup then the flavor you get from D-180 or D-2 is much different than the sugars you mentioned.

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Well actually no, the OP says candi sugar, but syrup was mentioned later by a different poster. I agree with you though, syrup is a different beast, and in that case I can support the decision.

As far as invert sugar goes, I've read time and time again that the sugar rocks sold at LHBS are a waste of money. Syrups, go for it, sugar, you can find the same for cheaper.

I plan to use a D2 dark syrup. What exactly did you mean by Just be sure to adjust your IBU's to compensate for the changed hop utilization.

Higher gravity wort provides a more difficult environment for alpha acids to isomerize during the boil, and the higher OG masks the perceived IBU's. So if you add sugar at the start of the boil you need to add more hops to concentrate and if you add it at the end, you'll need less of your 60-90 minute bittering hops since your pre-boil gravity will be lower. I'm spotty on the calculations but with some research I'm sure you can find an equation.

Ok I get it. Still a little torn as to whether i should use the syrup at the end or beginning of the boil.

Use it at the end of the boil last 10 or 5 minutes.

I will try that out, seems like that method may keep more of the syrup flavors present

bbarnumboy said:

I will try that out, seems like that method may keep more of the syrup flavors present

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Exactly