Good basic belgian recipe?

Hey guys,

I have been looking through the recipes and trying to google but I can't settle on a good belgian recipe. I am looking for something with that distinct belgian yeast flavour with a dark colour (i will use my own candi syrup that turned out really dark) and an abv range of maybe 6-8%. I dont want it to be too strong if it can be avoided.

something with a simple mash schedule would be preferred!

Im sure if i keep googling i will find something, but i figured I might as well ask the experts. This doesn't have to taste like a westy or a rochefort 10 on the first try. I'm just looking for a simple belgian recipe that can be used as a base for tweaking over many times!

thanks!

pwnshop said:

Hey guys,

I have been looking through the recipes and trying to google but I can't settle on a good belgian recipe. I am looking for something with that distinct belgian yeast flavour with a dark colour (i will use my own candi syrup that turned out really dark) and an abv range of maybe 6-8%. I dont want it to be too strong if it can be avoided.

something with a simple mash schedule would be preferred!

Im sure if i keep googling i will find something, but i figured I might as well ask the experts. This doesn't have to taste like a westy or a rochefort 10 on the first try. I'm just looking for a simple belgian recipe that can be used as a base for tweaking over many times!

thanks!

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I personally like Pilsner and Pale malt as a base with a little Munich. Maybe a specialty grain like CaraMunich, CaraVienna, Special B or Chocolate.

I'll give it a rip:

45% Dingeman/Weyermann Pilsner
30% Dingeman/Weyermann Pale
10% Light or Dark Weyermann/Briess Munich
5% Specialty Malt (CaraVienna or Special B)
10% Dark Syrup

Challenger hops for bittering (i've used them and like them)
Saaz for flavor
Maybe around 24 IBUs

Anyone of the popular Belgian yeasts will do, although I am partial to WY3787 Trappist HG (Westmalle strain)

Mash at ~148F for an hour or more.
Boil for 60-90 minutes.

If you want to use your own candi syrup I'd try a trappist style dubbel. I've had great success using just pilsner malt with some wheat and candi syrup. You can add in special B for more raisiny caramel flavor to go with the candi syrup if you'd like. Maybe like 70% pils, 20% wheat, 10% candi syrup

The real key is the yeast selection and handling of it. My personal favorite is a wyeast PC collection yeast 3864 Canadian Belgian. But really any Belgian yeast you pick should turn out well. Let them free rise at room temp and they will be happy and produce lots of typical belgian esters

+1 to all of the above. Special B is good for darkening and adds some nice malty flavor. Pale/pilsner/munich/special B is a good, simple combo. You could throw in one more just for fun if you want. I've done Aromatic and Amber (yes, really) with good results. Read the descriptions for the various Belgian yeasts to see what you want. My last one I used WLP530 Abbey Ale - nice dark plum flavor.

Belgians are ALL about the yeast. Some of the most famous Belgians are just one grain (pale or pilsner), one hop and yeast. The yeast type, mash schedule and fermentation temps are what create the complex flavors.

I'd keep it super simple and use all Belgian pale malt, ~1.070 and take it down to 1.010 or lower. Mash at 149ish. Use Tettnanger or Styrian and Saaz hops. WLP500, WLP510 or WLP550 and ramp the temps up. Wait 3 days of ferment before you throw in the syrup. Leave it in the fermentor for 4 weeks, don't transfer it to anything else.

Make sure you use a big starter, and aereate the wort with an oxygen stone. You will get something like a darker Duvel.

Hey guys thanks for the advice! I made a first draft of a recipe based on a combination of your suggestions. Do you see anything you would change? Also if I went all pilsner instead of a pilsner/pale combo would that be fine? Its a small amount of pale I'm not sure what it would contribute? Regarding the yeast my lhbs carries wyeast only. I think I will decide on the strain once I'm there!

Dubbel
Belgian Dubbel
All Grain (5.00 gal) ABV: 7.62 %
OG: 1.072 SG FG: 1.015 SG
IBUs: 23.7 IBUs Color: 27.0 SRM
By:
Ingredients

3 lb - Pale Malt (2 Row) Bel
Mash addition (22.2%) - 3.0 SRM

9 lb - Pilsner (2 Row) Bel
Mash addition (66.7%) - 2.0 SRM

8.0 oz - Special B Malt
Mash addition (3.7%) - 180.0 SRM

1 lb - Candi Sugar, Dark
Mash addition (7.4%) - 275.0 SRM

0.75 oz - Challenger
Boil 60 min (16.4 IBUs)

0.50 oz - Saaz
Boil 30 min (4.5 IBUs)

0.50 oz - Saaz
Boil 15 min (2.9 IBUs)

1.00 Items - Whirlfloc Tablet
Boil 15 min

Pilsner has a lower diastatic power for conversion, buts its fine as you don't have a lot of other grains to make up for. You should do a full rolling 90 minute boil though to drive off DMS, even with the partial pale recipe you have there. Don't skip that part, unless you want a cooked corn Belgian.

Yeasts: you can still go to the White Labs site and look at brewer feedback on yeast performance. When you see one you like, find the Wyeast equivalent. It's worth the research since the yeast in a Belgian is everything!

I pretty much always do a 90 minute boil! For yeast I'm pretty certain I will be going with the wyeast 1762 (Rochefort).

Good choice. 3787 is similar and will be a little dryer and fruitier. 1214 or 3522 Ardeness are also nice for dubbels. White Labs 545 made a good one for me but there isn't a Wyeast equivalent.

I've never boiled longer than 60 minutes on any of me darker Belgians. I'd say only a Tripel would need a 90 minutes

Derek1985 said:

I've never boiled longer than 60 minutes on any of me darker Belgians. I'd say only a Tripel would need a 90 minutes

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DMS doesn't affect dark beers?

Komodo said:

DMS doesn't affect dark beers?

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Speaking generally, it's normally masked by the roasted/specialty malt flavors.

I've never experienced it. I think it's overhyped personally. Vigorously boil and you should be good. Besides, the percentage of DMS boiled off in a 90 min vs. 60 min boil is < 10%. In theory of course.

hey guys,

So I did my first attempt at a dubbel using the recipe i posted on page 1 and the rochefort yeast. Actually I was quite happy with how it turned out!

The biggest problem was that there was ZERO head retention. I typically get poor head retention on most of my beers but this one takes the cake. I don't know if it was due to blowing the mash temp or something else... Anyways if i pour by dumping the beer into the glass from a great height I get a nice big foam, which then abruptly disappears in about 30 seconds leaving no bubbles at all on the top...

Anyways what I wanted was a base recipe to tweak and develop until i have something I really like, and I got that. So now I'm going to tweak it a bit and make it again. Main goal is to increase head/head retention. Here is my proposed second version:

Amt Name Type # %/IBU
8 lbs 8.0 oz Pilsner (2 Row) Bel (2.0 SRM) Grain 1 63.0 %
3 lbs Munich Malt (9.0 SRM) Grain 2 22.2 %
8.0 oz Cara-Pils/Dextrine (2.0 SRM) Grain 3 3.7 %
8.0 oz Special B Malt (180.0 SRM) Grain 4 3.7 %
1 lbs Candi Sugar, Dark (275.0 SRM) Sugar 5 7.4 %
0.75 oz Challenger [7.50 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 6 17.5 IBUs
0.50 oz Saaz [4.00 %] - Boil 30.0 min Hop 7 4.8 IBUs
0.50 oz Saaz [4.00 %] - Boil 15.0 min Hop 8 3.1 IBUs


Basically I swapped the 3 pounds pale malt in the original recipe for Munich (I read Munich is nice in a dubbel, and wasn't sure why I was using 3 pounds of pale to begin with?) and added a half pound of carapils since the head retention was so garbage on the first try.

I really want to have a nice foamy head on this one, but I keep reading not to use carapils in a dubbel. why is this? If that is true what should I use instead?

Thanks for any advice guys!

P.S I carb'd the first one to about 2.6 - 2.7 vols. It seemed flat, especially side by side with a rochefort 8. the taste was similar but the carbonation in the rochefort was WAY higher. What would be a good carb level to shoot for on this try? I'm just using regular bottles, so I don't want to go too high and risk bombs!

That looks like a great dubbel recipe! For head retention, I would include some flaked barley instead of 1lb or 2 of munich or pislner.

For reference, here's a thread where I posted my dubbel that got 2nd place overall in a recent competition. I has great retention. I used some wheat in it:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=511103

m00ps said:

That looks like a great dubbel recipe! For head retention, I would include some flaked barley instead of 1lb or 2 of munich or pislner.

For reference, here's a thread where I posted my dubbel that got 2nd place overall in a recent competition. I has great retention. I used some wheat in it:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=511103

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I considered using Wheat in place of the pale! Ultimately I opted to go Munich instead, mostly because I haven't seen too many recipes for dubbels using wheat... I'm not sure that matters though? I could try doing a 8.5lb pilsner / 3lb wheat recipe instead?

Are you suggesting using flaked barley along with the carapils? or to drop the carapils and use flaked barley instead?

It's really hard to settle on a course of action. I was mostly happy with the recipe aside from the head retention issue, so I mostly want to just address that without changing too much else..

8.5lb pils and 3lb wheat seems like it would be good. Id sooner use wheat than munich in a dubbel since they arent typically supposed to be too malty. Its got some caramel raisiny flavors going on but the focus should still be on the yeast.

I didnt see the carapils. I think if youve got that and some wheat thatll do the trick

I've used flaked barley with good results. I also usually carb it at the high end - 2.9 or even 3 vol.

great thanks guys.

i think I'm going with this for round 2, unless you see anything objectionable?

Amt Name Type # %/IBU
9 lbs 8.0 oz Pilsner (2 Row) Bel (2.0 SRM) Grain 1 70.4 %
2 lbs White Wheat Malt (2.4 SRM) Grain 2 14.8 %
8.0 oz Barley, Flaked (1.7 SRM) Grain 3 3.7 %
8.0 oz Special B Malt (180.0 SRM) Grain 4 3.7 %
1 lbs Candi Sugar, Dark (275.0 SRM) Sugar 5 7.4 %
0.75 oz Challenger [7.50 %] - Boil 60.0 min Hop 6 17.7 IBUs
0.40 oz Saaz [4.00 %] - Boil 30.0 min Hop 7 3.9 IBUs
0.40 oz Saaz [4.00 %] - Boil 15.0 min Hop 8 2.5 IBUs

i want to carb at 3 vols or maybe even higher. Most of the belgians I love seem to be carbed well above 3 vols. I do worry about bottle bombs though so I'm not sure how far I want to push it..

I weigh all my bottles and save the heavier ones for high carbed belgians and brett beers. For a 12oz bottle, 95% of them weigh between 195 and 205 grams. Any bottles noticeably higher, I keep set aside. Both deschutes and stone seem to use bottles that everage aropund 225g. Most european bottles also seem to be heavier with traditional belgian ones coming in over 300g.

On the subject of head retention and wheat in a Belgian.

If you have wheat on hand, go ahead with 1-2lbs of it. It wont drastically change the character of the beer and will give you head retention "insurance". It might change the character a little in a single, but anything higher gravity than that the character of the wheat will be masked by the alcohol and yeast character.

Some would advise against it and its true that in the 'traditional' recipes theres no wheat to help with head retention and they dont have issues with head retention. Though, why risk a beer looking flabby without a fluffy head when it will not change the character of the beer in a noticeable way?

(for reference I have a all pilsner/table sugar tripel 9.5%, no head retention, delicious, but 0 head retention, on the other hand a 11.5% BDSA pilsner/1lb of wheat/dark candi sugar big fluffy rocky head)

ArkotRamathorn said:

On the subject of head retention and wheat in a Belgian.

If you have wheat on hand, go ahead with 1-2lbs of it. It wont drastically change the character of the beer and will give you head retention "insurance". It might change the character a little in a single, but anything higher gravity than that the character of the wheat will be masked by the alcohol and yeast character.

Some would advise against it and its true that in the 'traditional' recipes theres no wheat to help with head retention and they dont have issues with head retention. Though, why risk a beer looking flabby without a fluffy head when it will not change the character of the beer in a noticeable way?

(for reference I have a all pilsner/table sugar tripel 9.5%, no head retention, delicious, but 0 head retention, on the other hand a 11.5% BDSA pilsner/1lb of wheat/dark candi sugar big fluffy rocky head)

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I have been a little hesitant to add wheat to this recipe, mainly because I know it is "wrong".. But I don't want to end up with another flat version of this beer and so far the wheat and flaked barley have seemed like the simplest solutions..

I guess for my own peace of mind I would ultimately want to create a belgian recipe and brew it exactly true to style, but I'm not quite at the point where I could pull it off. I don't know anything about step mashing or decoction mashing, and I have issues with simple things like hitting proper mash temp, poor head retention etc.

So hopefully I can brew it like this and it will turn out well and then once I champion some of the simple things I have been struggling with and begin to tackle some of the more advanced processes I can cut out the wheat and go with an all pilsener / candi sugar grain bill, maybe keep the B.

Thats what I'm hoping anyways..