Belgian Golden Strong Ale

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tagz

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I recently picked up Designing Great Beers to help with recipe formulation. It's a great book, but unfortunately, there is no coverage of Belgian ales. I want to brew a Golden Strong Ale in the near future and would like to do some reading before I start developing a recipe/technique. I've browsed through the recipe archives, checked out the wiki, and read several threads, but I'd love to find some full articles to read. Anyone know of any off hand?

And no, my library doesn't have Brewing Classic Styles. :(
 
The most recent BYO magazine has and article and recipes about Belgian Strong Ales, specifically referencing Duvel.
 
Sure. I'm probably going to go with a Tripel to keep things simple - Belgian Pils + Cane Sugar + Styrian. I'm going to listen to Jamil's podcast and do some more reading. I'll post when I'm done. The biggest choice is going to be yeast and fermentation temps.
 
There are a couple of nice Belgian Pale recipes in "Radical Brewing". I brewed one and it turned out nice. SWMBO loves it.
 
What kind of attenuation can I expect from Wyeast 3787? I've put together a grain bill that is something like:

65% Belgian Pils
18% Extra Light DME
18% Cane Sugar

The official AA is 74-78% but I see people taking gravities from 80 down to single digits. Also, do the online calculators like tasty brew or qbrew account for cane sugar fementing out at higher rates than extract? I'm getting all sorts of different OG/FGs for the different calculators.

If anyone that has beersmith would want to punch that in for me that would be awesome. It's a 3 gallon batch with a 4 gallon boil. I'm shooting for around 1.075 OG. Any help would be appreciated.
 
That strain is super attenuative. I've gotten 80% + AA out of it before. You just need to make sure you mash low and have a good healthy starter.

My recipe is super simple.
6 gallons 72% Efficiency

O.G. 1.075
F.G. 1.007
12lbs. Continental Pils
2.75lbs. Sugar (table)

2.25 oz. Willamette 5%AA 60 min.

Mash at 147 for 90 minutes. 90 Minute boil.

Now the there's a few tricks to doing this right and getting the correct flavor profile.

1. You want to make sure the yeast eats all of the maltose. When it starts snacking on that sucrose it can get lazy and not eat enough of the maltose, so you end up with poor attenuation. So what I like to do is leave the sugar out of the boil. Just mash your grains, drain the wort and boil as normal. Cool and pitch your yeast. Then when it hits high krausen (after about 3 days) add the sugar.

By doing this you're ensuring you're not stressing out your yeast with too much to eat at once. You're also getting a healthy fermentation going and your cell count up, and you're giving it a chance to eat the maltose before going to town on the sucrose.

2. Ferment it low and then ramp up. I start fermentation cool at 66 degrees (or as close to it as possible). Wait two or three days after you've added the sugar to the fermenting beer and then just let it free rise, but try to keep it under 75.

3. Carb that sucker up to 3.25 - 3.5 volumes.

Hope this helps.
 
I just made a solution of 1 pint of water per pound of sugar, cooled it, and dumped it via funnel 3 days after the initial pitch. Fermentation has been going great. Started at 64-65; after 9 days it's now up at 72. I wrapped it up in some down vests and the temperature has been ramping up naturally. Still has a nice big krausen and is bubbling away.
 
I like to make a solution, and dump it in. Give it a gentle swirl, but not too much as you don't want to get too much oxygen in there.
 
Brewing classic styles

11# pilsener malt mash at 149 for 90 min

3# cane sugar

3.5 AA Sazz hops 2.25 oz for 90 min

pre boil O.G. 1.056 at 7.7 gal FG 1.007

IBU at 32, 3 SRM, ABV 8.5%

WLP570 yeast or T-58

pitch at 64 and raise to 82 over time
 
I will add my recommendation for Stan's book "Brew Like a Monk". It was a great read that really makes you understand the styles well enough to make your own recipe.
 
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