Tips for brewing a strong belgian ale

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frumguzzler

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Gentleman, I was wondering if anyone has any tips on brewing my first strong Belgian ale. I am using Abey ale yeast from white labs. Is a blow off a must any tips on not to have a stuck ferm. Much appreciated .

Guzzler
 
Blow off is good idea - my first Belgian Golden Strong got pretty messy. You have any recipe ideas or anything? How are you at maintaining fermentation temps?

The best advice I can give when brewing any Belgian brew is to read "Brew Like a Monk" cover to cover. Very interesting book, lots of history along with recipes, malt/hop/yeast profiles, when to use what, etc
 
My house usually stays at 68. I am following a recipe from Clone Beers. The recipe does call to ferment from 70-72 . Maybe time to buy a aquarium heater?Do you know how long you have to ferment the damn thing before you could guzzle?. Thanx in advance
 
If you want to learn a lot about the style and the optimal fermentation, I'd recommend giving a listen to the "Belgian Golden Strong Ale" episode of the Jamil Show on The Brewing Network.

The Brewing Network.com - :

Jamil's recipes are usually pretty good too, if you're looking for any other recipe ideas.
 
Look at Mr Malty Pitching Rate Calculator to get your starter right.

Use pure O2 for 1 to 2 min through an aeration stone.

Have a way to warm it up after the first 2/3rds of fermentation.

Use 20% to 30% simple sugar. dark candi, inc. This is the stuff to use for Dark Strong Ale.

For Golden you can use clear syrup, table sugar, honey, or a few other kinds if you look around.

Mash in the 147-149 range for 60-90 min and then mash out at 168-170.

And like others have stated read Brew Like a Monk http://www.brewlikeamonk.com/. Not everything in the book is true, but it will get you started.

Good luck
 
Would this be a good beer to brew now, age, then be drinkable in the summer.....
 
Thank you gentleman for all the generous feedback. I hope i do this one right . The ingredients where about 80 beans.
 
Would this be a good beer to brew now, age, then be drinkable in the summer.....

Brew now, age, and drink in the fall.......... While it may be refreshing, it certainly isn't light. I generally don't like to drink sipping beers in the summer. I want something I can quaff, and a Belgian strong I don't think fits into that category. One the plus side more aging = better flavor for this kind of beer. I've just tapped into a keg that has been aging for a year and it is very fine!
 
I just brewed a dark Belgian a few weeks ago. I used wlp500 and kept the carboy near my hot water heater to get the ferm temp in the high 60s (I know some belgian strains like it much warmer). I did use a blowoff-and needed it. The guy at the LHBS recommended turbinado sugar (sugar in the raw) as a substitute for candi sugar-a lot cheaper and according to him-very similar.

The only real problem I had was that I under-sparged, and under-boiled. I was low on my OG because I should have collected around 10 gallons-but I only have a 10 gal BK. Until I have a bigger mash tun and BK, I think I'll have this same problem with any big beers though-not just Belgians.
 
My house usually stays at 68. I am following a recipe from Clone Beers. The recipe does call to ferment from 70-72 . Maybe time to buy a aquarium heater?Do you know how long you have to ferment the damn thing before you could guzzle?. Thanx in advance

If the temp of your house is 68, that beer will be buzzing along at least 70-72 while it's fermenting without any help. I'd say you're in good shape.
 
The warmer you can get it during ferment the better. Start cool and get it up into the eighties. The phenos are what make it so good. I'm brewing a ten gallon batch in the morning and am pitching a one gallon starter and around 60 degrees. I hope to ge it up in the mid eighties to dry it out. I might put a drop of beano in and let it sit for 1/2 hour befor the boil to make it more fermentable and the end product dryer.
 
Check out "Brewing Classic Styles" as well. In it, Jamil shows a lot of Belgian recipes with excellent guidance. I'd be careful to ferment cool in the beginning (to avoid harsh alcohol tastes) then ramp up later.

As for blowoff, my Belgians have been disgusting messes during primary fermentation (which I actually think is kind of cool looking...makes it look like there is something very serious and interesting going on inside the fermenter).
 
My recommendations for brewing a Belgian Strong:

1) Make a big, healthy starter. The yeast will have a lot of work to do.
2) Aerate really well before pitching.
3) Don't add sugar to the boil. Add it to your primary after most of the fermentation is done.
4) Pitch cool and let the temperature rise.
5) Be patient.

I'll also add that adding a few drops of Fermcap before pitching has eliminated any worries about blowoffs for me.
 
3) Don't add sugar to the boil. Add it to your primary after most of the fermentation is done.

Hmmm. I haven't tried this before. Does this help with attenuation? Do you boil in water (like bottle priming) or just dump in the sugar?
 
Hmmm. I haven't tried this before. Does this help with attenuation? Do you boil in water (like bottle priming) or just dump in the sugar?

Theory is that the yeast prefer to eat the simple sugars and will get lazy before they finish off the complex sugars. With incremental feeding you force them to eat the complex sugars first. It also helps since the yeast don't see the full gravity of the wort right away.

Boil the sugar in water (2 cups of water per pound works) and chill it down. Then just pour it into your primary.
 
Theory is that the yeast prefer to eat the simple sugars and will get lazy before they finish off the complex sugars. With incremental feeding you force them to eat the complex sugars first. It also helps since the yeast don't see the full gravity of the wort right away.

Boil the sugar in water (2 cups of water per pound works) and chill it down. Then just pour it into your primary.

Makes sense. I'll give this a try with my next big Belgian. Thanks.
 
How long to wait until its good? I want to drink mine when its still cold out. Its got two more weeks in the fermenter until I pull it out. Drinkably delicious by March? Four months in the bottle or keg? OG was 1.095. So far its at 10%. I think it will be about 11 when done.
 
My recommendations for brewing a Belgian Strong:

1) Make a big, healthy starter. The yeast will have a lot of work to do.
2) Aerate really well before pitching.
3) Don't add sugar to the boil. Add it to your primary after most of the fermentation is done.
4) Pitch cool and let the temperature rise.
5) Be patient.

I'll also add that adding a few drops of Fermcap before pitching has eliminated any worries about blowoffs for me.

Good advice as I dumped a batch of JZ Golden strong ale because of too much sugar in the boil, 3 pounds of it. I think feeding the sugar is a better idea.
 
I brewed a dark strong about 3 weeks ago and used similar methods to what has been discussed. I used WLP500 and made a starter that I stepped up a couple times. It was probably about 1 liter when I pitched it. I used 1.5 lbs of dark candi syrup (from AHS) that I added at the start of the 90 minute boil. I cooled the wort to about 70-ish and areated with my aquarium pump for about 30 minutes or so, then shook the hell out of the carboy, and repeated. I pitched the starter and attached the blow off tube. I covered the carboy with a towel and let it sit in my living room to free rise. I checked gravity last weekend and it was at 1.016 and tasted great. I was actually a little worried becasue there was never more than an inch of krauzen, no where near needing a blow off tube, but it worked. I'm gonna let it drop a little more (hoping for 1.014), then rack to secondary for a couple months. Then its into bottles until next Nov/Dec.
 
Seems I remember some folks recommending aging the beer in the low 50's dF for about a month after the secondary fermentation is completed or nearly completed.

Anyone tried that? If so, is it worth the time to do so?
 
Theory is that the yeast prefer to eat the simple sugars and will get lazy before they finish off the complex sugars. With incremental feeding you force them to eat the complex sugars first. It also helps since the yeast don't see the full gravity of the wort right away.

Boil the sugar in water (2 cups of water per pound works) and chill it down. Then just pour it into your primary.

My local homebrew store guy also suggested this method, so I tried it. Boiled my sugar, put it in an ice bath, and in my case, added it 48 hours after pitching the yeast.

FG still came out exactly on target. It seems like it did affect the fermentation, though I'm not exactly sure why. I'll bet someone here does. First this thing was a bubbling and blowing off mega-furiously, but that seemed to slow down to just furiously after adding the sugar syrup.

Do you think there a reason to add it early in the fermentation rather than later as you suggest?
 
Rezing this thread. For those of you who did a Dark Strong Ale, how long did you age it? I have one in the primary right now and I am trying to decide if I should rack to secondary or just rack it to a keg and let it sit.
 
Seems like strong darks really benefit from a nice long sit in the primary and it the cask. My most recent one I let sit in primary for 6 weeks and bottled. Just cracked one this last weekend that bottle conditioned for 6 months and it was fantastic. Made me realize that the ones I drank before, even at 3 months in the bottle and tasting good, were still green by comparison.

I just bottled a tripel that I let sit for 10 weeks in primary and it tastes pretty fantastic going into the bottle. My thought is the longer you let it sit the better.
 
My local homebrew store guy also suggested this method, so I tried it. Boiled my sugar, put it in an ice bath, and in my case, added it 48 hours after pitching the yeast.

FG still came out exactly on target. It seems like it did affect the fermentation, though I'm not exactly sure why. I'll bet someone here does. First this thing was a bubbling and blowing off mega-furiously, but that seemed to slow down to just furiously after adding the sugar syrup.

Do you think there a reason to add it early in the fermentation rather than later as you suggest?

Typically, I add the extra simple sugar a week into fermentation and let it sit another week before transferring to the secondary where I may let it sit for 3-6 weeks clearing out.
 
Seems like strong darks really benefit from a nice long sit in the primary and it the cask. My most recent one I let sit in primary for 6 weeks and bottled. Just cracked one this last weekend that bottle conditioned for 6 months and it was fantastic. Made me realize that the ones I drank before, even at 3 months in the bottle and tasting good, were still green by comparison.

I just bottled a tripel that I let sit for 10 weeks in primary and it tastes pretty fantastic going into the bottle. My thought is the longer you let it sit the better.

I had a Belgian Golden Strong Ale that I let sit that long in the secondary to clear out. The problem I found was that it took 4 weeks to carbonate as a lot of yeast dropped out and what was left was in hibernation. So instead I went 2 weeks primary, 3 in the secondary and then let it sit in bottles for a bit trying the first one after 2 weeks. Didn't notice much difference.
 
After fermentation completes, put it in a cold place for about a month (30-50*F). It helps the flavors smooth and meld. Then bottle/keg and carbonate.
 
I was browsing through the "Brew Like a Monk" book today over my lunch break, and noted a section near the end of the book where he briefly addresses extract brewing. It is about a page long, and I would summarize the author's comments by saying he essentially doesn't think you can brew good strong belgian ales using extract. A bit disappointing, as I am exclusively an extract homebrewer for now and expect that to be the case for the foreseeable future. I brewed a Houblon clone (trippel IPA - Northern Brewer extract kit) and it turned out very good in my opinion. Got a strong belgian ale in the bottles now (NB's "Number 8" extract kit) and am hoping for similarly good results, but I think I might do a few basic ales and maybe a stout for my next few batches.
 
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