Belgian Dark Strong Ale Belgian Dark Strong Ale, HBT Contest Winner, 18E

This one scored a 41 in the 2009 HBT comp and tied for 1st in the 18A-E class. It ended up at 10.5% and is extremely smooth. I was very impressed for my first attempt at a true belgian.

13.3 lbs pilsner malt
.5 lb caramunich malt
.38 lb aromatic malt
.25 lb special B malt
.13 lb chocolate rye malt
.6 oz Magnum 14% for 90 minutes
.5 oz hersbrucker 3.3% for 15 minutes
.25 oz hersbrucker 3.3% for 2 minutes
.14 tsp seeds of paradise for 2 minutes
2.25 lbs amber candi sugar approx 25 srm. added with 15 minutes left in boil. made per the instructions on http://www.franklinbrew.org/brewinfo/candi_sugar.html
1 lb turbinado sugar approx 10 srm. added with 15 minutes left in boil.
1 tbsp of 5.2 stabilizer
1 whirlfloc tablet with 10 minutes left in boil
Mash at 149 for 75 minutes. Double batch sparge. approx 7 gal pre boil.

I used a 2-liter starter of WLP500 Trappist. OG was 1.090, FG was a 1.010. Primary fermentation started at 65 degrees and gradually ramped up to 75 over a week long period. Transferred to a keg after a week, primed with 3.75 oz of corn sugar and pitched 2 packs of US-05 and stored for 9 months at around 75 degrees. This got the carbonation to around 3.5 volumes. the beer finishes out to around 33.2 ibu and 18.6 srm.

Ooooooh. This just got shortlisted on the "to-brew" list.

I'm really excited to age this beer and see how it changes. I have 10 22oz bombers of this left. i want to store it in one of the caves on our family ranch. The idea is to grab two bottles every winter and sample them. This beer ought to be pretty nice after 5 years! The caves are at a constant 65 degrees all year round. To deal with the humidity, I am going to dip the necks in wax so that the caps won't rust. Put them all in a rubbermaid container and store in this room.



Anybody try to do something like this before??

Pierre Celis & St Bernardus do a Grottenbier that is cave aged, but other than that I don't know of any commercial examples.
http://www.sintbernardus.be/en/beers.html

Ommegang aged some of their Three Philosophers quad in a cave, and it's superb! Tastes way better than the stuff that wasn't cave aged. Good luck!

http://www.ommegang.com/index.php?mcat=1&scat=8&ssnl=1

Yeah, as mentioned above, Ommegang has cave aged renditions of almost all of their beers (the ones strong enough to be ageable anyway). Their Dubbel, Quad and Saison have been cave aged. I had the aged Dubbel and it was pretty fantastic.

This one is next up on my list. Would anyone happen to know what .14 tsp of Seeds of Paradise would weigh?

Austin_ said:

This one is next up on my list. Would anyone happen to know what .14 tsp of Seeds of Paradise would weigh?

Click to expand...

I just used my 1/4 teaspoon and filled it approx 1/2 way full. Close enough for me!

Hi,

Any guess at which if the following would be a good sub for hersbrucker?


Amarillo
Cascade
Centennial
Chinook
Columbus
Fuggle
Golding
Magnum
Willamette


Thanks!

I'm looking to do a parti-gyle and was thinking about BDSA for the big beer. Any idea what the SG of the runnings were when you stopped?

Hey Guys,

I brewed this recipe about a month ago and ended up with a higher OG 1.12. I just racked to secondary so I can oak it. I checked the FG and it is only at 1.064. Any recomendations? Pitch another round of yeast WPL 530? Or A High Gravity yeast?

Razorbrew said:

Hey Guys,

I brewed this recipe about a month ago and ended up with a higher OG 1.12. I just racked to secondary so I can oak it. I checked the FG and it is only at 1.064. Any recomendations? Pitch another round of yeast WPL 530? Or A High Gravity yeast?

Click to expand...

what did you end up doing?

I pitched more wlp 530. Not much happened. Then I pitched some wyeast sasion and it dropped to 1.037. I give it a swirl today and put it in a warm bath. To raise the temp into the mid seventies. I will try to keep the temp up for a week or so to see if that kick it down to what I'm expecting. Sorry I haven't posted, but maybe by the end of next week. I'll be ready to put it on oak. This beer is turning into quite a project.

tnbrewer371 said:

what did you end up doing?

Click to expand...

Looking to probably do this brew tomorrow as a last brew before I deploy. The upside to this brew will be that because of deployment it will bottle condition for a year (which is usually really hard for me). I can't get ahold of Turbinado sugar unfortunately and not really sure how much of a difference this will make (never used Turbinado before). I am a little late on getting a yeast starter going so I was thinking of double pitching with Wyeast 3787 (Trappist ale) and my favorite yeast Wyeast 1762 (Belgian Abbey II). Curious how this will turn out but i'm anxious to see when I get back!

mullimat said:

Looking to probably do this brew tomorrow as a last brew before I deploy. The upside to this brew will be that because of deployment it will bottle condition for a year (which is usually really hard for me). I can't get ahold of Turbinado sugar unfortunately and not really sure how much of a difference this will make (never used Turbinado before). I am a little late on getting a yeast starter going so I was thinking of double pitching with Wyeast 3787 (Trappist ale) and my favorite yeast Wyeast 1762 (Belgian Abbey II). Curious how this will turn out but i'm anxious to see when I get back!

Click to expand...

You should be able to get the Turbinado sugar at Wal-mart. It is basically just a brand name of raw sugar, so if you can't find Turbinado substitute any raw sugar. I had the hardest time with this brew. Just yesterday after 3 months of babying this recipe did I get it to the point that it can age with out any further monitoring. Maybe your experience will be different than mine. Good luck!

Razorbrew said:

You should be able to get the Turbinado sugar at Wal-mart. It is basically just a brand name of raw sugar, so if you can't find Turbinado substitute any raw sugar. I had the hardest time with this brew. Just yesterday after 3 months of babying this recipe did I get it to the point that it can age with out any further monitoring. Maybe your experience will be different than mine. Good luck!

Click to expand...

Ok. Got the turbinado sugar. Brewing it right now. Was only able to get 2 lbs. of Amber candy syrup though. Thinking to substitute the other .25 lbs. with D1 candy syrup. Don't think it will make much of a difference but we will see how it turns out! Thanks!

nice recipe

My buddy and I brewed a 10g batch of a similar recipe earlier this year and I think we're going to brew another for the late fall/winter months in a couple weeks - I think we'll give this a shot! Stoked!

Okay, it's all set - brewing this coming Saturday (7/16). Got all the ingredients last night for a 10g batch. My only changes will be that I'm adding in a bit of carapils, some star anise and subbing warrior for magnum (LHBS only has warrior - I figured it didn't matter as this is the bittering hop...it's at 16.9% AAU!!). My buddy's 5g batch will be aged on WLP655 to sour it up as he's unfortunately obsessed with sour beers.

I'm stoked to brew this, but not sure if I've got the necessary equipment available to age the same way that LOD did. My plan is to prime these with slightly less dextrose than I would use normally - after it ferments completely out - and transfer into as many 22 oz or 750ml bottles I can and age them in a 65 degree area for as long as possible.

I'm intrigued as to the priming in the keg w/US05 - is there any reason to think that priming normally (out of a lack of equipment) in the bottles and bottle conditioning would result in a drastically different taste/aroma/mouthfeel?

In just a week, I went from 1.090 to 1.013. I'm still letting it sit in the primary for a month, but man, it's already really good as is. A little lighter than I had expected, but I'm stoked to see how it turns out regardless.

this is definitely the next brew, sounds delicious

I'm finally gonna Bogart this recipe and do a litle bit o' tweaking, I got somethin planned... somethin good....

Sounds nice

Anyone have a picture of their finished product in a glass (beer porn)?

What's the point of the late edition hops, won't most of the flavor/aroma be gone after a year?

Brewing this soon. Thinking of aging in a Syrah French Oak barrel, any thoughts?

White Labs says that WLP500 should get about 75-80% attenuation. The recipe appears to get almost 90% apparent attenuation. Has anyone had trouble getting down to 1.010 with this recipe? I would fear a stall-out...

Looks like a really good recipe. I had a Casteel last week that was pretty good so looked this up. I've done other Belgians but this would be a first at Dark Strong.
'Couple of questions:
The amount of the Seeds/Grains of Paradise shows .14 tsp.
Should that be grains or some other weight?
What is the stabilizer? I've never used that. Is there another name for it?
Carbonation at 3.3 volumes seems like a lot for this style; are you sure you went that far? Might be driven by kegging.

R/
29Savoy

This one's been on my list for a while. Finally got around to brewing it last weekend. Happy bubbling away now. First time I ever hit my numbers exactly without any fiddling during the brew day!

Anyone have any ideas about just letting the WLP500 do the keg conditioning, and skipping the S-05 pitch? I've never used WLP500 - this is my first belgian, and my first beer with any significant conditioning time. This one's for a Xmas brew, so while not a full 9 months, it''l have a good 7-8 months conditioning. WLP500 shows as high alcohol tolerance, so it should be able to handle the task right?

I'm thinking just adding the priming sugar, and kegging. Since it's kegged, it'll be easy to pull a "sample" in 4 months or so to check how it's progressing. If it's not finishing, maybe I'll add the S-05 then.

Thanks for the recipe!

--Mark

Thanks for bumping this thread just the type of recipe I was looking for but sorry I can't answer your question.

Might give this one a shot but will have to sub the Hersbrucker with one of Strisselspalt, Mittlefrüh or Tettnang. I'm sure Saaz or Styrian Goldings would work fine too.

I gotta say, that I've never had a ferment going that, well, smelled soo darned good during the primary! I don't know if it's the Monastery yeast or the Candi sugar or what, but I'm sneaking a peek at this ferment more often.

My chamber's keeping things at 65, so there shouldn't be any extraordinary fusels.

I don't know how I'm going to wait until December to try this!

Regards,

Mark

I just tapped this (a little early, couldn't wait). Outstanding beer. Thanks for the recipe @LoneOakDesign

Just FYI - the keg conditioned just fine with only the WLP500. I never added any other yeast to prime.

My first beer of this style, and first one with any appreciable conditioning time (6 months). I may need to buy another keg so I can always have a least one in the pipeline conditioning...

Regards,

Mark

Brief question. What is "5.2 Stabilizer" mentioned in the recipe? What's its function in the recipe? Who makes it? I've never used it before and am looking for a new BDS recipe.

29Savoy said:

Brief question. What is "5.2 Stabilizer" mentioned in the recipe? What's its function in the recipe? Who makes it? I've never used it before and am looking for a new BDS recipe.

Click to expand...

It is a ph stabilizer. not sure who makes it. I have read that it does not do much for keeping your mash at the proper mash ph though. You will be better off using some mash ph software and additions of acid to reach the desired ph. I use this.. https://www.brewersfriend.com/mash-chemistry-and-brewing-water-calculator/