Dubbel Trouble (AG)

So I just brewed up my first ever dubbel that is true to form, rather than being improvised and not really utilizing the correct ingredients. I even used Belgian yeast, not just some chico stuff.

Anyways, it was a flawless brew day and aside from turning out to be 100*f, I finished up in good time. Ten gallons went into the fermenter and here we have it.

OG 1.072 / FG 1.012 / IBU 25 / SRM 14

22 lbs of Pilsner malt
9.5 oz CaraVienne
8.5oz Aromatic
17 oz Special B
23 oz Acid Malt
2 lbs Cane Sugar

.5oz Willamette FWH
3oz Willamette 60 Min

1 packet Wyeast Trappist Blend (3787?)
1 packet Wyeast Abbey Yeast (1762?)

Mashed at 153 for 75min, boiled for 115min and pitched yeast at 80*f and fermenting at about 80*f for a week, then another week to settle and condition and then into the keg.

It is going to be awesome and is currently sitting at 1.032 after only a day!

Did you mix the yeast strains? If so what was your reasoning? Congrats on the smooth brew day.

I did mix them by putting them both into the fermenter at the same time. I did it because I could, but come to find out that they might well be the same exact yeast labeled under different names.

It is most likely finished fermenting now as it was at 80*f when I checked it two or three days back. This beer is just looking super delicious for some reason to me. I don't know why? There isn't anything all that special about it really.

The Trappist Blend contains Saccharomyces and Brettanomyces.
I plan on using it in a Sour Cherry Dubbel in a month or two.

I didn't want to have to wait and so decided not to use the trappist blend. Instead I used the trappist high gravity yeast. I have the wyeast lambic blend and will be using it in my next beer.

I just took the official reading for this beer and it is at 4.2ph, 6.93abv and 4.6*plato (1.018). I am happy with the flavor too, nice and tropical like flavors, but no banana and a hint of some sort of something...not spice per say...but something. The yeast still has a full head on it, so another 10 days or so until we bottle half and keg the other half. I might get a drop of a couple more points, but I doubt it. Maybe about 1.017 at the most or 1.016.

I was hoping for 1.013 or so final, but meh, what can you do when you hit 153. I think that it is about correct for the style and an awesome base beer for something that ages. In fact, I might well use this for my lambic barrel blend coming up soon. Save this yeast, and utilize the Wyeast Lambic Blend as well so that there is a bunch of sugar for the brett and Pedio to eat up.

Final reading is at 3.0*plato (1.012), 8.1%abv and 4.3ph. Bananas are coming out now, which I wasn't looking forward to. Oh well. Live and learn

Well I am going to bottle this up, 1/2 in bottles and the other half in keg. I am thinking of aiming for about 2.5 vols in the bottles, so thinking about 4-5 oz of sugar. Then I will wait for a month and start drinking it from the bottle. Meanwhile, I will have the keg to try out.

You might want to go a bit higher on carbonation.
Also, consider lagering some of it for a month for clarity.

I brewed a dubbel last month, split between 2 yeasts: wyeast 3787 and safbrew s-33. Let me know if you want to swap a bottle. I'm in Santa Rosa too.

Bottled up shy of five gallons with 4.5oz of sugar. Then kegged the rest. Bananas are there, good alcohol and great base. I wish there weren't bananas. I will ferment this cooler next time. Excited for it though

We have been drinking this for the last week and it just gets better. I am finding that the banana is going to the back of the flavor profile. In fact, we liked this beer enough to make up another 10 gallons yesterday! Same recipe, just trying for a cooler fermentation and we used the washed yeast. So it will be a totally different beer, though similar.

Fermenting at 65* for two days and now raising up to about 68* and hope to finish around 70*. Tested today at 1.025

Damn thing just burst out of my fermenter! After three days of fermenting! I didn't think it was possible... It is a thick and creamy yeast that came out too! Man, I can't beleive it.

I just ran the numbers and we are looking at 1.015, 4.4ph and 6.25% abv at this point. It should be finished on Sunday for sure. I tasted it too and boy is it a different beast all together. I like the flavor from fermenting cooler, but the body is so much different. I don't think that I will be using the yeast again, though I will keep some just in case. I am going to make up this same recipe, just change the yeast to the lambic blend so that I can get something really interesting over the course of six months or something.

Here it is Sunday and I checked on the beer. It is at 3.5*plato (1.014) final. There is an intense amount of yeast though and it is super creamy and fluffy.

Click the pics for bigger

Here is a picture through the mouth of the keg



and then another just closer



I have no idea why there is so much krausen and such as there wasn't really any until it was down to about 1.030 from 1.066. Then it began and this is the first time that I have had a fermentation come out of the keg. It has been riding the bottom of my fermentation bung for the last four days. I almost threw on a blowoff tube. Any thoughts? It is from a washed yeast that I used on the first batch. I used a good amount as well and kept this fermentation down at a cooler temp (65*). Thoughts?

I know that I am most likely the only guy reading this, but I like to keep updating so that I can come back and see what was happening. Pictures are helpful too!

Well we racked to secondary and will leave it there for about a week or so and then keg and bottle from there. The #1 Edition is really really nice now and we just cracked our first bottle to see how the carbing was coming and HOT DAMN is it really good! I don't know why, but I was not expecting there to be carbonation, I thought the taste would be bad and a multitude of other things. Beat my expectations by far. Shall I say, a new high. It makes me really ancy about the new version.

here is a pic from the evening time, click for bigger

We just popped the first and second version of this and tried them side by side. Amazingly similar! I had this on tap at the party and everyone was digging it. I am happy with how it turned out for sure. My advice, is to ferment a little cooler, say 70, not 80.

looks good, I am planning on doing a extract version of a dubbel soon

without ever extract brewing I would say watch out. This dubbel reached 1.012 and 1.009 respectively. I have hear that extract will get to about 1.020. That is sweet in my book for a Belgian because of the lack of hops. In fact, I wouldn't want anything besides a stout, IPA, IIPA or a sour beer getting to that sweetness because of a lack of the balance that you will get from either the bitter, roast or the sour flavors. That said, add a lot of sugar so that you might be able to get it down to less than 1.020. Ask other extract brewers first of course to see if that will work. Good luck!

Matt Up North said:

I am happy with how it turned out for sure. My advice, is to ferment a little cooler, say 70, not 80.

Click to expand...

what is the difference?

I know that St. Bernardus starts at 68 then ramps up to 80 for a week.

Wouldn't the warmer temps bring out the more fruity flavors from the yeast?

I'm glad you're doing this writeup, I love following the progress over time, which not everyone makes available.

I made a dubbel this Sunday (three days ago), partial mash (1.5 gallon mash, 3 gallon boil, 4.5 gallon batch):

2 lbs Pilsener malt
0.5 Aromatic
0.5 CaraMunich
0.3 Special B
and 1 lb DME in the mash (to try an increase its fermantability).

I was hoping for a 149° mash for fermentability but I let it creep to 155° at some point. Full boil with another 3.6 lbs of DME and Tett hops. I have not yet added sugar, and the OG was at 1.069.

I'm using the WLP 575 blend, and I did not want it to be super fruity so I pitched at 60° and put it in a swamp cooler. I was trying to keep the temp in the cooler under 66° with an ice pack every 12 hrs, it kind of waffled between 62° and 66°. It was bubbling like crazy for the last two days.

Today is the third day in the fermenter and the bubbling has slowed down. I did not put an icepack in this morning, I plan to allow the cooler water to rise from ~65° to ambient (~68°). Tonight I will add the sugar, about 3/4 lb of a Karo syrup that I partially caramelized and then inverted.

I was hoping for a dubbel that was not overpoweringly fruity and with an understated sweetness as well, but with extract and warmer mash temps than what I understand are desirable it maybe not come down the to the ~1.012 FG that I would like.

syd138 said:

what is the difference?

I know that St. Bernardus starts at 68 then ramps up to 80 for a week.

Wouldn't the warmer temps bring out the more fruity flavors from the yeast?

Click to expand...

The yeast that I used has a ton of banana right up front, that goes away with time. If you wait about a month or two this beer really becomes a whole lot better. I would go with saying that the eighty degree beer and the seventy degree beer are not a whole lot different in aromatics. One was mashed a little lower so dried out a bit more and that makes a whole lot more difference than the ferementation temperature did on a side by side. I liked the one with a little more body earlier in it's life (and am holding onto some so that I can try it down the road), but I forsee the drier one being better in the long term.

More recently I did a tasting and found that the lower mashing, lower fermentation temp and higher carbonation on the second version tastes way way better. I sat down with a pro brewer friend and we confirmed and agreed upon the same beer being better. The second beer also just took second in a local club tasting!

My brewer friend mentioned that it isn't quite dark enough though for a traditional dubbel. He said to up the amount of specialty malts. I would go with special B and caravienne more in order to give it a little bit more of that malty flavor and darker flavor as well.