Belgian Dubbel

Going to try my first Belgian beer this weekend, and as I love Dubbels I figure I'd make one of those.

OG 1.071
Mash at 150
84% efficiency

5# English Pale
4.5# US 2-row
.5# Carapils
.5# Special B
1# D2 Syrup
1# Turbadino
1oz Willamette (60 min)
1oz Willamette (15 min)
Wyeast 1214 (Chimay)

I'm shooting for starting the fermentation at 64 and then letting it go where it wants to go (probably mid-70s).

What do you guys think? Any recommendations?

I have had good success with saaz and spalter hops with my belgian strong ales.

You could also consider a little frech oak to add to secondary for a week or so and see how you like it.

Be careful with how you treat the yeast, an make sure that it is ready, as there is a benefit if it can get the beer down to a low gravity and hopefully it will have a nice dry mouth.

It looks good but I would put all of your hops into bittering. The Chimay yeast can throw a lot of banana and bubble gum so it is a good idea keeping it on the low end to start out with. The oak sounds good but that's just because I like oak. If this is your first dubbel, don;t oak it. You'll want to taste it on its own and the oak will add one more flavor in there that will make it difficult to tweak the recipe to your specs.

I'd suggest raising the special B content. I usually push it to 10% of the grain bill for dubbels, more for quads. Gives it a rich raisin-malt background. I also use Caramunich a lot, as it behaves a lot like carapils but adds color.

If you're going to use Willamette hops, put them all into bittering. The aroma/flavor of Willamette isn't quite appropriate for the style. Flavoring hops are optional for Belgians, but I use Styrian Goldings - hard to find - or Saaz, Mt. Hood, or even Liberty for 15-minute additions.

Oak would be fascinating. I gotta try that on my next dubbel.

benbradford said:

I have had good success with saaz and spalter hops with my belgian strong ales.

You could also consider a little frech oak to add to secondary for a week or so and see how you like it.

Be careful with how you treat the yeast, an make sure that it is ready, as there is a benefit if it can get the beer down to a low gravity and hopefully it will have a nice dry mouth.

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Saaz would actually be my second choice for a flavor hop, I actually think I have some on hand, I'll use it if I do. Actually one of the reasons I went for Willamette is that I had seen Styrian Goldings listed as a flavoring hop for many dubbels, and I have a decent amount of Willamette around which is waiting to be used up.

The oak is a good idea, and I actually oaked my very first batch with success, but I think I'll leave that for the next batch. I was hoping to make this one simple.

bknifefight said:

It looks good but I would put all of your hops into bittering. The Chimay yeast can throw a lot of banana and bubble gum so it is a good idea keeping it on the low end to start out with. The oak sounds good but that's just because I like oak. If this is your first dubbel, don;t oak it. You'll want to taste it on its own and the oak will add one more flavor in there that will make it difficult to tweak the recipe to your specs.

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I actually thought the same on the hops, but I checked the Trappist beers in "Brew Like A Monk", and it looks like almost all of the Dubbels there use flavoring hops. I am thinking about getting rid of them anyway though.

Yep, I would like to keep the temperatures down for the first few days. It is rather cool in my apartment now, so

SickTransitMundus said:

I'd suggest raising the special B content. I usually push it to 10% of the grain bill for dubbels, more for quads. Gives it a rich raisin-malt background. I also use Caramunich a lot, as it behaves a lot like carapils but adds color.

If you're going to use Willamette hops, put them all into bittering. The aroma/flavor of Willamette isn't quite appropriate for the style. Flavoring hops are optional for Belgians, but I use Styrian Goldings - hard to find - or Saaz, Mt. Hood, or even Liberty for 15-minute additions.

Oak would be fascinating. I gotta try that on my next dubbel.

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I thought that Styrian Goldings is a form of Fuggles, and that Willamette was also a form of Fuggles:
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/wiki/index.php/Styrian_Goldings
https://www.homebrewtalk.com/wiki/index.php/Willamette

I went with Willamette specifically because it was similar to Styrian Goldings, actually, which I see some Trappist breweries use as a flavoring hop. I figured that if the Trappists were brewing in the US they would just use Willamette instead of Fuggles or Styrian Goldings.

Caramunich is a good idea, but I'm actually already quite a bit darker then BJCP guidelines already if the 160 SRM on the D2 is to be believed (I have my doubts), so the color in it would probably push me into stout-darkness territory, even if I replaced the turbadino with white cane sugar. I was actually thinking of using torrefied wheat, but I have the carapils on hand so I just went with that.

I think the recipe's good except for the carapils. Either use some wheat for body, or caramunich for caramel flavors, or both.

And it's spelled "turbinado," although I'd love to witness you asking for turbadino sugar at the grocery store (make sure to use the thickest, dumbest, southern accent you can muster)!

kanzimonson said:

I think the recipe's good except for the carapils. Either use some wheat for body, or caramunich for caramel flavors, or both.

And it's spelled "turbinado," although I'd love to witness you asking for turbadino sugar at the grocery store (make sure to use the thickest, dumbest, southern accent you can muster)!

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Wow I made a mess of that spelling didn't I. I can't even claim dyslexia, as I switched around like 6 letters.

A lot of the dubbel recipes that I've seen have some aromatic malt in there.

I second the recipe as fine, but for the carapils. It seems out of place to me, and works against making the beer "digestible," as the Belgians seem to say. Contrary to what others have said, I think Willamette will work fine. Most Belgian brewers tend to use a bittering and 30 minute addition, but do what you like. A 15 minute wouldn't be all bad, but I'd keep it to maybe 1/2 oz.

DrawTap88 said:

A lot of the dubbel recipes that I've seen have some aromatic malt in there.

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I was actually hoping to keep the malt bill as simple as possible for this particular recipe (I didn't add in the Special B until recently, actually). In a couple of weeks I'm planning another Dubbel with a "kitchen sink" malt bill...then hopefully I'll see what is best. I'll post that recipe in this thread when I figure it out.

GuldTuborg said:

I second the recipe as fine, but for the carapils. It seems out of place to me, and works against making the beer "digestible," as the Belgians seem to say. Contrary to what others have said, I think Willamette will work fine. Most Belgian brewers tend to use a bittering and 30 minute addition, but do what you like. A 15 minute wouldn't be all bad, but I'd keep it to maybe 1/2 oz.

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Good idea on the hops. I'll move the 15 minute addition it to 30 minutes and adjust the IBUs down accordingly.

No love for the Carapils from anyone, though. All I'm actually trying to do with it is head retention...but I see everyone's point that it will add unfermentables that are rather unwanted in this recipe. Anyone have any ideas for how to increase head retention without carapils? I've heard people suggest wheat before, but I've never used wheat and I'm not sure what it would do to this particular recipe.

RIT_Warrior said:

Anyone have any ideas for how to increase head retention without carapils? I've heard people suggest wheat before, but I've never used wheat and I'm not sure what it would do to this particular recipe.

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A half pound of wheat ought to help a bit. You can use torrefied, if you like, as it's a bit more neutral in flavor. Still, at this level, I wouldn't expect any noticeable taste contribution from the wheat. If you have the capability to carb this to the usual 3-4.5 volumes C02, you won't need anything at all, recipe-wise, to increase the head retention.

GuldTuborg said:

A half pound of wheat ought to help a bit. You can use torrefied, if you like, as it's a bit more neutral in flavor. Still, at this level, I wouldn't expect any noticeable taste contribution from the wheat. If you have the capability to carb this to the usual 3-4.5 volumes C02, you won't need anything at all, recipe-wise, to increase the head retention.

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Alright, wheat it is. I stopped by my LHBS today and picked up some torrefied wheat.

I modified the recipes a bit, and here is the final one I'll be brewing tomorrow:

OG 1.071 (84% efficiency)
Mash at 150, mash out at 170
Ferment in mid 70s

4lbs 8oz US 2-row
4lbs 3oz UK Pale
8oz Special B
5oz Torrefied Wheat
1lb D2
.75lbs Turbinado
.75oz Willamette (60 min)
.75oz Willamette (30 min)
Wyeast 1214 (Chimay)

I'll bottle with Turbinado, shooting for 3ish volumes.

If it comes out nice I'll do another one with Wyeast 3787 and see how that one turns out.

RIT_Warrior said:

If it comes out nice I'll do another one with Wyeast 3787 and see how that one turns out.

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Good luck. I hope it turns out well. I personally love the 3787 yeast for strong Trappist style ales.

Take out the late 15 minute hop addition, you do not want any hop flavor or aroma in a dubbel.

DannPM said:

Take out the late 15 minute hop addition, you do not want any hop flavor or aroma in a dubbel.

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Well, I have moved the 15 minute additions to 30 minutes, but I'm not sure I agree that hop aroma and especially hop flavor doesn't belong. Both are mentioned as acceptable but optional by the BJCP guidelines, and (picking out 2 trappist beers I'm shooting for with this recipe) Chimay Red and Westmalle Dubbel both have flavoring additions (not sure about aroma).

I don't particularly like late hopping in Trappist-style beers, either, but it's your beer.

I concur that you're probably worrying too much about foam formation/retention. Wheat malt is far richer in proteins than barley malt; that's why a relatively small proportion of wheat malt in the grist can aid foam. Even with the relatively high proportion of adjunct in your grist, you shouldn't need foam aids.

Really, I wouldn't add it unless you brew the grist without it and discover that you need it. Keep it in the back of your mind as a possible tweak.

Cheers,

Bob

Bob said:

I don't particularly like late hopping in Trappist-style beers, either, but it's your beer.

I concur that you're probably worrying too much about foam formation/retention. Wheat malt is far richer in proteins than barley malt; that's why a relatively small proportion of wheat malt in the grist can aid foam. Even with the relatively high proportion of adjunct in your grist, you shouldn't need foam aids.

Really, I wouldn't add it unless you brew the grist without it and discover that you need it. Keep it in the back of your mind as a possible tweak.

Cheers,

Bob

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Heh. Too late! The grains are mashing now in my pot, with the torrefied wheat included. If there is a problem because of the wheat, I'll do better next time .

Really though, there isn't a more depressing sight for me then a nice head collapsing back into the beer. I'd rather err on the direction of too much head retention then too little.

Too true!

The wheat won't cause a problem. Far from it. You'll be fine!



Bob

Just finished brewing. Everything went swimmingly today - I tried out my new false bottom for BIAB...did a step mash for the first time by adding heat directly to the brew kettle. Boil proceeded great, and I've never seen wort this clear come out of the kettle.



Here's a horrible picture I took with my miserable camera.

One thing I notice is that I'm not anywhere near the predicted 23 SRM (a good thing too, as that is too dark for a dubbel). Part of this is my special B, which is of an indeterminate SRM, but I think almost all comes down to the D2 and the listed 160SRM, which I think is a lie. Personally I think 80 SRM would be a better guess at what the actual color is.

Tastes great! I'm actually enjoying a glass of wort right now.

RIT_Warrior said:

Just finished brewing. Everything went swimmingly today - I tried out my new false bottom for BIAB...did a step mash for the first time by adding heat directly to the brew kettle. Boil proceeded great, and I've never seen wort this clear come out of the kettle.

Here's a horrible picture I took with my miserable camera.

One thing I notice is that I'm not anywhere near the predicted 23 SRM (a good thing too, as that is too dark for a dubbel). Part of this is my special B, which is of an indeterminate SRM, but I think almost all comes down to the D2 and the listed 160SRM, which I think is a lie. Personally I think 80 SRM would be a better guess at what the actual color is.

Tastes great! I'm actually enjoying a glass of wort right now.

Click to expand...

Gotta warn ya bro, your dubbel is probably going to be a bit lacking in necessary malty-ness. I have a dubbel on tap right now which was 10 lbs pils, 2 lbs munich, half lb of special b, 1 lb amber candi rocks, and a half lb of wheat. It's not nearly as malty and sweet as I wanted, like not at all. Speaking objectively, even if you don't like malty dubbels you would agree my beer was lacking.

Here's my next dubbel recipe:

10 lbs pils
2 lbs munich
.75 lbs caramunich
.5 lbs special b
.25 lbs unmalted wheat
.5 lbs amber candi syrup
.5 lbs table sugar

I think you pretty much have to throw a lot of crystal malts in there, and definitely use candi syrup, not rocks. Getting the necessary malty flavor and staying within correct SRM seems pretty tough.

rexbanner said:

Gotta warn ya bro, your dubbel is probably going to be a bit lacking in necessary malty-ness. I have a dubbel on tap right now which was 10 lbs pils, 2 lbs munich, half lb of special b, 1 lb amber candi rocks, and a half lb of wheat. It's not nearly as malty and sweet as I wanted, like not at all. Speaking objectively, even if you don't like malty dubbels you would agree my beer was lacking.

Here's my next dubbel recipe:

10 lbs pils
2 lbs munich
.75 lbs caramunich
.5 lbs special b
.25 lbs unmalted wheat
.5 lbs amber candi syrup
.5 lbs table sugar

I think you pretty much have to throw a lot of crystal malts in there, and definitely use candi syrup, not rocks. Getting the necessary malty flavor and staying within correct SRM seems pretty tough.

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Actually I will be trying a malty dubbel next time with a "kitchen sink" malt recipe. This one wasn't it, though. I actually formulated this recipe while reading "Brew Like A Monk" by Stan Hieronymus. He goes over all of the trappist styles, and how the monks don't do the complex malt bills and exotic spices that lots of people associate with these beers. They let the yeast and the sugar/syrup do the talking. Westleveren, for example, doesn't even use specialty malts with their 8 and 12, it is just half Pale, half Pilsner, and sugar. I initially went off of that approach, but I got cold feet and chucked in the special B.

This isn't to say you can't make a good beer with a complex malt bill...I'll be doing just that for my next brew, shooting for something Ommegang or Maudite-ish. But for this one, I'm going for the Trappist style with a simple malt bill and a very low FG.

As for the sugar, Mr. Hieronymus says that the syrup is good and the rocks are bad. Apparently the syrup contains unfermentables not present in the rocks, so all you are doing with the rocks is thinning out your brew. Why this is I have no idea, as it seems they are made in a very similar fashion, but I figure Stan probably knows a bit more about sugar then I do. I just bought the syrup this time, but next time I'm going to try to make my own.

RIT_Warrior said:

Actually I will be trying a malty dubbel next time with a "kitchen sink" malt recipe. This one wasn't it, though. I actually formulated this recipe while reading "Brew Like A Monk" by Stan Hieronymus. He goes over all of the trappist styles, and how the monks don't do the complex malt bills and exotic spices that lots of people associate with these beers. They let the yeast and the sugar/syrup do the talking. Westleveren, for example, doesn't even use specialty malts with their 8 and 12, it is just half Pale, half Pilsner, and sugar. I initially went off of that approach, but I got cold feet and chucked in the special B.

This isn't to say you can't make a good beer with a complex malt bill...I'll be doing just that for my next brew, shooting for something Ommegang or Maudite-ish. But for this one, I'm going for the Trappist style with a simple malt bill and a very low FG.

As for the sugar, Mr. Hieronymus says that the syrup is good and the rocks are bad. Apparently the syrup contains unfermentables not present in the rocks, so all you are doing with the rocks is thinning out your brew. Why this is I have no idea, as it seems they are made in a very similar fashion, but I figure Stan probably knows a bit more about sugar then I do. I just bought the syrup this time, but next time I'm going to try to make my own.

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I have that book. I could be wrong, but I don't think a lb of candi syrup is going to make up for the extra lb of crystal malt you need.

Dubbel bills can get way more complex than mine, I think it's really just a matter of having about a lb and a half-2 lbs crystal malt per 5 gallon batch.

RIT_Warrior said:

Well, I have moved the 15 minute additions to 30 minutes, but I'm not sure I agree that hop aroma and especially hop flavor doesn't belong. Both are mentioned as acceptable but optional by the BJCP guidelines, and (picking out 2 trappist beers I'm shooting for with this recipe) Chimay Red and Westmalle Dubbel both have flavoring additions (not sure about aroma).

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BJCP has "Low noble hop flavor is optional and not usually present." & "A small number of examples may include a low noble hop aroma, but hops are usually absent."

Take a listen to the Jamil show where they talk about Belgian Dubbels here. It's a really show show and that's where I'm basing my only 60 minute additions on.

rexbanner said:

I have that book. I could be wrong, but I don't think a lb of candi syrup is going to make up for the extra lb of crystal malt you need.

Dubbel bills can get way more complex than mine, I think it's really just a matter of having about a lb and a half-2 lbs crystal malt per 5 gallon batch.

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You do not NEED crystal malt in a dubbel, you can derive all your flavors from pilsner, dark candy syrup, a touch of black malt and that awesome yeast. That is how the belgians do it and it works beautifully. I am guessing that too many people make the mistake of not using enough dark candy syrup which contains those dark fruit, raisin flavors.

TO the OP: so you think the D2 syrup is a lot lighter in lovibond than 160 SRM?

DannPM said:

BJCP has "Low noble hop flavor is optional and not usually present." & "A small number of examples may include a low noble hop aroma, but hops are usually absent."

Take a listen to the Jamil show where they talk about Belgian Dubbels here. It's a really show show and that's where I'm basing my only 60 minute additions on.

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Thanks for the link, I'll listen to the show later. As I said, though, I actually was going to leave out the late hops until I saw that almost all of the trappist beers used them, so I added them in. As these things are going to be aged anyway I think the hop character will fade into nothing regardless. Also the hops were Willamettes that started at 4.5% and have been sitting in my freezer for a while...so who knows how much alphas they have left in them to begin with.

jlpred55 said:

You do not NEED crystal malt in a dubbel, you can derive all your flavors from pilsner, dark candy syrup, a touch of black malt and that awesome yeast. That is how the belgians do it and it works beautifully. I am guessing that too many people make the mistake of not using enough dark candy syrup which contains those dark fruit, raisin flavors.

TO the OP: so you think the D2 syrup is a lot lighter in lovibond than 160 SRM?

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Yeah, I loaded my recipe up with way more sugar then I am comfortable with. Never used either Belgian syrup or Turbinado before, so I'm not entirely sure how it will taste...but I think it will work out fine.

As for the D2 syrup, I do think it is much lighter when actually used then the numbers that Beersmith gives when you plug it in. My recipe is supposed to be at 23SRM (Dubbels should be 17 max), but I think I am within the color guidelines for a Dubbel.

jlpred55 said:

You do not NEED crystal malt in a dubbel, you can derive all your flavors from pilsner, dark candy syrup, a touch of black malt and that awesome yeast. That is how the belgians do it and it works beautifully. I am guessing that too many people make the mistake of not using enough dark candy syrup which contains those dark fruit, raisin flavors.

TO the OP: so you think the D2 syrup is a lot lighter in lovibond than 160 SRM?

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No crystal malt? I'm extremely skeptical. First off, that is not "how the Belgians do it," that's maybe how some Belgians do it. Why exactly would there be so many Belgian crystal malts, like special B, aromatic, caramunich, etc? Why would every dubbel recipe I've seen, including all in Brew Like a Monk, include crystal malt?

Of course, like I said, I've never used candi syrup, but I've also never heard of a dubbel recipe with no crystal malt. Jamil's dubbel recipe calls for a bunch of crystal, as well as candi syrup. I find it hard to believe that a dubbel could stand on its own with none.

rexbanner said:

No crystal malt? I'm extremely skeptical. First off, that is not "how the Belgians do it," that's maybe how some Belgians do it. Why exactly would there be so many Belgian crystal malts, like special B, aromatic, caramunich, etc? Why would every dubbel recipe I've seen, including all in Brew Like a Monk, include crystal malt?

Of course, like I said, I've never used candi syrup, but I've also never heard of a dubbel recipe with no crystal malt. Jamil's dubbel recipe calls for a bunch of crystal, as well as candi syrup. I find it hard to believe that a dubbel could stand on its own with none.

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Feast your eyes upon page 43 of your copy of BLAM! That gives the ingredients for Achel Bruin Extra (a Strong Dark rather then a Dubbel but who's counting?). The only malts used are Pale and Chocolate. If you check the next page you will see that the Achel Bruin (a Dubbel) uses only Pilsener and Chocolate as well.

After you have looked at those, redirect your attention to page 81, where you will see the ingredients for Westleveren 8 (a Dubbel). The only malts used in this beer are Pale and Pilsener. Westleveren 12 (a Strong Dark) actually comes from the first runnings of this mash, the 8 comes from the second. So it only uses Pale and Pils as well.

Chimay, Rochfort, and Westmalle are all listed as using Caramel malts in their Dubbels/Strong Darks, although the percent of grist is unknown. Hieronymus seems to think they don't use much, based on his comments on page 241.

Not to mention other non-Trappist breweries and beers, like the glorious St. Bernardus Abt 12. Pilsner, a touch of black malt, and sugar. Oh, but how wonderful it is! Crystal malts are very much an option, not a necessity. I don't use any in my dubbel recipe, and it turns out quite well, if I do say so myself. Still, I'm not saying it's the only way to do things, just the way that I (and many, though certainly not all, Belgian brewers) prefer to do it.

Crystal malt is just another club in the bag. I am also part of the crowd which prefers as simple a grist as possible. In my case, it came from reading Pierre Rajotte's Belgian Ale.

Cheers,

Bob

RIT_Warrior said:

Feast your eyes upon page 43 of your copy of BLAM! That gives the ingredients for Achel Bruin Extra (a Strong Dark rather then a Dubbel but who's counting?). The only malts used are Pale and Chocolate. If you check the next page you will see that the Achel Bruin (a Dubbel) uses only Pilsener and Chocolate as well.

After you have looked at those, redirect your attention to page 81, where you will see the ingredients for Westleveren 8 (a Dubbel). The only malts used in this beer are Pale and Pilsener. Westleveren 12 (a Strong Dark) actually comes from the first runnings of this mash, the 8 comes from the second. So it only uses Pale and Pils as well.

Chimay, Rochfort, and Westmalle are all listed as using Caramel malts in their Dubbels/Strong Darks, although the percent of grist is unknown. Hieronymus seems to think they don't use much, based on his comments on page 241.

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Well I'm an idiot.

Do you use amber, or dark? Seems like dark has more of the flavor you would want, but it also seems difficult to stay in SRM.

Also, are all "Belgian" candi syrups the same, or are some better than others? I noticed there are 2 new American companies (snagged a free sample from one but won't get it for a month) as well as the Belgian company that most sites seem to carry.

rexbanner said:

Well I'm an idiot.

Do you use amber, or dark? Seems like dark has more of the flavor you would want, but it also seems difficult to stay in SRM.

Also, are all "Belgian" candi syrups the same, or are some better than others? I noticed there are 2 new American companies (snagged a free sample from one but won't get it for a month) as well as the Belgian company that most sites seem to carry.

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I used D2, which is the darkest syrup I know about. Supposedly it contributes 160 SRM, but as I said earlier in the thread I don't think that is the case. Brewsmith said I should be getting "Stout" darkness, but to me it looked similar to other Dubbels like Maudite or Chimay Red.

I'm intrigued to hear about this American candi syrup. I've only seen the imported Belgian stuff, which is a bit expensive. Do you have a link? I checked a few sites and couldn't find any.

I'm actually going to try my hand at making my own, though, as there are many tutorials online. Not sure how well it will work, but it should be a fun side project.

Don't be too hard on yourself, I learn new stuff everyday as well. I am brewing a dubbel on Friday. I am using a little crystal in mine...LOL. Going to use the 160 SRM D2 syrup since I have it, though I am suspecting the 80 SRM D syrup to be more inline with what I want but we will see. Recipe is like this

OG 1.066
SRM 21 (too dark)
IBU 20
11.0 lbs Castle Bel. Pils
1.0 Weyerman Light Munich
1.0 D2 Syrup
.25 Caramunich II, Aromatic, Special B, cane sugar

Any hop to 20 IBU 90 minutes
Mash 149
16 oz prior slurry of WY3787.

RIT_Warrior said:

I'm intrigued to hear about this American candi syrup. I've only seen the imported Belgian stuff, which is a bit expensive. Do you have a link? I checked a few sites and couldn't find any.

I'm actually going to try my hand at making my own, though, as there are many tutorials online. Not sure how well it will work, but it should be a fun side project.

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Make sure you have a candi thermometer and some ice water nearby to quickly cool down the darkened syrup. That's one thing I wish I had and one thing I wish I knew the last, and so far only, time I made some candi syrup.

jlpred55 said:

Don't be too hard on yourself, I learn new stuff everyday as well. I am brewing a dubbel on Friday. I am using a little crystal in mine...LOL. Going to use the 160 SRM D2 syrup since I have it, though I am suspecting the 80 SRM D syrup to be more inline with what I want but we will see. Recipe is like this

OG 1.066
SRM 21 (too dark)
IBU 20
11.0 lbs Castle Bel. Pils
1.0 Weyerman Light Munich
1.0 D2 Syrup
.25 Caramunich II, Aromatic, Special B, cane sugar

Any hop to 20 IBU 90 minutes
Mash 149
16 oz prior slurry of WY3787.

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Looks good! I'll be doing a recipe similar to that soon I think. Don't worry about that 21SRM, most of that is from the D2 and as I said before I think that 160SRM is optimistic at best. Mine came out as 23 in beersmith but I think it is more along the lines of 17.

DrawTap88 said:

Make sure you have a candi thermometer and some ice water nearby to quickly cool down the darkened syrup. That's one thing I wish I had and one thing I wish I knew the last, and so far only, time I made some candi syrup.

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I do have a candy thermometer, so I'll sort of be using that. Actually, after the initial stage I'm going to throw the whole thing in a pre-heated oven and use that to hold it at the correct temperatures. I bought and all-SS sauce pot just for that purpose, as I figured I would make a total mess on the stovetop trying to hold the syrup at the same temperature for a long amount of time.

I know I'm going to screw up the first few batches, but I'm just going to roll with it.

Nice tip about the ice water as well, I'll be sure to have that on hand. I'm a bit worried about the whole thing exploding though and me getting covered in fiery liquid sugar napalm, so I'll actually have a rather large bucket of ice water on hand.

So I just got back home. I'd been running my window AC to keep the dubbel at a nice 64 degrees F during the day until the krauzen drops. Come home...AC is a block of ice. Dubbel? 78F.

And I hear you can't drop the temperature to try to fix it because the yeasts are Belgian so they unionize and stop working if you do that. So I guess it will be a "banana clove bubble-gum dubbel".

Ah well...never give up on a beer!

RIT_Warrior said:

So I just got back home. I'd been running my window AC to keep the dubbel at a nice 64 degrees F during the day until the krauzen drops. Come home...AC is a block of ice. Dubbel? 78F.

And I hear you can't drop the temperature to try to fix it because the yeasts are Belgian so they unionize and stop working if you do that. So I guess it will be a "banana clove bubble-gum dubbel".

Ah well...never give up on a beer!

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This happened to mine too bro, Belgian Golden Strong. Wife did laundry with hose detached (by accident) and warmed the basement up to 74, beer was at 73-74 when measured, but scheduled to be at only 63-64. Cooled it back down, yeast went dormant. Roused them back up, 7 hours later, they were actively fermenting again. My Hyrdo sample tasted so good I finished it. Finished at the exact same gravity as my prior BGSA batch, 1.011. The spike didn't hurt a thing so hang in there man!

RIT_Warrior said:

I used D2, which is the darkest syrup I know about. Supposedly it contributes 160 SRM, but as I said earlier in the thread I don't think that is the case. Brewsmith said I should be getting "Stout" darkness, but to me it looked similar to other Dubbels like Maudite or Chimay Red.

I'm intrigued to hear about this American candi syrup. I've only seen the imported Belgian stuff, which is a bit expensive. Do you have a link? I checked a few sites and couldn't find any.

I'm actually going to try my hand at making my own, though, as there are many tutorials online. Not sure how well it will work, but it should be a fun side project.

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www.candisyrup.com. They had a free giveaway for their dark and I happened to stumble upon it.

I feel like this forum could benefit from user-created groups, like some other forums have. That way someone could make a Belgian beers group, where we could all compile info and experience. I initially was very reluctant to try brewing Belgian styles because they take so long to mature and I think it really takes trial and error, i.e. time and money, to get better at brewing certain styles. At least, to make one that you yourself like.

rexbanner said:

www.candisyrup.com. They had a free giveaway for their dark and I happened to stumble upon it.

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Have you tried it out yet? Have they even shipped anything? They don't seem to be at the full retail mode yet, but I'll admit I'm curious to see if their products are good. Someone really ought to clean up that website, though. The grammar is terrible. It doesn't exactly make for a professional image.

Speaking of candi syrup, when should it be added to the wort? I feel like adding it to the boil at the beginning would cause it to lose some/most of its flavor and aroma properties, so I was considering adding it in the last 10-15 minutes. Another possibility is adding it after the boil, during the cooling stage, but I'm worried about it not being sanitized and propagating unwanted microbes.

Brew_Magus said:

Speaking of candi syrup, when should it be added to the wort? I feel like adding it to the boil at the beginning would cause it to lose some/most of its flavor and aroma properties, so I was considering adding it in the last 10-15 minutes. Another possibility is adding it after the boil, during the cooling stage, but I'm worried about it not being sanitized and propagating unwanted microbes.

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I'm going to add mine with 10 minutes lift in the boil. I opened it up last night and tasted it. WOW, tons of flavor, kind of tasted like chocolate and carmel mixed with a little dark fruit. Might be a bit overwhelming for a dubbel but I am rolling with it. I can always brew another one with the 80 SRM and do a side by side.