Belgian Dark Strong Ale The Pious - Westvleteren 12 style quad - multiple

meadowstream said:

I get this beer to finish dry (1.012) by starting my mash low (at protein rest temps) and then raise to mid-140s and then gradually increase to 148-149 and let it mash for an hour, then let it slowly rise through low 150s for 20-25 minutes...and then ramp it up to 170 for your sparge. This is a rich beer and finishing low is, in my opinion, the way to make it great instead of just good.

The other thing that I do that I think makes it a better beer (for me anyway) is to add some chocolate malt (4-5 ounces in 15 gallon batch: it seems to balance the malt bill and alcohol sweetness. I increase hops about 10% above the CSI recipe, too, for the same reason.

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Concur. In earlier trials we used to use a very small amount of BDB, (2 oz), and it does help aging stability and also smooths the ale a little. If memory serves the BDB is also used in the St. Bernardus Abt 12 but no longer used in the Westvleteren 12 (import). Like your mash profile

What type of water treatments are you guys shooting for? Like a malty profile?


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Sleepyemt said:

What type of water treatments are you guys shooting for? Like a malty profile?


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Portland water is really soft, so I toss in about 2 grams of gypsum and a gram of baking soda to up some content, then go from there with other additives to build a profile. Pretty easy to build from Portland water, but I also have a table with profiles and weights for various additions to match different cities and target styles. It was made by a local brewers guild for a typical 5 gallon batch to match our city water.

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Sleepyemt said:

What type of water treatments are you guys shooting for? Like a malty profile?

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I sent our water off to Ward Labs and received results back last week: our water has very low alkalinity, low calcium, low magnesium, low everything. I did this because my dark strong belgians come out superbly - but my IPAs are pedestrian, and I was wondering why...

Am going to try another IPA and this time adjust my water up to a typical Pale Ale profile and see what a difference this makes. And, I am going to try to find out what Westvleteren, Westmalle, and St. Bernardus water profiles are and then try a different profile for my dark strong belgians, too, in order to test the difference in final taste.

It only took me 20 years to test and do this.

Be sure to verify that your water municipality is single sourced or it will be meaningless. That was the case in California for Heretic according to Jamil because the municipality doesn't have (and won't) to tell you.

Our small 5,000 person town is served by a single reservoir, single treatment station, and single cistern.

Rock-on

I'm planning to brew the Traditional in time to secondary while I'm out of the country this summer. My only base malt option is pale 2-row, the only pilsner available to me costs 11x what the 2-row sets me back, so that's not an option. Is there something I could do to imitate the 50% pilsner grain bill, or should I just go with the pale malt?

Also, what are the odds of a quality pitch with yeast harvested from a Rochefort 10? I got good activity in my 350 mL bottle harvest mini-starter, but I don't know if that means the yeast is healthy, or if even unhealthy yeast will reproduce in a starter, since I've never bottle-harvested before.

FatDragon said:

I'm planning to brew the Traditional in time to secondary while I'm out of the country this summer. My only base malt option is pale 2-row, the only pilsner available to me costs 11x what the 2-row sets me back, so that's not an option. Is there something I could do to imitate the 50% pilsner grain bill, or should I just go with the pale malt?

Also, what are the odds of a quality pitch with yeast harvested from a Rochefort 10? I got good activity in my 350 mL bottle harvest mini-starter, but I don't know if that means the yeast is healthy, or if even unhealthy yeast will reproduce in a starter, since I've never bottle-harvested before.

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Rochefort doesn't reuse the yeast from the 10 because it's and used in the 6, then used in the 8, and then lastly the 10. You may get better dregs from a 6 or 8 if you want to try to harvest from bottle.

tehnick said:

Rochefort doesn't reuse the yeast from the 10 because it's and used in the 6, then used in the 8, and then lastly the 10. You may get better dregs from a 6 or 8 if you want to try to harvest from bottle.

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That's a reasonable suggestion and might be the best way to go, but I'm wondering if anybody knows if the yeast I have might be alright. Never having harvested, I'm curious if the reproduction in my starter means the yeast is fine, or if stressed yeast will reproduce in a starter like any other yeast, but the quality of the beer they ferment will be compromised.

Also, a repeat so it doesn't get lost - No pilsner malt available - should I go all pale 2-row for the Traditional, or add a bit of Munich or some other specialty grain to mimic the contribution of 50% pilsner?

I would bet that if you are starting with Rochefort yeast, even if it is stressed, that you can feed it, give it adequate gas exchange on a stir plate, and culture up sufficient volume in stages. I would go all Pale - the beer probably won't suffer even a little from the difference.

FatDragon said:

That's a reasonable suggestion and might be the best way to go, but I'm wondering if anybody knows if the yeast I have might be alright. Never having harvested, I'm curious if the reproduction in my starter means the yeast is fine, or if stressed yeast will reproduce in a starter like any other yeast, but the quality of the beer they ferment will be compromised.

Also, a repeat so it doesn't get lost - No pilsner malt available - should I go all pale 2-row for the Traditional, or add a bit of Munich or some other specialty grain to mimic the contribution of 50% pilsner?

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All pale malt should work if that's all you have. In terms of yeast, it may also be viable to use but some factors to consider are potential off flavors from the yeast being used multiple times and bad attenuation because they've already been through the ringer in a high abv fermentation. They might bottle with fresh yeast to get carbonation but I cannot remember for sure. Honestly, if you can get your hands on some WL530 Abbey Ale yeast I'd go with that to match the flavor profile of the target beer. It's Westmalle yeast, but is also used by Westvleteren in their beers. Plus, you'd have a young sample to work with that hasn't been living in harsh conditions.

FatDragon said:

I'm planning to brew the Traditional in time to secondary while I'm out of the country this summer. My only base malt option is pale 2-row, the only pilsner available to me costs 11x what the 2-row sets me back, so that's not an option. Is there something I could do to imitate the 50% pilsner grain bill, or should I just go with the pale malt?

Also, what are the odds of a quality pitch with yeast harvested from a Rochefort 10? I got good activity in my 350 mL bottle harvest mini-starter, but I don't know if that means the yeast is healthy, or if even unhealthy yeast will reproduce in a starter, since I've never bottle-harvested before.

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If you're brewing all Pale and using WLP 540, brewing a Rochefort 10 without the caramel malt would work very well. Build up a Rochefort starter of at least 340 Billion/5 gal. Check the Roch 10 recipes in the recipe section. It's about the same level of complexity as the Westy 12.

http://www.candisyrup.com/recipes.html

tehnick said:

All pale malt should work if that's all you have. In terms of yeast, it may also be viable to use but some factors to consider are potential off flavors from the yeast being used multiple times and bad attenuation because they've already been through the ringer in a high abv fermentation. They might bottle with fresh yeast to get carbonation but I cannot remember for sure. Honestly, if you can get your hands on some WL530 Abbey Ale yeast I'd go with that to match the flavor profile of the target beer. It's Westmalle yeast, but is also used by Westvleteren in their beers. Plus, you'd have a young sample to work with that hasn't been living in harsh conditions.

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Thanks to everybody for the suggestions! I don't have access to affordable/fresh liquid yeasts, so my options are to pull from a limited range of dry yeasts or bottle-harvest something I can source. Westmalle Dubbel is available, so should I consider that a prime option for bottle harvesting yeast for a Westy clone? I figured Rochefort yeast was better than S-33, but Westmalle Dubbel should be better than Rochefort 10.

I won't be doing this for another couple months, but I'm looking forward to the challenge, and the payoff even more so. Can't wait!

Whichever you decide to harvest dregs, use the bottle conditioned product available to you with the lowest gravity you can get. The yeast in these products ( as mentioned earlier in the case of Rochfort ) will perform better due to the amount of stress is has/has not seen.

FatDragon said:

Thanks to everybody for the suggestions! I don't have access to affordable/fresh liquid yeasts, so my options are to pull from a limited range of dry yeasts or bottle-harvest something I can source. Westmalle Dubbel is available, so should I consider that a prime option for bottle harvesting yeast for a Westy clone? I figured Rochefort yeast was better than S-33, but Westmalle Dubbel should be better than Rochefort 10.

I won't be doing this for another couple months, but I'm looking forward to the challenge, and the payoff even more so. Can't wait!

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Culturing from a Westmalle 'might' provide a similar strain, but it is unlikely. The only bottle culture from a Belgian we have successfully harvested was Gouden and Chimay. Achel, Westvletern, St. Bernardus, and Westmalle have not yielded similar strains to White Labs or Wyeast.

To recap, you wanted to brew a Westvleteren 12 with no Pils and a yeast strain that will not produce the esters necessary for a Westvleteren ale. On second thought you will brew a Westmalle dubbel, (also with the wrong yeast strain and no Pils?). Am I misreading this?

CSI said:

Culturing from a Westmalle 'might' provide a similar strain, but it is unlikely. The only bottle culture from a Belgian we have successfully harvested was Gouden and Chimay. Achel, Westvletern, St. Bernardus, and Westmalle have not yielded similar strains to White Labs or Wyeast.

To recap, you wanted to brew a Westvleteren 12 with no Pils and a yeast strain that will not produce the esters necessary for a Westvleteren ale. On second thought you will brew a Westmalle dubbel, (also with the wrong yeast strain and no Pils?). Am I misreading this?

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To say that I want to make a perfect Westy 12 clone is maybe making it a bit grand. I want to take this recipe and do my best to match it with the ingredients available (the all pale malt suggestion was given, but unless I want to spend $60 on 8 lb. of pilsner malt, it's a requirement anyway). At first, that meant Rochefort 10 yeast since that's what I've got cultured, but the suggestion that Westmalle uses the same or similar yeast to Westverleten (sp?), I suggested that I might buy a Westmalle Dubbel (lowest ABV Westmalle available to me) and culture that yeast instead.

I did enter the new world in the irish national homebrew competition and won a silver with a score of 40. I also entered a blend of the new world and the traditional that scored 37 which wa good enough for a bronze medal. I brewed both in june of 2012 and blended them in oct. I bottle a blend immediately and it didn't do to well in last year competition but the second blend was bottled in January of 2013 and was 14 month in the bottle by the time of the competition. There was a noticeable difference between the 2, the one that was bottled 3 months later was much better.

The new world was brewed in 2013 and bottled on march 30 of last year. So it was 11 months in the bottle.

Thanks SAQ for those recipes. My friends, the judges and I really appreciated drinking them.

csi said:

concur. In earlier trials we used to use a very small amount of bdb, (2 oz), and it does help aging stability and also smooths the ale a little. If memory serves the bdb is also used in the st. Bernardus abt 12 but no longer used in the westvleteren 12 (import). Like your mash profile

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bdb?

ultravista said:

bdb?

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I'm thinking they mean debittered black barley.

ultravista said:

bdb?

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Belgian Debittered Black (Dingeman's). Dehusked black malt essentially, but it is a true malt rather than a dark roasted barley.

We've been tinkering with subtle changes with the Westvleteren 12 clone for just over 4 years now. This is a snapshot of highlights we've learned to date:

• Mashing in the lower end, (148F) and mashing out on the higher end, (170F), gets the best of both worlds for fementability and head retention.
  
• Pitching yeast at the Fix rate is best on the first brew. Scaling the pitch down slowly over time is the best way to avoid an under-pitch and stuck fermentation. We currently pitch at 17.5 million/ml
  
• Oxygenate the ale slowly and well with pure O2...90 seconds or better.
  
• Ramping from 63F to 79F works best for us.
  
• Don't let the yeast escape. Westmalle is a 'violent' top cropper. We've seen it blow across a brew room over 10 feet in larger batches. Have a sterile trap to capture the yeast. If krausen slurry is any measure we've seen 200+ billion cells blow off of a 5 gallon fermentor.
  
• Although BLAM reported 20 years ago that Pils and Pale are used in the Abt 12, constant taste testing undeniably indicates this is no longer the case. This is a Pils only Belgian Quad. The recipe originated at St. Bernardus (which is also a Pils only Quad + a small about of BDB).
  
• Northern Brewer is likely the bittering hop, but the IBU's are probably higher than reported.

This year we're focused on the Single malt version and are pushing to have a replica of Westvleteren 12 that is indistinguishable from the import. We're very close.

CSI said:

Northern Brewer is likely the bittering hop, but the IBU's are probably higher than reported.

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I agree re:IBUs - with so much alcohol and the strength of the CS, balancing with hops' bitterness matters and ~10%-15% more hops is called for IMO. I like a more balanced beer so this approach works for me.

Thanks for the summary.

How fast are you ramping the temp up to 79F? Is it a linear curve, or do you let it free rise quickly to a certain point and then ramp more slowly to 79F?




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It's been about 1 1/2 months since I bottled this. It's good, but it's missing some of the Belgian characteristics I was expecting. All I can compare it to is Chimay or ABT 12 because I've never had the original. Is this beer generally a little milder in the Belgian characteristics than other quads?

I was pretty dead on with my temperatures and times, though I may have let it go a little longer before chilling.

Can anyone comment on this?

It gets better with age.

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I'm planning on cultivating the dregs from a Westmalle Dubbel (for better or worse), building that up to pitch in a 5 gallon batch using half the grainbill ("The Lukewarm"), except with pale 2-row for lack of affordable pils, then doing a full batch and pitching it on the cake.

Pilsner malt and a better source of the yeast are unavailable, or prohibitively expensive, and I have no stir plate nor can I borrow one. My goal is not to make a perfect Westy 12 clone, but to make a delicious beer.

That said, is there any reason my plan won't work? What kind of starter progression should I be planning on to pitch for the half-grain batch? This will be my second time not using rehydrated dry yeast, and the first time was an IIPA pitched on the US-05 cake of a session APA, so I'm a little bit in the woods with the bottle-harvested starter thing.

b-boy said:

It's been about 1 1/2 months since I bottled this. It's good, but it's missing some of the Belgian characteristics I was expecting. All I can compare it to is Chimay or ABT 12 because I've never had the original. Is this beer generally a little milder in the Belgian characteristics than other quads?



I was pretty dead on with my temperatures and times, though I may have let it go a little longer before chilling.



Can anyone comment on this?

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When you said dead on with temperatures are you referring to fermentation temperature? My belgians got noticeably better when i started low and slowly raised the temp


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CSI said:

We've been tinkering with subtle changes with the Westvleteren 12 clone for just over 4 years now. This is a snapshot of highlights we've learned to date:

• Mashing in the lower end, (148F) and mashing out on the higher end, (170F), gets the best of both worlds for fementability and head retention.
  
• Pitching yeast at the Fix rate is best on the first brew. Scaling the pitch down slowly over time is the best way to avoid an under-pitch and stuck fermentation. We currently pitch at 17.5 million/ml
  
• Oxygenate the ale slowly and well with pure O2...90 seconds or better.
  
• Ramping from 63F to 79F works best for us.
  
• Don't let the yeast escape. Westmalle is a 'violent' top cropper. We've seen it blow across a brew room over 10 feet in larger batches. Have a sterile trap to capture the yeast. If krausen slurry is any measure we've seen 200+ billion cells blow off of a 5 gallon fermentor.
  
• Although BLAM reported 20 years ago that Pils and Pale are used in the Abt 12, constant taste testing undeniably indicates this is no longer the case. This is a Pils only Belgian Quad. The recipe originated at St. Bernardus (which is also a Pils only Quad + a small about of BDB).
  
• Northern Brewer is likely the bittering hop, but the IBU's are probably higher than reported.

This year we're focused on the Single malt version and are pushing to have a replica of Westvleteren 12 that is indistinguishable from the import. We're very close.

Click to expand...

Wow 17.5 million/ml is a pretty big underpitch. I was going to make a 10 gallon batch this weekend was tossing around the idea of underpitching. I also have a 30 gallon glass fish tank that I used for open fermentation a couple of times


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jtp137 said:

When you said dead on with temperatures are you referring to fermentation temperature? My belgians got noticeably better when i started low and slowly raised the temp


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I followed this from page 1:
Chill the wort down to 65f, pitch and let it self rise to about 82-83f and try to hold it there. The yeast will keep the temp there for about 5 days when fermentation is about 80% done (about 1.018) and start to chill down to 65f until you hit terminal gravity at 1.012 which should take 2 days. After this rack off into a secondary (I did kegs for both as I keg conditioned) and chill to 50f for 7 weeks, then carb however you want.

I let it sit a little longer at 65F because it took longer than 2 days to hit terminal gravity. I have a fermentation chamber that does a pretty good job of maintaining temperatures.

Then I would say let it age more if you can. I could never let it sit long enough my record is 6 months. Did you underpitch


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jtp137 said:

Then I would say let it age more if you can. I could never let it sit long enough my record is 6 months. Did you underpitch


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Mine was still a tad hot at six months, I may sample again next month but may just wait until the summer. August will be one year. I also had a similar issue with the yeast underperforming, but time is really helping matters

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Mine was really lacking on some of the stone fruit character that I was expecting and a little hot. I still put it in a barrel and aged 3 gallons on cherries after. Its been about 8 months and time has definitely helped.

g-star said:

Thanks for the summary.

How fast are you ramping the temp up to 79F? Is it a linear curve, or do you let it free rise quickly to a certain point and then ramp more slowly to 79F?

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We try to keep it as even an incremental rise as possible over 7 days. About a 2.2F rise daily.

I've gotten approval to post some pictures of some of our brewing innovations for the Westy. Hope to post some of this next week.

jtp137 said:

Wow 17.5 million/ml is a pretty big underpitch. I was going to make a 10 gallon batch this weekend was tossing around the idea of underpitching. I also have a 30 gallon glass fish tank that I used for open fermentation a couple of times


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In the Winter we pitch an estimated 664 Billion cells per 10 gallon batch at 1.090. Of course, our estimates are based on the White/Zainasheff model.

Hi all. I'm getting ready to brew the new world, and I accidentally ordered D-180. Will this affect anything other than the color and the background taste? I don't know if the syrups have any different effect on OG.

I "think" I'd prefer the taste to the D-180, based on the product notes.

Thanks.

jtp137 said:

Then I would say let it age more if you can. I could never let it sit long enough my record is 6 months. Did you underpitch


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No I didn't underpitch. I'm holding off until at least June.

IchLiebeBier said:

Hi all. I'm getting ready to brew the new world, and I accidentally ordered D-180. Will this affect anything other than the color and the background taste? I don't know if the syrups have any different effect on OG.

I "think" I'd prefer the taste to the D-180, based on the product notes.

Thanks.

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It's not per the recipe, but I used 2 lbs of the D180 and 1 lb of the D90. I would guess there are mostly overlaps in terms of taste between the two, but some sublte differences as well.

BTW, I love the taste that I ended up with. I don't think you will be disappointed with the D180. I beleive the sugar PPG is the same for D90 and D180.

b-boy said:

No I didn't underpitch. I'm holding off until at least June.

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I can honestly say my beers using wlp530 got a little better, but i get a more noticeable belgian character using wlp500 and wlp570 the 500 more fruity and the 570 more spicy. I am going to try 530 one more time. If i am not happy with it i may try a blend of the 500 and 570 next time


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jtp137 said:

I can honestly say my beers using wlp530 got a little better, but i get a more noticeable belgian character using wlp500 and wlp570 the 500 more fruity and the 570 more spicy. I am going to try 530 one more time. If i am not happy with it i may try a blend of the 500 and 570 next time

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I think I know what you mean about WLP530: it doesn't go to banana as radically as the Chimay strain, and doesn't have the tang. I like that myself: Westmalle strai is a very stable yeast that doesn't generate a lot of off flavors. But, it does have distinct and pleasant flavor and aroma - and it is one of the belgian characters that I like best!

Regarding aging, I have also found that after a few months the Westvleteren clone gets better. I think the D-180 flavor mellows a bit (it is very good, don't get me wrong!) and that helps to balance the whole beer.