Bland Dubbel

[OscarBrau]

Hello all,

I brewed a dubbel on 10/4/15, kegged on 10/23/15, and let it sit at room temperature for 2 months to age before carbonating. I tasted it at the keg transfer, and it had many of the characteristic belgian flavors and aromas. Upon carbonating it and tasting it for the first time, it seems to completely lack any distinct flavors. There's a little alcohol taste, and then just kind of bland. There's really no description I can give of the beer because there's just no flavor. It's a simple extract recipe based on the Westvleteren 8 on the candisyrup.com website.

6 lbs Pilsner LME
1 lb D-180 candi syrup
.5 lb brun fonce sugar

hopped to about 35 IBU with brewers gold, hallertau, and styrian goldings at 60, 30, and 10 minutes. I used Wyeast 3787 yeast. Started at 1.075 and finished at 1.010.

It fermented at about 65 for about 2 days, then I moved the fermenter and the temperature went up to 72 for the remaining time in primary. I'm careful at transfers, making sure to sanitize everything and have never had an issue with oxidation.

Has anyone had something like this happen, where the beer seemed nice at first but then completely lost everything it had after carbonating? I'm just trying to understand what may have happened.

 

[beergolf]

That is a mystery. The recipe looks good, the fermentation schedule looks fine. I find dubbels really start to get good at 4 months, but at two should taste pretty good.

The only thing that I can think of is, What temp are you serving it at? I prefer my dubbels a little warmer to bring out the flavor. Try pouring one and let it sit to warm up and see how it tastes.

 

[OscarBrau]

That could be part of the problem - I was too impatient to let it warm up.

I did have a problem with the keg that I forgot to mention. It had a broken dip tube that I had to replace after the beer had already been kegged. Could the keg being opened a couple of times have an effect on the beer? I made sure to purge it after opening each time.

 

[jon_k]

its a simple extract recipe based on the Westvleteren 8 on the candisyrup.com website.

6 lbs Pilsner LME
1 lb D-180 candi syrup
.5 lb brun fonce sugar
.

Maybe the recipe is blande and not your process. The Candi syrup tastes great but conditions out a lot, so that isn't going to leave lots of flavor. The pilsner lme isn't doing any classical belgian taste either for the malts you want in a dubbel. I'd think more complex dubbel flavors come from the mash or minimash. Didn't see any mash grains in your recipe.

Here's a recent westvleteran 8 clone minimash I did. It was AHS's clone kit.

10 oz cara Munich malt (sweet malty flavor and aroma.)
6 oz special b malt (very dark caramel, raisin, or plum.)
1 oz chocolate malt (complex chocolate and cocoa flavours,)
1/4 lb biscuit malt (Biscuit malt is known for it’s toasted bread-like flavors. Think of it more as an English biscuit – in America we would think of it as more of a cracker taste.)
1/4 lb aromatic malt (adds intensely malty flavor in any beer)
1 3/4lb Belgian pilsner base malt.

My keg get to be better and better. It's pretty tasty but I wonder about all grains tastyness. Going to bottle it at some point.

 

[OscarBrau]

That's certainly possible, but it did taste quite good prior to kegging. I'm starting to wonder if oxidation could be the problem, too.

 

[jon_k]

That's certainly possible, but it did taste quite good prior to kegging. I'm starting to wonder if oxidation could be the problem, too.

From the professor of beer.... seems you're right.


Oxidation effects beer flavor in a few ways.
As Dark beers age, rich malt aromas are replaced by sweet, sherry-like tones. Many people find this aroma enticing, although it is much different from the original malty character of the fresh beer. Most concerning, the malt flavor of the beer disappears, leaving an emptiness in the palate that can be quite disappointing.

The most unpalatable occurs mostly in light-colored beers: the formation of trans-2-nonenal. This compound, which is classified as an aldehyde, tastes like paper or lipstick (lipstick and paper actually taste quite similar!). It has a very low flavor threshold; as little as 0.1 parts per billion can be discerned in beer!

The aroma of many light-colored beers will also be compromised by oxidation. The malt character that is originally present in a fresh example may become honey-like due to the formation of 2,3-pentanedione. While this may not be unpleasant, it may not be what the brewer intended.

 

[brewcat]

Either a mini mash or steeping grains may be helpful. I have a good extract recipe but I'll have to check what I did. It probably uses munich, vienna and special b.

My preferences are golden LME and Wyeast 3522. I also add the sugar in the last 15 minutes of the boil (something about not boiling off the sugars).

 

[beergolf]

The Candi syrup tastes great but conditions out a lot, so that isn't going to leave lots of flavor.

I do not find that to be true. If it was the CSI D-180 it will leave plenty of good flavor. His recipe is a pretty close approximation of the Westlevteren 8 recipe ( which uses just pils and some pale) on The CSI website, just using extract. Recipes do not need to be complex and toss in a lot of extra grains to be good.


Here is a recipe that just uses pils, pale and syrup.. It is far from bland. https://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=500037


I have made several dubbels and BDSA's using just pils and the syrup and they were very good. A recipe does not need a lot of different grains to make a good Belgian beer. The yeast and the fermentation schedule will have a lot to do with the final product.

 

[m00ps]

I agree with @beergolf . Belgians are best kept simple. I dont think that Westy8 recipe looks remotely right. Its about 46% specialty malts!

 

[giraffe]

I agree with beergolf too.

Oxidation could be a factor, but I think youd really need to mistreat the beer to be an issue in my experience, and you said you purged the keg. If you are getting wet cardboard and cooking sherry, id lean towards oxidation.

Did you pitch on a yeast cake, or otherwise grossly overpitch? If you pitched a reasonable amount of yeast, 3787 should still give you plenty of flavor regardless of malt bill, its not really a subtle yeast.

 

[OscarBrau]

I made a starter based on the brewers friend calculator, so it should have been the correct amount. Sorry I don't have my notes at the moment. I'm going to give this some more time, and it maybe possible the broken dip tube throwing in a bunch of extra CO2 (the faucet was spitting out foam) caused some issues for the samples I had? The new dip tube should be hear in a couple of days. I'll update then.

I really appreciate everyones help. This is definitely a mystery to me.