Cloning Affligem

[CMBJake]

So, I just love Affligem Trippel, and I want to clone the heck out of it, but I'm having a hard time perfecting my recipe. Does anyone have a good bead on an Affligem Clone?

I know these Abbey Beers are a work of art in themselves and that they take almost as much time as a good wine, but there's got to be a way to replicate them and be almost as good, right?

Thanks.

 

[DannPM]

I'd start by propping some yeast from the bottle. A lot of the uniqueness of tripels come from the yeast more than anything. The grain bills are relatively generic with some minor differences here and there.

 

[beergolf]

There is a recipe for it in Clone Brews book.

I have looked at it ans was thinking about trying it soon.

 

[theonetrueruss]

Not sure about Affligem but you can definitely make awesome beers in that style that are as good as what you buy. Fear nothing and brew onward!

FYI- I'm planning to brew a triple tomorrow night

 

[CMBJake]

Here's the thing about Belgian yeasts...

If you look at the websites of any decent Trappist beer, you will see a note about "protected" yeasts. Being English speakers, we don't often understand the term to mean "copyrighted" or "trademarked" or even better "trade secret". What those sneaky Belgians do (especially the monks) is that they brew with their super secret strain, then they bottle with a secondary ferment on a generic strain that is, shall we say, MEH....

So, just pitching the dregs of a decent Affligem or Fin Du Monde will only get you a mediocre beer at best.

That being said, there is still a way to get that super-secret strain for yourself...

The crappy strains are often a low-temp tolerenace yeast, and the good Belgians can handle higher temps before giving up the ghost. The problem is that those temps are so close to each other, that you practically need laboratory equipment to control the temps precisely. Then you can culture the dregs, carefully heat the sample to 104 degrees or so to kill the crappy yeast, back it down, and re-culture whatever survived, which will likely be the secret saison or wit strain you want.

Has anyone doen this yet?

 

[CMBJake]

Here's what I usually do to clone recipes.

First, go to Beeradvocate.com and find your target style. For instance, a Witbier: Witbier - BeerAdvocate

Then, click on the "View the Top Beers" link near the top of the page: Top Beers - Witbier - BeerAdvocate

Scroll through the top beers to one you have enjoyed and know you want to clone, or you can use the list to go buy it and try it first.

Next, read the reviews of your target beer. Here, I focused on "St. Bernardus Witbier": St. Bernardus Witbier - Brouwerij St. Bernardus NV - Watou, Belgium - BeerAdvocate

Next, visit the target beer's website, if one exists, to find the ingredient list. Most awesome beers will have one. Here, St. Bernardus doesn't have much information: Sint Bernardus

All it really says is that it has a unique secondary fermentation and the recipe was developed by the same dude who made Hoegaarden and Celis White, Piere Celis.

Then, see if anyone else has cloned it for pointers.

At this moment, we know three things:

1) It's a Hoengaerden kin (the apple doesn't fall far from the tree)
2) It has a target ABV of 5.5% alcohol
3) It's a "traditional wheat beer" from Belgium

I haven't found one for this style, but I think Clone Brew or Beer Captured may have it.

Anyway, then you tear the recipe apart in the BrewMasterswarehouse.com BrewBuilder 2.0 and tweak it to match the commercial brewer's ABV, S.G., O.G., IBU, SRM, etc.

Once you have something that matches, tweak it to your personal tastes, and run it by the dudes on the homebrewtalk boards.

If all turns out well, then give it a brew and see what you get!

So, that's what I do... Any thoughts?

 

[DannPM]

Jake, Belgians are my favorite and I've read a lot about them but I've never heard of that in my life.... Where did you read that, just wondering?

A lot of Belgian breweries do condition with a secondary strain but there are a lot, a lot, who condition with the primary strain. Rochefort, Chimay, and Orval all have the primary strain in the bottle and can have it cultured out of them. (albeit Orval with the brett added)

 

[CMBJake]

I spoke with a yeast culture expert who works at Budweiser in the SF East Bay, and he told me about it. I also saw this interesting article in some homebrew site and I corroborated it on the chimay site, although I do know that some places give a shot of fresh yeast of the same primary strain for the secondary fermentation.