Jazzing up a boring Belgian post-keg

[bradleypariah]

Hey guys, I kegged a beer that I kinda want to put back out to pasture. I don't hate it, there's no off-flavors - I either don't like Belgian yeast, or I don't know what to do with it. I anticipated a warm basement during a recent heat wave, so I strayed from my usual ale yeast without varying my recipe too much. My logic was, I'd rather have a Belgian yeast flavor on purpose, than a juicy fruit flavor on accident. My favorite beer flavor is an overly-floral (late addition) amber ale.

Looking for post-kegging advice.

Recipe:
12 lbs of Washington 2-row
1 lb of dark chocolate malt
1 lb of flaked oats
1 oz Cascade for 60 min
Irish Moss @ 15 minutes
3 oz Cascade at flame-out, lid on, sit 20 minutes, then chill.
Imperial Rustic yeast
After hitting FG, dry hop 2 oz Citra

I fermented at 64° F.
Flavor is "meh". It definitely doesn't taste like it has 6 ounces of hops.
It's super clean and chug-able. Color is very dark brown, almost black in the glass, but light shines right through it.
Aftertaste is Belgian ester, with only a hint of fruit and hops.

What I'm thinking is to pull the keg from the fridge, dry hop the keg with an ounce of Centennial, and leave the keg at room temperature for a week or two. I'm also open to adding fruit or something.

Thoughts?

 

[ksut1547]

Belgian yeast + American hops= s*** can get weird.

 

[secondbase]

I really like the yeast you used but I've never used that much roasted malt in a saison before. Belgian yeasts can also ferment a bit cleaner at lower temperatures, especially saison yeasts which tend to be very expressive at higher temps. As for fixing it, Belgian yeasts change over time and usually get better with a little age on them. Maybe try priming in the keg with sugar for a bottle conditioning effect to get a little more character out of your yeast. I don't think I'd add anymore hops, especially american ones. As previously stated, Belgian yeast + American hops is a tricky combo to pull off sometimes.

 

[bradleypariah]

Maybe try priming in the keg with sugar for a bottle conditioning effect to get a little more character out of your yeast.

Thank you Since you mention sugar, perhaps I should use Belgian Candi?

Whether I use either one, do I need to dissolve it in boiling water first, or should I dump directly to the keg? My ABV is above 6%, so I'm not so worried about infection, I just honestly have no idea whether or not I should expect the sugar to dissolve on its own.

 

[secondbase]

Thank you Since you mention sugar, perhaps I should use Belgian Candi?

Whether I use either one, do I need to dissolve it in boiling water first, or should I dump directly to the keg? My ABV is above 6%, so I'm not so worried about infection, I just honestly have no idea whether or not I should expect the sugar to dissolve on its own.

Regular sugar is fine. Treat it as if you were bottling. Boil it first, cool it down and add the sugar solution to the keg. Let it condition at room temp for 4 weeks or so.

 

[Northern_Brewer]

My favorite beer flavor is an overly-floral (late addition) amber ale.
....
1 lb of dark chocolate malt
1 lb of flaked oats
1 oz Cascade for 60 min

...It definitely doesn't taste like it has 6 ounces of hops. It's super clean and chug-able.
...Aftertaste is Belgian ester, with only a hint of fruit and hops.

Man - saison plus lots of US hops plus a chunky grist, they'll all be fighting, no wonder it's a bit of a mess. I'd emphasise no more than 2 characteristics in a beer, the rest is just there to support and harmonise. And if I was leading with a saison yeast, I'd tend to embrace the malt rather than throwing more dry hops at it.

I'd tend to take the view that if you've got 5 gallons that haven't really worked, especially if it's ended up on the meh side, then that's a perfect beer to experiment with. Even if the experiment doesn't work then you're no worse off than you were before, and you might learn a technique that can be used in future beers.

So - I'd be tempted to split the batch into 5, keep one as a control and 4 tests. To start with - that ounce of Cascade is only 15-20 IBU at best, but given how badly Cascade stores and that it presumably is at least 12 months old, if it's not been kept right then you could have lost 2/3 of the alpha acids in storage (and also a significant proportion of the aroma compounds, which won't help your late additions). Depending on the condition of the Cascade and your personal taste, I'd add at least 20IBU, maybe 30IBU - simmer eg 0.5-0.75oz of Nugget in a little water for an hour and add it to the bulk beer. The idea is not to go crazy bitter, but you need something to give it a bit of structure and the chocolate and 6% ABV will reduce the apparent bitterness.

Just in general, that 6% ABV means you can add 10% by volume of (sterile) "other stuff" without too much worry about dilution. It also suggests that you're pretty well attenuated and I think a hint of sweetness would help the balance of this - lactose? A bit of additional malt complexity wouldn't hurt either - don't know what dark extracts you can get hold of? So I'll leave the extra bitterness, lactose and malts to your discretion, but if it was me, I'd be splitting into 5 batches and doing something like these :

1) Control - add some alpha etc if you're adding it to the others
2) Wood aged - add some extra alpha/malt/lactose, and some wood chips, optionally soaked in rum/whisk(e)y, maybe even add some Brett
3) Milk stout - maybe go easy on extra alpha but add malt and (relatively) lots of lactose
4)Cherry dark - extra alpha/malt and cherries in some form, not sure what you can get hold of, maybe add a bit of lactic acid or lactobacillus?
5)Plum "porter" - extra alpha/malt and a bit more lactose than 2) but less than 3), and plum essence, maybe other dark fruit - damsons? prune juice?

Google can give you more details on recipes. I'm not saying these will suddenly turn it into great beer, but they should be at least drinkable and interesting, plus give you experience of a few different styles and techniques. And if they don't work, then it's only 8 bottles of each that you're writing off.....