Allagash Tripel Clone or Duvel Clone recipe?

[jbenedetto]

I'm planning my first all-grain batch and I'm torn between an Allagash Tripel clone, or a Duvel clone.. Both are among my favorites, but I am unsure if they would be simple enough for a first-time batch..

Are there any homebrewers who could lend a recipe for either of these delicious beers?

thanks,

jb

 

[flyangler18]

First AG, eh? I'd start with a simpler recipe than a big bad Belgian. Not to discourage, just trying to 'set you for success'!

 

[Cugel]

The Duvel clone is really easy as 99% of the flavor comes from the yeast. Jamil Z's book has a receipe for a Belgian Strong Golden Ale that when I made it with non-pilsner malt cam out very close to Duvel. The recipe is easy: ??? lbs of pilsner malt, 3 lbs sugar, yeast and water. I'll see if I can post the recipe tonight.

The only tricky thing about this recipe is having the patience/self control to leave it sit for 6 months or so before it comes into it's own.

 

[carnevoodoo]

The Duvel clone is really easy as 99% of the flavor comes from the yeast. Jamil Z's book has a receipe for a Belgian Strong Golden Ale that when I made it with non-pilsner malt cam out very close to Duvel. The recipe is easy: ??? lbs of pilsner malt, 3 lbs sugar, yeast and water. I'll see if I can post the recipe tonight.

The only tricky thing about this recipe is having the patience/self control to leave it sit for 6 months or so before it comes into it's own.

QFT.

The golden strongs are all malt, sugar, and yeast.

 

[Saccharomyces]

+1. Belgian Golden Strong Ale is a GREAT beer. :rockin:

Something like

13# Belgian Pils
2# corn sugar
Mash 90 @149*F

And ferment with the WY1388/WLP530. It'll be money. Even if your efficiency sucks and you totally miss your mash temp... I guarantee it will STILL blow your mind. My favorite beers are still the simple ones. And this is about as simple as it gets!!

 

[Cugel]

Jamil Z's Strong Golden recipe:

11 lbs Pislener malt
3 lbs Sugar
3.5 AA Saaz 2.25 oz at 90 mins
WLP 570 or Wyeast 1388.

Mash at 149oF.
90 minute boil.

Pitch yeast at 64oF. Let temps rise slowly to 82oF over the course of 1 week.
Carb beer to ~4 volumes.

Good luck, it's a great recipe... just leave it alone for 4-6 months and it'll be super!

 

[jbenedetto]

Awesome, thanks! I love me a strong belgian beer, this'll be my next batch.
This is a 5 gallon recipe, right?

jb

 

[Evan!]

Dang, I'm glad I read this. I have a keg of this that I brewed on 9/28 and it was next in line for my taps. Good to know.

 

[Cugel]

I tapped my keg at 3 months, but it really improved dramatically between 4 and 6 months. I wonder if it could have been a month or two of "lagering"/cold storage as opposed to just an extra 2 months of aging that helped it along?

 

[UnaBonger]

Jamil Z's Strong Golden recipe:

11 lbs Pislener malt
3 lbs Sugar
3.5 AA Saaz 2.25 oz at 90 mins
WLP 570 or Wyeast 1388.

Mash at 149oF.
90 minute boil.

Pitch yeast at 64oF. Let temps rise slowly to 82oF over the course of 1 week.
Carb beer to ~4 volumes.

Good luck, it's a great recipe... just leave it alone for 4-6 months and it'll be super!

This is a keeper!

I'm just an extract guy with big aspersions :rockin: Is this really as simple as it reads? steep the grains @ 149 for 90 mins. cool & pitch?

Additionally, I ferment in my basement which has gotten noticeably cooler over the last few weeks. Pitching @ 64 is no biggie, but how can I raise the temps slowly/consistently in a cool environment?

 

[jbenedetto]

this will be my first all grain batch, but i think you mash, sparge, and then boil with hops for 90 minutes. THEN cool to 64o and pitch your yeast.

I posted this recipe to the recipator:

http://hbd.org/cgi-bin/recipator/recipator?group=20&item=7700

 

[Cugel]

This is a keeper!

I'm just an extract guy with big aspersions :rockin: Is this really as simple as it reads? steep the grains @ 149 for 90 mins. cool & pitch?

Additionally, I ferment in my basement which has gotten noticeably cooler over the last few weeks. Pitching @ 64 is no biggie, but how can I raise the temps slowly/consistently in a cool environment?

What grains do you refer to? There are no specialty grains just pilsener and sugar. Just wondering as you're an extract guy - like myself.

If you want to go AG then mash the grains at 149 for 60 mins, sparge and boil for 90 mins and you're good to go.

 

[UnaBonger]

What grains do you refer to? There are no specialty grains just pilsener and sugar. Just wondering as you're an extract guy - like myself.

If you want to go AG then mash the grains at 149 for 60 mins, sparge and boil for 90 mins and you're good to go.

Being an extract guy, like yourself, when I read "11 lbs Pislener malt" I assumed it was a grain... My bad.

If I were to go this newfangled "all-grain" route I'm a little fuzzy on the sparge... I get the mash part and boil part... Can anyone dumb down the sparge term enough for me to understand what needs to be done to accomplish it?

 

[Chriso]

OK. Hold up. We need to clarify what we're talkin' about here.

11# of Pilsner Malt is indeed a grain, it is a base grain. There's not really "steeping" with base grains. If you want to use extract, I would just use Pilsen Light DME or Xtra Light DME, and if possible, do a late addition for about 2/3 of it. (Make sure to calc your hops correctly if you do a late addition.)

What you are used to steeping are specialty grains, for the most part, and their job is to add colors and flavors to the wort. In the case of a Belgian Golden Strong, there AREN'T really any colors or flavors to add -- because the yeast is responsible for most of the flavor!

You could, theoretically, ferment the entire time at 64˚F, but you *might* see a stuck fermentation, and you will probably miss out on some of the yeast-caused esters, which really "make" a BGSA what it is. Are there any warmer rooms in the house that, after 2-3 days of fermentation, you could move the fermenter to for a while? Or can you just raise the thermostat a bit, and deal with a warm house for a few days towards the end of your fermentation?

Finally: Sparging. To make it as simple as possible....

• Mashing, as you know, is one big steep, with a carefully calculated amount of water (that determines your mash thickness) at a certain temperature (that determines your wort's fermentability and flavor profile).
• Once starch conversion is complete, and you are done with your mash, you drain the sweet wort out of the mash tun. But a number of sugars are still stuck in the grain bed, so sparging basically just rinses those sugars out of the grain -- but in a controlled manner.
• There are two kinds of sparging, batch and fly, and they work in slightly different ways.

(Past here, John Palmer's How To Brew and other sources, like the HBT wiki, should be able to fill in all the details. )

 

[carnevoodoo]

Being an extract guy, like yourself, when I read "11 lbs Pislener malt" I assumed it was a grain... My bad.

If I were to go this newfangled "all-grain" route I'm a little fuzzy on the sparge... I get the mash part and boil part... Can anyone dumb down the sparge term enough for me to understand what needs to be done to accomplish it?

Pilsener malt is a type of grain. This recipe is just one type of grain and a lot of sugar.

Sparge = rinse. You get water at the right temp and you just mix it in with the grain you're using and you drain again. It gets all the sugar out. It is just rinsing.

 

[jbenedetto]

I'm inexperienced, but I've been reading about the mashing/lautering process lately. It's a fairly simple process that for some reason gets overcomplicated when an explanation is attempted. I think I understand it, so here goes:

Sparging is the process of rinsing to extract fermentable sugars from the grain. As I understand it, it involves pouring the wort back into the mashtun after draining/"lautering" the initial mash. Think of it as a second rinse for the grains.

There's fly sparging, where you spray the wort in and drain it at the same time/rate. Fly sparging is generally considered the most efficient, meaning more fermentable sugars are extracted from the grains. Batch sparging is where you pour it all in at once, and then drain. It is a much simpler method, but considered less efficient and thus may require more grain to get the right starting gravity. Most homebrewers get acceptable results using this method.

jb

 

[UnaBonger]

All excellent posts on helping me understand sparging. Thanks

Tempted to try this recipe but the fermentation temps are scaring me away... My basement is cool and the thought of moving the beer upstairs and warming my old house above normal temps have me thinking that it would be a VERY expensive beer!

 

[Chriso]

What about a small empty closet and a space heater (with a thermostat)?

Start with the space heater off, and on Day 3, turn it on its lowest setting... bump a little each day.... keep a digital thermometer probe tucked inside the door to keep an eye on things?

There are lots of clever ways to do it. If you use glass carboys, you could probably do the opposite of a swamp cooler - use a small Aquarium heating pump to raise the water temperature......

Or, just make sure to keep the carboy off of the floor (piece of lumber) to keep heat from being pulled out through the floor, and wrap in a sleeping bag if you want to contain the heat. Even in a 64˚ room, you could probably get your internal temp up into the 70-72˚ range if you're clever about it.

 

[robp7787]

I brewed a duvel clone about three weeks ago. After the main fermentation mellowed, I transferred it to a glass carboy. It's been there over 2 weeks. Are there any signs I should be looking for? I know I'm supposed to wait a few months, but how do I know when to bottle? Should I just check the gravity? Or am I waiting to see the beer start to clear? I know I'm supposed to be patient. Let me know what to look for.

In case you haven't guessed, I'm a noob, and this was only the 5th batch I've brewed.

 

[Beernip]

Jamil Z's Strong Golden recipe:

11 lbs Pislener malt
3 lbs Sugar
3.5 AA Saaz 2.25 oz at 90 mins
WLP 570 or Wyeast 1388.

Mash at 149oF.
90 minute boil.

Pitch yeast at 64oF. Let temps rise slowly to 82oF over the course of 1 week.
Carb beer to ~4 volumes.

Good luck, it's a great recipe... just leave it alone for 4-6 months and it'll be super!

How long would you leave this at 82oF before long term storage temps? Until fermentation is complete? ~2weeks

Age at ~60oF-65oF

 

[Freezeblade]

I brewed a duvel clone about three weeks ago. After the main fermentation mellowed, I transferred it to a glass carboy. It's been there over 2 weeks. Are there any signs I should be looking for? I know I'm supposed to wait a few months, but how do I know when to bottle? Should I just check the gravity? Or am I waiting to see the beer start to clear? I know I'm supposed to be patient. Let me know what to look for.

In case you haven't guessed, I'm a noob, and this was only the 5th batch I've brewed.

I just bottled my Duvel clone a few weeks ago, it was 4 months old at that point, 1.5 months in primary, the rest in secondary. I waited that long because I wanted the beer as crystal clear as possible. Just let it sit, especally if you're using the Duvel strain, as that one takes forever to clear out.

To answer your question: Just wait for it. Let it clear. RDWHAHB.

 

[nutcase]

I just bottled my Duvel clone a few weeks ago, it was 4 months old at that point, 1.5 months in primary, the rest in secondary. I waited that long because I wanted the beer as crystal clear as possible. Just let it sit, especally if you're using the Duvel strain, as that one takes forever to clear out.

To answer your question: Just wait for it. Let it clear. RDWHAHB.

I'm brewing the JZ recipe this weekend. Does that yeast (WLP 570) really need a secondary? I hate doing secondary's i was just gonna rack to a keg after a few weeks.

 

[dirt55]

I'm making this tomorrow...so it is Mash at 90mins AND boil for 90mins? or just mash at 60mins and boil for 90mins. I know you have to boil for 90mins because of the pils/dms combo. Thanks for the help

 

[fbi365]

I think I am going to give this a shot for my first all grain. I'll pitch on a WLP570 Belgian Golden Ale cake leftover from a (extract) belgian blonde i just made. Had to sub yeast at LHBS b/c they were out of belgian wit yeast. Looking forward to it.

 

[jesutton3]

So when should the sugar be added? Last 10 min? Flame out? Start of boil?

 

[michael.berta]

I made this back about 4 months ago and I still don't think it has mellowed out enough. The pear notes from the yeast are way too strong.

 

[wscott823]

First AG, eh? I'd start with a simpler recipe than a big bad Belgian. Not to discourage, just trying to 'set you for success'!

+1

You've got cojones dude for trying something like this as your fist AG.
In hindsight I'd try a simple wit recipe or pale ale to get aquainted with the process first.

 

[nutcase]

I made ten gallons a month or so ago. One corny is gonna age for a long time but I'm going to tap the otehr corny soon - because i had an accident and knocked the keg over while filling. I saved about half the beer but it got severly oxygenated in the process. On the plus side- my family room has a significant permanent belgian smell to it.

 

[fbi365]

Hahaha Nutcase, as if our houses don't already smell like a brewery. I made this recipe today as my first all grain. Thanks Jamil and Thanks Benedetto for the recipe. I'll report back on the results...

 

[adamjab19]

So how long should this beer be kept at high temps.? I did the ramp up but should the beer condition at a cooler temp?