Belgian Quad Recipe Critique

[eonsend]

Looking at doing my first Quad, here's a simple recipe that I came up with. Any advice is welcome.

Simple Quad
Belgian Dark Strong Ale
5 gal
Estimated ABV: 12.8%
OG: 1.103 FG 1.007
IBUs: 27.2 Color: 34 SRM

Grains:
16 lb Pilsner Malt
3 lb D-180 Candi Syrup @ last 15 minutes of boil

2 oz Styrian Goldings @ 60
1 oz Styrian Goldings @ 5

WLP500 Trappist Ale

90 Min Boil
90 Min Mash @ 149, estimated efficiency 70%
15 min Mash-out @ 168

1 month in primary then bottle for aging. In terms of bottling, would I be fine with just adding in priming sugar and letting whatever yeast is left carb it up or should I pitch new yeast (which I've never done before)? If I should pitch new yeast, what's the process for that? How much yeast should I use?

Thanks for your input!

 

[BadWolfBrewing]

Shouldn't need to repitch. It might carb slowly, but it will get there. A month in the primary isn't that long. A few months of lagering is when you'd have to consider repitching.

It looks like you are trying to get all the flavor from the candi syrup. Have you considered adding some specialty malts? Special B in a dubbel / quad is fantastic, for example.

JZ's recipe uses munich, melanoidin, special B, caramunich, aromatic, and even a little wheat. I'm not going to post his recipe, as that is the point of him selling his book Brewing Classic Styles. I'd pick it up if you haven't yet, I don't there there is a bad recipe in there.

Nothing but base malt and candi syrup might not give that richness and heavy mouthfeel that the Abbey examples would have

 

[eonsend]

Interesting point. Part of me really likes the idea of experimenting with such a simple grain bill to see what happens, but I definitely like really malty, full trappist ales.

Perhaps using 10 lbs Pilsner malt and 6 lbs munich malt would contribute some more maltiness while still keeping the bill simple. Perhaps adding a small amount, like 0.5 lbs Special B also.

 

[SaguaroMan]

Looks good enough.
My recipe was split between Belgian pilsner malt and pale malt. I added 1/2 pound of Special B. Also added a pound of flaked oats for added body; all that sugar will thin that beer out quite a bit.

 

[sladek]

I would cut back to 10-11 pound of Pils and add 5-6 pounds of Pale malt to make up the difference. Munich is also a great choice!

 

[beergolf]

I like the simplicity. A good simple Tripel recipe is 80% pils 20% sugar. This is just a variation of that. Just using dark syrup.

I like the idea of using some Munich for a little more flavor.

D180 is pretty strong stuff so maybe cut that back to 2 lbs and one lb of plain sugar. I did a brew like that and the D-180 way pretty strong, and the beer was very dark. a full 3 lbs might be a little much.

One month might not be enough for this high gravity brew to finish. Make 100% sure that it is done before you bottle. Make a very big starter and give a good blast of pure oxygen to make sure it finishes out. You also might want to consider adding the sugar in increments. 1 lb at the end of the boil, another lb after several days, and then the third after a few more days.

 

[eonsend]

Another question that has popped up: Should I do a protease rest? Many other recipes for quads/trappist ales that I've seen seem to have a protease rest due to the pilsner malt. Would it be beneficial to do one or would it just be extra work for not much gain? I do electric BIAB so raising the temp during mash shouldn't be that big a deal for me, just takes time and stirring.

 

[eulipion2]

Here's a recipe from BeerAdvocate a few years ago, supposed to be similar to a rumored traditional Westvleteren 12 recipe:

 

[eonsend]

Well ingredients have been bought gonna be brewing this weekend. The adjusted recipe is as follows:

Belgian Quad

5 gal
OG: 1.091 FG: 1.009
estimated ABV 11%
IBUS: 24 Color: 27 srm

10 lbs Pilsner Malt (Bel)
5 lbs Munic
2 lbs D-180 Candi Sugar

2 oz Fuggles @ 60 (LHBS was out of Styrian Goldings)
1 oz Fuggles @ 5

3 L starter of WLP500

90 Min boil
90 min Mash @ 149

 

[pdietert]

Your Aroma Hops are not going to add anything especially if you plan on aging it (and you should). Other than that it looks good and tasty. I have a couple of quads that have aged over 8 months (so far) and they keep getting better.

 

[pdietert]

Also, a protein rest would not hurt and would probably help. Let us know how this comes out!

 

[eonsend]

I was thinking about a protein rest. Spent enough on the ingredients so might as well do it. I'll add in a 20 min protein rest at 130

 

[sladek]

recipe looks great..yes, do a protein rest!

 

[eonsend]

Okay, well the quad is all brewed up this weekend and is bubbling away in the fermenter. Had some parts of the brewday that went really well and some not so much, but hopefully won't adversely affect the beer too much.
Did a protein rest at 130 for 20 minutes which went smoothly. The sacc rest didn't go quite as smoothly. After heating the wort up to 149 and insulating the kettle, I let it do its thing for an hour before checking temp and the refractometer. We were making good progress to our pre-boil goal, but I guess due to the fact that it was rather warm out that day, the temperature in the kettle had risen to 158! In and of itself not such a big deal, just surprising. I took the lid off and stirred until we were back down to 150, replaced the lid and this time did not insulate for 30 more minutes to get the remaining points.
After 30 more minutes and a 10 minute mash-out at 168, we were a couple points over target gravity! 1.065 instead of 1.061. Pulled out my BIAB bag and squeezed and started bringing the wort up to a boil. Now at this point I realized that the water calculator I used had miscalculated how much water we'd need, so our pre-boil volume was much higher than expected. Ended up having to do a 2 hour boil instead of 90 minutes to hit our target volume, which was also not that big of a deal.
What had me more concerned was adding the dark candi syrup. I do eBIAB with two 120V elements, and was concerned if I just added the syrup to the boil at 15 minutes it would burn to the elements. My solution was to turn off the elements while we stirred in the syrup and hope that it would dissolve enough. Unfortunately it did not, and when we drained the kettle into the fermenter bucket there was a lovely crust of burned sugars on the elements. Praying that the burned sugar won't give the beer a burnt, smoky flavor, but only time will tell. Other than that, hop additions went as planned and ended up with about 5.2 gallons of lovely dark brown colored wort with an OG of 1.095.

I guess I'll just take the burned sugars as lessons learned from experience, and next time I'm using sugar in a recipe, I'll either add it to the fermenter or perhaps dissolve it in boiling water on my stove and then add that to the boil.

Here's to hoping it comes out!

 

[eulipion2]

I guess I'll just take the burned sugars as lessons learned from experience, and next time I'm using sugar in a recipe, I'll either add it to the fermenter or perhaps dissolve it in boiling water on my stove and then add that to the boil.

You could take out a gallon or so of wort, stir in the syrup, then add it back to the kettle. That way you don't dilute your wort.

 

[pdietert]

That is a very big beer, I think it probably scorched from the sugar concentration of the wort and not necessary from the candi sugar addition. Did you taste and or smell it in the wort going to the fermenter? I brew in a keggle and when I do a big beer (usually over 1.090), there is sometimes a bit of scorching at the bottom dimple of the keg which I have never tasted in the finished beers, but that is probably quite a bit less than the amount of scorching you had.