Double DUBBLE - Belgian Dubbel - Please give feedback

[732Brewer]

Time to brew a nice strong beer that will have a lasting mouth feel, an ABV around 8.5-9.5%, and an upfront banana character. I came across this recipe and wanted to try it out, but tweak a few things first. I look forward to your feedback before giving possible things I am thinking about changing. Because of the cost to brew and time to age, I value your feedback, as I would like to purchase the needed material later this week.

Feedback can be in many forms.
1.) Grain/Hop/Yeast Changes
2.) Temp changes/suggestions
3.) Hop addition timing changes
4.) anything else you want to add

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Style: Belgian Dubbel
Batch Size: 12.00 gal
Boil Size: 15.05 gal
Boil Time: *60 min
Equipment: Pot (20g) - All Grain
Bitterness: 19.8 IBUs
Est OG: 1.072 (17.4° P)
Est FG: 1.012 SG (3.2° P)
ABV: 7.9% <--putting this into beertools I am getting 10% but the author is saying 7.9%

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Total Grain: 31lbs

26 lbs Pilsner (2 Row) Bel (2.0 SRM)
14.9 oz Carafa I (337.0 SRM)
14.9 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L (60.0 SRM)
14.9 oz Pale Malt (6 Row) US (2.0 SRM)
14.9 oz Wheat, Flaked (1.6 SRM)
11.2 oz Corn, Flaked (1.3 SRM)
11.2 oz Special B Malt (180.0 SRM)

1.0 oz Goldings, B.C. [4.9%] - Boil 60 min
1.0 oz Northern Brewer [9.8%] - Boil 60 min
0.5 oz Saaz [5.8%] - Boil 5 min

1 lbs 13.9 oz Cane (Beet) Sugar (0.0 SRM)
0.25 oz Coriander Seed (Boil 5 min)

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Original Recipe:
http://beersmithrecipes.com/viewrecipe/9277

One last thing - I normally sparge for 45min so efficiency is always quite high and have no issues rinsing the grain well.

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[beergolf]

Ask 10 brewers their opinion and you get 12 different answers. So here is my input.

There is way to much going on in that recipe. Belgians are best with a simple recipe. No need for the pale, just use all pils for the base malt. It seems that this recipe is trying to get the color by adding Carafa. I would drop that and add some darker syrup. D-45 or D- 90 (or a combo of the two) , to get the color and it will add some nice flavor. Drop the corn. a little bit of wheat is ok in a Belgian. I would also consider changing the C60 to Caramunich. That is more in style. The Special B is fine. So if you just used Pils, Caramunich, Special B ( wheat if you want) and 10-20% Darker syrup to get the color and flavor it would be a much simpler and better brew IMO. Hop to a BU:GU ratio of .292. The hops you used are fine, but I did not check the ratio.

You did not mention yeast. All of the Belgian yeasts are different and have different flavor profiles. Make a good sized starter and pitch at about the mid 60's , hold the temp for a couple of days and then you can let the temp raise. Once fermentation starts to slow try to not let the temp drop. It will want to drop once the fermentation stops producing heat so pay attention to that. I like WY 3787 ( Westmalle strain) for a Dubbel. WY 1214 ( Chimay strain) is another good choice but I find it can just a little too fruity for my taste, but this can be controlled by fermentation temp.

Good luck.

 

[solbes]

Dubbel's need 2 things in my mind: Special B, which you have already, and dark candy syrup. I like D90 in Dubbels. A lb of it should do nicely, but 2 lbs would also work if you wanted more of those flavors (these are scaled to 5 gal recipes, you would need more). The popular Belgian Dark Strong recipe on this site uses 2-3 lbs of D90 or D180, so I don't think this is out of line. Most of the color should come from these 2 ingregients, but a tidge of chocolate or caramunich is fine too.

As far as getting banana, which yeast are you looking to use? Westmalle is peppery/clove, Chimay is fruity but not necessarily banana. I get lots of banana from german hefe yeast, but have yet to run across it with Belgian yeasts (granted I've only used maybe half of them from WY).

 

[thespiff]

OK so I just brewed a dubbel a couple months ago and developed my re-brew recipe this past weekend.

I brewed:
15LB Pilsner (85%)
1LB Dark Candi Syrup D180 (5.7%)
0.5LB Biscuit (2.8%)
0.5LB Carapils (2.8%)
0.3LB Special B (1.5%)
0.25LB Brown Sugar (1.4%) (I wanted 7.5% sugar but didn't want to buy another bag of syrup)

18.7 IBUs of Saaz/Styrian Goldings.

Fermented with WLP570

OG 1.076 / FG 1.014 / ABV 8.2%

I found the result to be a bit too dry tasting. I don't know what the Biscuit is contributing. Special B made it smell great but I didn't get any of the plum/raisin notes in the flavor that I was hoping for. Color is nice and brown. Hops are barely there.

I recently brewed a dunkelweizen which was 50/50 pilsner/munich and it had a lot of the dried fruit character I wanted in my dubbel.

When I rebrew I will replace the biscuit with an equal amount of Caramel 60L, replace the carapils with caramunich, and remove the brown sugar entirely.

As for your recipe, I would drop the corn and 6-row. If you like the idea of coffee notes in your dubbel then keep the carafa but I personally wouldn't. I would suck it up and buy the bags of dark candi syrup instead of using straight table sugar because Stan Hieronymus says so. The color will be good with just the dark syrup and 60L.

 

[732Brewer]

^ much appreciated everybody - Thanks for the help - After your comments and recommendations I can tell this recipe is way off. Thanks again

 

[beergolf]

If you want some good recipes look here.

https://www.homebrewtalk.com/forumdisplay.php?f=73

or here.

http://www.candisyrup.com/recipes.html

look at those recipes and you will notice the similarities of the dubbels. Just like cooking. A certain dish will have variations, but all recipes for that dish will have similarities. Then you can decide if you want to tweak a recipe.

 

[732Brewer]

Thanks for the links - I never brewed a dubbel ...and now that I am looking at all the other recipes, the one I posted (I have no clue how that would even come out). Like stated above, its way to complex for the style I am trying to brew.