First brewday in 12 years. BLAM!

[Komodo]

Finally got all my gear together, recipe down, all my processes scaled WAY back from the three tier stuff I used to do. BLAM has been a major inspiration.

Aiming for a darker Prankster/Duvelish. 4 gallon batches this time, bottled in champaign bottles. I plan on brewing this and only this, tweaking it each time till it's perfect. Like a monk.

3lbs pale
3lbs pilsner
.5 lb white wheat malt
.5 lb Munich malt
.25 lb flaked wheat
.25 lb Special B
.25 lb D2 syrup
.5oz sweet orange peel
US Golding boil and Saaz at knockout

White Labs Platinum 545 Ardennes for the heavy lifting.

Missed my mash temp by a couple degrees, was heating more water and made it up. No biggie.
Had wife and kids smell the mash. Kids said it smelled like bread, wife said it smelled like I was feeding cows. Pfft.

 

[Komodo]

48 hours and bubbling 2x per second. After the initial slows way down, i'll add 1# turbinado to fire it back up.

 

[step]

Giddy-up

Wish I had the patience to brew one recipe to perfection. I would like to know how things go on the consumption end of this recipe

 

[DannPM]

Welcome back bud. BLAM gets me hard every time I read it...

 

[Komodo]

Giddy-up

Wish I had the patience to brew one recipe to perfection. I would like to know how things go on the consumption end of this recipe

I figure minimum 3 week ferment, and 3 week bottle condition....which makes first taste on Xmas day. I'll post taste result then, and a month or two after that. I always find it super useful to see followups on recipes.

 

[beergolf]

I love Belgians. You are right BLAM is a great inspiration.

Your recipe looks good. Should be very tasty. I do like your idea of brewing a recipe until you get it right.


A couple of points from BLAM about brewing Belgians.

Sugar should be 10-20% of the fermentables.

Give the yeast plenty of time to ferment. It can often take as long to get the last few points of attenuation as it does for the first 80%. Consider raising the temp at the end to help the yeast finish.

I find that most Belgians require a lot more time to mature. I usually go at least 5 weeks ( and often more) in the fermenter and a few months in the bottles. They are drinkable at 3-4 weeks, but get soooooooo much better with some time. Brewing Belgian requires patience.

Enjoy.

 

[Jester]

Welcome back!!!! I took a break for a few years because life got to hectic, but I just started brewing again about 3 months ago. It's like riding a bike!!! Hahahaa

 

[Komodo]

Welcome back!!!! I took a break for a few years because life got to hectic, but I just started brewing again about 3 months ago. It's like riding a bike!!! Hahahaa

You know when people say "if I knew then what I know now . ."

Well, I find myself in the unique position to be doing just that. I'm basically starting all over from scratch (I sold EVERYTHING, but my books), rebuilding my whole process, but with all of the knowledge and hindsight. It's actually made it 200% more enjoyable.

 

[Jester]

You know when people say "if I knew then what I know now . ."

Well, I find myself in the unique position to be doing just that. I'm basically starting all over from scratch (I sold EVERYTHING, but my books), rebuilding my whole process, but with all of the knowledge and hindsight. It's actually made it 200% more enjoyable.

I understand exactly what you mean. That is a great position to be in!!!

 

[Komodo]

Added the turbinado on the 17th, and it's still bubbling. It's started to slow at one bubble every 2 minutes (i know that means nothing other than a reference for me so i dont pull off the fermenter lid to check gravity). I'm really excited to see what this yeast has done.

 

[Petho]

This is embarassing but what is BLAM?

 

[MKEbrew]

This is embarassing but what is BLAM?

Brew Like a Monk I'm guessing. Took me a minute as well. I haven't read it.

 

[Komodo]

Sorry, yes it's Brew Like a Monk. Really cool book if you are in any way interested in Belgian beers.

 

[Komodo]

I believe it may have finished fermenting. 'Bout damn time. I'll bottle and post gravity readings this week.

 

[Komodo]

Back. I think it was likely done fermenting a little while ago. My fermenter heater I added last week was just releasing CO2 making the airlock go nuts. The beer measured at 1.006 or 1.007, just over 7%, and was a copper brown color. I bottled 18 champaign bottles aiming for 3.5 volumes of carb, and ended up with one extra pint...which I drank, as I'm gonna brew this again tomorow and wanted a rough guide on what to tweak.

It ended up being a really tasty dubbel, IMO. Dryer than a dubbel, a little lighter, but just the small amount of Special B and the .25lb of D2 gave some huge dark fruit, plum tastes (yeast as well). In my head, I wanted that to be more subtle and more of dry citrus sort of taste. PranQsterish..
Of course it will change in bottle, but since I'll brew again today, here's the tweak plan:

Dropping the wheats, Special B and the D2. Adding .5 Carapils, using 1 oz of the sweet orange zest, and possibly switch the yeast to WL 550. I've harvested and am washing the 545, but it didn't quite give what I was looking for. BTW, White Labs announced that 545 will be available year-round now instead of limited edition Platinum strain. I may try it again, but higher temp now that I have my fermenter heater going.

My tweaks are definitely making it into more of a tripel, but I really don't care what the style is, I'm going for my perfect house beer.

 

[erikhild59]

I applaude your singular dedication to perfect this recipe. I am tweaking three recipes (brown, pale, ipa) in my rotation, interspersed with the odd recipe thrown in to break it up. Good luck with it!

 

[Azurecybe]

Oh nice. This is something I'd love to try. A Dubbel/Tripel "Mash-up" if you will.

I have a BGS in secondary "lagering" so to speak right now. Duvel yeast is the wlp570 which takes forever to clear but finishes really low and is very fruity. I did a Biere De Garde with the limited edition Wyeast Schelde Ale yeast and love how it tasted and think it would kick major a** in a dubbel.

Perhaps the WLP 545 is somewhere in between? Maybe try it at a higher temp next time around and see how it changes things?

 

[Komodo]

So, I'm brewing it right now. Brewday has been far smoother this time around.
I decided to drop the wheats, the Special B but keep the D2. This way I'll have a better idea just what it's contributing without the S-B.
I've also added .5oz of lime peel along with the sweet orange. I know these are larger gross changes rather than tiny tweaks, but I expected that early on in this game. I've yeast washed the 545 and it looks like I have enough, but I've never done it before and wonder if it is? I've got a backup vial of 550 that I'd love to try.

Oh, the were out of the previous hops. This time it's Tettnanger for bitter, and German Saphir for last 10 mins, 1 oz each.

Edit: all done. Hit 85% efficiency rather than my 71% from last time. I did a batch sparge instead of a grain bag dunk and squeeze. So, gravity was off a bit, but not bad. I could correct by not adding the turbinado, but that's critical for this recipe and drying it out. I was actually trying to lower the ABV this time, lol.

 

[Komodo]

Final followup:
So, I've drank quite a few of these already and they were all fine, just not what I was aiming at. More of a dubbel. BUT! This was for all the beers I drank after 2 weeks in the bottle and 3 weeks. This last weekend, at 3.5 weeks . . .MAGIC! It was carbed at 2 weeks, but the flavors now have all gelled and it was completely composed. I was literally almost speechless at the transformation in just a couple days.

So, give it a solid 4 weeks before you drink. Then, drink them all at once.

I'll do a new post for each successive batch. I've already brewed and bottled #2 and it was spectacular at bottling.

 

[Gus_13]

I stumbled on this looking for info on 545 and this is an awesome project. Very similar to what I've been working on with my Belgian ales. I have a BDSA project where I tweak it every time and just try to find what I like best. Then I re-brew that and keep working on the next one. Today I'm doing a REALLY dark BDSA with 545 and 2 lbs of D-180. Plan on this being a winter release of sorts for me.

I know it's an old thread but if you have any notes or anything of the ones you brewed since then or any updates that would be awesome!

 

[Komodo]

I stumbled on this looking for info on 545 and this is an awesome project. Very similar to what I've been working on with my Belgian ales. I have a BDSA project where I tweak it every time and just try to find what I like best. Then I re-brew that and keep working on the next one. Today I'm doing a REALLY dark BDSA with 545 and 2 lbs of D-180. Plan on this being a winter release of sorts for me.

I know it's an old thread but if you have any notes or anything of the ones you brewed since then or any updates that would be awesome!

Hey there, so sorry I just saw this post. One year later? lol
I've probably rebrewed this a bunch and certainly have drank all of it. Looking back on my notes, I moved on from 545 to use 550 and then 515 Antwerp which was quite good. Then I made one using 565 which was very close to Duvel, and my favorite so far. The recipes were all fairly similar.

I broke from my single-recipe Belgian to make a pale, and now a huge porter for winter.