How much carbonation for a Belgian Dubbel?

[maida7]

What is an appropriate carbonation level for a Belgian dubbel. There seams to be a wild range of info on this. anywhere from 1.5 to 3.5. I'm guessing I would lean toward a higher carbonation level. Seams like all the commercial examples I remember having were very bubbly. What do you think?

 

[JMSetzler]

The BJCP Style Guide says 2.3 - 2.9 volumes.

 

[maida7]

The BJCP Style Guide says 2.3 - 2.9 volumes.

Is that info on the net? Do you have a link? Thanks

 

[JMSetzler]

You can find it on beeradvocate.com if you look up the style. It has that information...

http://beeradvocate.com/beer/style/57

I can't remember if you have to register on this site to see this info or not, but it's a free registration and beeradvocate.com is a great resource...

 

[maida7]

I don't see that type of info on beer advocate. I even joined the site and logged in as a member and I still don't see anything about carbonation levels. There is food pairings, proper glassware, serving temps, and lots of examples of commercial beers in the style but nothing on carbonation levels.

 

[JMSetzler]

Hmmm... it seems that I have lied to you I thought that is where I found it...

Where I actually found the answer to your question was in the Beersmith software. It gives carbonation guidelines for each style, and I was under the impression that those numbers came from BJCP style guidelines.

http://www.bjcp.org/styles04/

After browsing through some of these, I did not find any carbonation guidelines, so now I have no idea where those numbers come from. I apologize for creating this confusion. I do not know where those numbers come from now other than from the Beersmith software...

 

[maida7]

hmm in the BJCP description is says medium to high carbonation. So maybe 2.5 to 3.0 volumes is appropriate? Has anybody else made a dubbel? How did you carb it?

 

[jaja]

I don't have a dual regulator for my kegging setup so I pretty much have a standard 2.5 carbonation for everything. I have a dubbel on tap at the moment and its pretty darn perfect imo.

 

[maida7]

I also have the single regulator but I only serve one beer at a time so I can mess with the pressure.

 

[StunnedMonkey]

In Brewing Classic Styles, JZ calls for 3 to 4 volumes for a Dubbel. Seems pretty high, but who am I to argue with the Pope? Since the OP is kegging it'd be pretty easy to adjust this on the fly anyway. I think I'd be inclined to shoot for the high 2's to start then dial it up if needed.

 

[Oly]

If you can find a copy of 'brew like a monk' it gives co2 volumes for a lot of the Belgian beers. You can sort of decide what you want for yours by comparing it to some beers listed there that you may be familiar with.

I was in the same situation with my dark strong. The BJCP guidelines don't offer a lot of info besides 'medium' or 'high' and the calculators say dark strong should be like 2.5. But BLAM gives specific volumes, and what I am trying to copy is supposed to be 3.5 volumes. Big difference and definitely worth playing around with IMO.

 

[wedge421]

How much priming sugar is 3 Volumes for a 5 gallon batch? And is there a calculation to figure out what the volume equates to?

 

[Oly]

Try this link.

(stolen from someone else's post, and my first time posting a link, so I hope this works.)

http://byo.com/resources/carbonation

 

[maida7]

1 volume is the same amount of gas as the liquid that it's going into. So to have one volume in 5 gallons of beer you would need to dissolve 5 gallons of CO2. I believe the volume of CO2 is measured at atmospheric pressure.

3 volumes is 15 gallons of gas and that's a lot of bubbles.