Belgian Blond Ale Revvy's Belgian Blonde (Leffe Clone)

[starman]

Has anyone tried fermenting this with Wyeast 3711 (French Saison)? I'm planning to make the Rye Saison here on the site (https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f71/how-rye-i-am-rye-saison-2011-1st-place-best-show-hbt-comp-238831/) and would like to reuse the yeast for this beer....or perhaps brew them in the reverse order. I imagine it would work, but concerned about attenuation of 3711....maybe just do a shorter mash and keep it at 156-158F?

I've got a batch of HRIA with a few weeks left to go in the carboy. Since the saison recommended underpitching, maybe do that one first? I'm not confident on pitching rates off of washed yeast when it sits in primary for 4 weeks.

Fwiw, I have done Revvy's Leffe Clone with 3787 and while very good, its a smidge on the dry side. (Finished at. 002, but my mash temp was also low - 155) I went ahead and ordered 530.

Please share results if you do it. My SWMBO is part Belgian, loves Belgian blondes, and just finished a 9 month beer break to DIY brewers assistant. Thank goodness she's nursing or my pipeline wouldn't handle the shock. Needless to say, ill probably try it eventually.

 

[JRemy]

Would corn sugar work as a substitute for the table sugar? I would go with the candi sugar but I want to save some money does it impart a different flavor?

 

[Revvy]

Would corn sugar work as a substitute for the table sugar? I would go with the candi sugar but I want to save some money does it impart a different flavor?

Why don't you want to use table sugar? Table sugar is what the Belgians Used.

All Candi sugar is is inverted TABLE sugar. And since it's light, it doesn't need to be carmalized, so it will invert fine in the boil.

I discuss it here.

 

[Ravenshead]

Anybody know how many volumes Leffe is carbed to? I want to make this one but I don't have enough "strong" bottles laying around if it's carbed too high.

 

[Revvy]

Anybody know how many volumes Leffe is carbed to? I want to make this one but I don't have enough "strong" bottles laying around if it's carbed too high.

Leffe bottles are "normal" thickness bottles. I use regular bottles and beersmith has me carbing at 2.4 volumes of co2. Nothing fancy.

 

[Ravenshead]

Thanks,
Leffe has always seemed like it was carbed to a normal level but I wasn't sure.

Eventually, I'll get enough bottles to do a high-carb Belgian; I just don't want to wait that long to try this one.

 

[RJS]

Love Leffe. Made this recipe. o.g. 1.063 after 5 days im at 1.020/1.019. already tastes like Leffe. I do month primaries. Its only been five days and i love it, how can i wait a month?

I used Tettnanger and Kent Goldings, didn't have Revvy's hops.

Thanks Revvy!

 

[RJS]

Not sure if F.G. is going to go down though, probably not enough oxygen. oh well, still is awesome

 

[RJS]

oh ya, and used 1214 belgian abbey. Starter smelled like i mashed some banana's and stuck them in a flask with water.

 

[callagp7552]

A buddy and I made a 10 gallon batch that will have fermented for 2 weeks as of tomorrow. Pulled a gravity sample after week and a half to find the gravity at 1.019. I had it stuck in my head that 1.018 was our target FG. To keep a long story short I realized that 1.018 came from BeerSmith. Is everyone else brewing this getting all the way down to 1.010?

While I have anyone's ear who is reading this I have another question. One of the samples we pulled had a fairly strong bitter taste to it. My wife described it as citrus and by buddy said grapefruit. If it's not done fermenting (which I'm hoping) then I'll just wait and see but I was curious if anyone else experienced this. Doubled the recipe, came close to hitting all temps. Split into two 5 gallon batches fermenting with 1762 and 1214. The one with 1762 was more bitter than the other. Thoughts?

 

[timuel]

I'm brewing a slightly modified version of this tomorrow. I basically just rounded up my grainbill.

I'm thinking of picking up the ingredients for this recipe tomorrow... how did the rounded-up one work out?

 

[Revvy]

I'm thinking of picking up the ingredients for this recipe tomorrow... how did the rounded-up one work out?

I'm drinking my way through the batch now. It is very tasty.

 

[starman]

Bottled my crack at the honey blond based on Revvy's suggested grain bill scaled to 5 gallons with a few operator error based deviations.

I forgot to remove 12 oz of Turbinado from my beersmith copy and paste of the original Leffe Clone. Oops. I was sleep deprived, didnt catch it and added both. The hydrometer flask sample is expectedly a little alcoholy/hot. Sg was 1.072 and it finished at 1.008 / 8.41%ABV. It does have a nice honey note, so hopefully it will mellow with time.

My other unintended change was completely pooching the hop schedule. My styrian goldings were only 3.8 alpha so i had calculated needing just shy of 2 oz to match the 1.36 oz @5.4. Inexplicably my brain decided to toss them as FWH... completely forgetting it should have been a 60 min add of 90.

Also LHBS was out of Saaz so aroma was subbed with .7oz of Sterling

Despite royally blowing the brew day, its still pretty tasty. I guess time will tell. 6 days 23 hours, 45 minutes until its perfectly conditioned, right?

 

[homebrewdad]

I have played with this recipe in BeerSmith to come up with an extract version. Both the OG and FG are a tad low (though the ABV remains the same), and I can get the IBU and SRM ratings to equal almost the same.

However, the recipe it spits out only calls for less than four ounces of specialty grains - everything else is extract, table sugar, and hops.

Does that sound reasonable to anyone who knows what is what? Granted, I am an absolute novice, but I'm used to seeing speciality grains of a couple of pounds or so.

I'd love to do a Leffe clone, but I'm not ready for all grain (or even partial mash) yet. I've seen quite a few recipes online (most of which vary wildly), but they don't get reviewed as well as this one by Revvy. I'm thinking that this is the one to emulate.

Any thoughts?

 

[usfmikeb]

I put this on keg late last year, and we were gone for several weeks for the holidays. It is almost gone, although I felt it had a slight off flavor. Been trying to get to a homebrew club meeting to get some guidance on what the off flavor is, but haven't been able to make it. I don't think it's the recipe, my wife thins it is just tartness from the strawberries. I'm more concerned with it being a cleanliness issue. Not a major problem, it's obviously still going quick!

 

[homebrewdad]

No answer to my questions on this thread, nor in other places that I have posted it... so I took the initiative to educate myself.

Sure, I could do a full extract conversion of this recipe, but it will certainly be missing some character. Due to the fact that the speciality grains needed for this brew require mashing, I think that this recipe can only be an all grain or a partial mash (assuming that you want a quality beer).

In related news, I have decided to attempt a partial mash on my next batch.

 

[usfmikeb]

I put this on keg late last year, and we were gone for several weeks for the holidays. It is almost gone, although I felt it had a slight off flavor. Been trying to get to a homebrew club meeting to get some guidance on what the off flavor is, but haven't been able to make it. I don't think it's the recipe, my wife thins it is just tartness from the strawberries. I'm more concerned with it being a cleanliness issue. Not a major problem, it's obviously still going quick!

I think the flavor might be bitterness from the seeds from leaving the strawberries in too long...

 

[Bill_in_VA]

This is one out of a couple recipes I'm thinking of doing next. I looked through all 11 pages and if it was mentioned I completely read right past it; what final gravity is this typically going to? Thanks


Edit: Sorry, I see the parts above "Category 18a" weren't displayed on mobile for some reason

 

[homebrewdad]

This is one out of a couple recipes I'm thinking of doing next. I looked through all 11 pages and if it was mentioned I completely read right past it; what final gravity is this typically going to? Thanks

Well, according to Revvy's recipe, you get:
Original Gravity: 1.068 (est)
Final Gravity: 1.010

AKA, about 7.6% ABV.

The whole recipe is on post #1 of the thread.

 

[Homercidal]

It's a good beer, and a bit stronger than I expected from a "blonde"!

Got a bottle directly from Revvy.

 

[LucaBrasi]

I just picked up everything to try this recipe this weekend. Surprisingly my LHBS had everything. I'm not doing a fruit addition, going to see how close I can get to the real thing. Thanks for the recipe, looking forward to giving this a try!

 

[homebrewdad]

Okay, folks - after several false starts, I am throwing out my attempt to turn this into a partial mash.

I've spent some time with Beersmith, have set it up with my equipment (6 gallon stainless brewpot, I'll be doing a BIAB partial). This will also be my first attempt above an extract brew; my first two have been an extract kit w/specialty grains, and an extract recipe w/specialty grains.

I took Revvy's base recipe and plugged it into Beersmith, then applied some small adjustments so as to get all of the "vital numbers" right. My OG and FG are both a smidgen higher than his, but the ABV computes as the same. Likewise, my IBUs are ever so slightly higher, but the bitterness ratio stays the same.

Here it is... if you see any errors, PLEASE hit me over the head with them. How else will I learn?


Recipe Type: Partial Mash
Yeast: WLP530 White Labs Abbey Ale
Yeast Starter: Yes
Batch Size (Gallons): 5.25 gallons
Original Gravity: 1.071
Final Gravity: 1.013
IBU: 31.8
Boiling Time (Minutes): 60
Color: 6.3 SRM

Grain bill:
2 lbs, 8 oz Pilsner (2 row) Bel
1 lb Munich Malt
5.3 oz Biscuit Malt
3.5 oz Melanoiden Malt

Hops:
1.61 oz Styrian Goldings (60 min) 24.8 IBU
.8 oz Saaz (30 min) 7 IBU

Other sugars:
5 lbs 8 oz extra light dry extract
9.6 oz table sugar, white (15 minutes in boil)

Yeast:
1 Pkg Abbey Ale (White Labs #WLP530) Yeast-Ale (make starter)

Mash in: add 5.06 qt of water at 165 degrees
Steep at 150 degrees for 75 minutes

Sparge with 4.14 gallons of water at 168 degrees

Boil volume should be 4.92 gallons.

Add DME, boil for 60 minutes. Cool wort, top off with 1 gallon of water (to hit desired 5.25 gallon batch size). Pitch yeast, ferment, bottle, etc.


Questions for the vets: will that boil volume be before or after I add the DME? What else am I overlooking?

Thanks!

 

[starman]

My BIAB experience is pretty slim so please take this with a grain of salt, but your steep temp is lower (150) vs (158) which could lead to a dry finish and thinner mouth feel. The other thing i noticed was you reduced the boil time. That could bring DMS from the pilsner into play.

Im not sure either are huge issues since the bulk of your pilsner comes from extract but something to consider.

 

[homebrewdad]

My BIAB experience is pretty slim so please take this with a grain of salt, but your steep temp is lower (150) vs (158) which could lead to a dry finish and thinner mouth feel. The other thing i noticed was you reduced the boil time. That could bring DMS from the pilsner into play.

Im not sure either are huge issues since the bulk of your pilsner comes from extract but something to consider.

This is just the sort of feedback I'm looking for, thanks. I've been relying on Beersmith, but it can only do so much. Numbers are not everything!

 

[speedster00]

I did a partial mash of this back in mid December. I used 7.5 lbs of LME and skipped the additional table sugar. It's by far far one of my best brews. In fact I drank the last glass of it tonight. I'll be brewing it again maybe this weekend or next.

 

[homebrewdad]

I did a partial mash of this back in mid December. I used 7.5 lbs of LME and skipped the additional table sugar. It's by far far one of my best brews. In fact I drank the last glass of it tonight. I'll be brewing it again maybe this weekend or next.

That's awesome to hear that it was so good. I'll be using a birthday gift to get the ingredients for this one.

 

[speedster00]

I saw your grain bill above and that is exactly how I did it. I steeped grains @ 150-160 for 45 minutes, added the 7.5 lbs of LME , boiled for 60 and followed the original hops schedule. That's it. No candy/table sugar. This next time I'm going to go 11 lbs of LME to boost ABV and see how it turns out!

 

[homebrewdad]

I saw your grain bill above and that is exactly how I did it. I steeped grains @ 150-160 for 45 minutes, added the 7.5 lbs of LME , boiled for 60 and followed the original hops schedule. That's it. No candy/table sugar. This next time I'm going to go 11 lbs of LME to boost ABV and see how it turns out!

Boiled for 60 instead of 90, eh? Thanks for the experience.

 

[speedster00]

Boiled for 60 instead of 90, eh? Thanks for the experience.

Yes sir. Once the sugars stop breaking inside 45 minutes or so with the hops, theres no point to boil that much longer.

 

[Revvy]

If you have any pilsner in your grainbill you should be boiling for 90 minutes...the reason you do is to drive off the dms precursors...