Belgian Blond Ale SWMBO Slayer - Belgian Blonde

[BierMuncher]

Question for BM: How did you get your beer to be so clear? I used whirlfloc in the boil and proportionally I didn't up any of the wheat or oat %s, but I'm afraid that I'm going to get a cloudier beer than I'm aiming for. Any tricks up your sleeve? Gelatin?

To everyone else, are you seeing a hazy beer as your results or do your brews look like what BM posted?

Thanks!

If you're referring to the pic in post #9, that beer is actually pretty hazy. Wheat beers in general are going to be hazy (or beers with flaked oats as well).

My other beers get crystal clear though the use of Whirfloc, gelatin and cold crashing.

 

[leviticus]

[ame]http://youtu.be/vDRz10aTVgA[/ame]

 

[BierMuncher]

http://youtu.be/vDRz10aTVgA

Your blow-off needs a blow-off.

Belgian yeast is craZY.

 

[HawkATP]

I'm going to brew a 10 gallon batch of this tomorrow. I've never done any wheat mashes before, I have a barley crusher, do I crush the wheat any different than the pale malt? Or do i just dump everything through my barley crusher like normal and do a normal mash and batch sparge? Thanks!

 

[BierMuncher]

I'm going to brew a 10 gallon batch of this tomorrow. I've never done any wheat mashes before, I have a barley crusher, do I crush the wheat any different than the pale malt? Or do i just dump everything through my barley crusher like normal and do a normal mash and batch sparge? Thanks!

Crush the wheat malt. Not the flaked wheat. You will need to set the gap narrower for wheat malt. It is a smaller kernel. I usually will double crush wheat malt, with a slight narrowing of the rollers the second time through. Flaked wheat just gets tossed into the mash tun directly.

 

[KCBigDog]

Anyone try this with a little clear Belgium Candi Sugar? I was thinking about adding 8oz to the original recipe.

Thoughts?

 

[Powers]

my thought would be to make sure the sugar doesn't destroy the body of the beer, rendering it thin and cidery. if i were going to make an 8 oz sugar addition, i would mash it at the higher end of the range (156 was the high end if i recall).

 

[KCBigDog]

Brewing this tomorrow night, and not adding sugar.

 

[KCBigDog]

Holy fermentation Batman!

This stuff is violent!! Brewday went pretty well. OG was a little light, but I ended up with 5.6 gallons of wort. So I guess I'll have more beer!

 

[Clifton]

@Biermuncher,
Have you tried Midwests Grand Cru kit? It is one of my all time favorite beers. The wife loves it too.

 

[ruralbrew]

After reading through this whole thread, I brewed a batch of this last Friday. I have been having some mash tun issues, so I followed the ingredient list from Midwest's extract kit. I thought I had read that someone had entered the extract version into their brewing software and said the OG would be low, and a suggestion was made to increase both the wheat and light DME by a pound to compensate. So I did. I also did a partial mash of the crystal malts and flaked barley with two pounds of pale malt. I had a half pound of flaked barley I wanted to get used up so I substituted for the flaked wheat. When I got the wort chilled and in the fermenter I had an OG of 1.080.
I see Midwest had T-58 listed as the dry yeast option, which what I was planning on using anyway. So I pitched the yeast dry, hooked up a 3/8 inch hose to the center post of the airlock and waited to see what would happen. I didn't get any krausen, but I am glad I used a blowoff tube. Within three hours I was starting to get bubbles out of the tube, and by the time I got home from work in the morning there was a nonstop stream of bubbles coming out of the blowoff tube. It looked like someone was blowing into the other end of the tube. It kept up like this for 24 hours before starting to slow down. The temperature got up in the mid 70's. If I wouldn't have had the hose on there I think it would have blown the sanitizer right out of the airlock. That T-58 seems to be pretty aggressive.

I took a gravity reading this morning, it is at 1.028. The sample had no hop bitterness at all, it was very fruity. For all the banana smell coming out of the blowoff, there was no banana flavor, more like plum or peach. It probably could have used a more vigorous aeration, but all my carboys are full and my plastic pail is also my bottling bucket, so I'm using the plastic fermentor I usually use for wine. The lid doesn't fit as tight and it is a little harder to handle, I sloshed it around as good as I could but probably not enough.

If nothing else, it is turning into an interesting experiment. My original plan was to dump in about six pounds of strawberries and make a strawberry blonde. But I think I have enough fermentables there already. The gravity has a ways to go to get to 1.008 that is listed as the FG. Not sure if it is going to get that low, I may be lucky to get it into the low teens. When it finishes out if there is still no bitterness from the hops, I may dry hop with another oz of Willamette, or maybe Saaz? Nothing too aggressive, I'll just have to wait and see.

Not sure who this one is going to slay, but if it ferments out probably anyone who drinks it!

 

[ThinBlueLine]

So I made this about a month back... I somehow overshot ended up with an OG of 1.062 and then ended up with and FG of 1.011 giving me an abv of almost 7%. Awesome.

I've had that dude sitting on gas for about a week in my keezer and finally had a buddy and his wife over last night for the first pour. Let me tell ya, this stuff is great!

I was a little concerned during fermentation bc the smell coming from the primary was quite unpleasant but the end product was fantastic and had no bad odors. Is this typical with Belgian yeast?

Btw... I crashed cooled mine with gelatin for 3 to 4 days and it came out crystal clear. I'll have to post a pic later when I pour another glass.

Warning: I inadvertently slayed myself last night... Drink with caution!

 

[bjohnson29]

Brewed about a month ago as well. 3 weeks in primary, kegged and carbed about a week thus far. I've been taking little samples along the way and its still pretty sweet and green tasting...any thoughts?

 

[ThinBlueLine]

View attachment 33212

This is how it looked after 3 days in the keg. The flash made it look kind of red for some reason but it's definitely more of a golden color. This picture was really more to show the clarity. This was my first time using gelatin and it turned out pretty good

 

[ThinBlueLine]

 

[Calmbrews]

Can you use gelatin without cooling?

 

[ACESFULL]

Brewed this and bottled and cracked one just a few min ago. Carbed up nicely. However the flavor seemed a little flat almost like its watered down. Not sure if I have an off flavor the OG & FG were within a few ticks from what the recipe called for. Should I just leave it in the bottle for another week for it to mellow? Also can someone post some tasting notes to see if I got this right? BTW 1st AG brew for this one too.

 

[Powers]

definitely shouldn't taste watered down. if it was your first all grain batch, you may have had a number of issues. but if you're og/fg was close, you can rule out a bad grain crush (or no crush) which was my first guess for watered down flavor. an off flavor usually doesn't come across as watered down. what types of grain did you use? did they come from a LHBS that doesn't may have had older grain laying around?

 

[ACESFULL]

definitely shouldn't taste watered down. if it was your first all grain batch, you may have had a number of issues. but if you're og/fg was close, you can rule out a bad grain crush (or no crush) which was my first guess for watered down flavor. an off flavor usually doesn't come across as watered down. what types of grain did you use? did they come from a LHBS that doesn't may have had older grain laying around?

I bought the grain from several sources. The 2 row was bought from a bulk supplier. The rest from another LHBS. The specialty grains were all in sealed packages. The bulk grain was from a brand new sack opened right in front of me. I followed BM list from the OP. Had the grains crushed at the LHBS and the crush looked very good.

Color and clarity seem to be spot on from what has been posted. I just want to make sure that its not a problem with my set up or something that I may have screwed up. I have another beer India Brown (DFH clone) in bottles to and I hope that its just something with this beer and not that one too...

Could it be that the beer is still green? Can I expect this to mellow and or lose this flavor or is it just bad?

 

[Powers]

this beer can definitely benefit from a good secondary time. i was focusing on your "watered down" description, which isn't usually what i sense from "green" beers. but, certainly could use some maturation time. i let it go a month in the bright tank and it tasted superb. slightly sweet, smooth, and full flavored with a good dose of yeast character and maltiness.

in fact, i liked it so much i made it again the very next batch with some red raspberries!

did you bottle already? how long was it in the primary? secondary? in bottles? i'd say let it sit for another two weeks and see where it goes.

EDIT: Checked notes, did not go a month in secondary, just 10 days. confused with a different beer.

 

[ACESFULL]

Sat in primary for 3 weeks. Full fermenation - moved to bottles (no keg yet) a few days shy of 2 weeks.

 

[Powers]

i'd push it another week or two. as hard as it is to wait, i always find bottled belgian beer comes around best after 5 weeks sitting at 70-74 degrees.

 

[ACESFULL]

i'd push it another week or two. as hard as it is to wait, i always find bottled belgian beer comes around best after 5 weeks sitting at 70-74 degrees.

Ah ok... Sounds like a plan to me... Thanks for the insight and help with this.

 

[Beernewb]

2 weeks 2 days in the primary and I am at 1.012, but the sample tastes like bread yeast..lol..horrible. I bumped the temps up to 69 in an effort to grab a few more points and clean it up a bit.

 

[BierMuncher]

2 weeks 2 days in the primary and I am at 1.012, but the sample tastes like bread yeast..lol..horrible. I bumped the temps up to 69 in an effort to grab a few more points and clean it up a bit.

Belgian yeast is a strange ranger. It can behave very strangely during the active fermentation. It can also be stubborn when it comes to dropping out. Give it time. A secondary will help a lot with this beer.

 

[Beernewb]

thanks, I'm going to secondary Sunday after trying to squeeze out a few more points.

 

[ACESFULL]

Sat in primary for 3 weeks. Full fermenation - moved to bottles (no keg yet) a few days shy of 2 weeks.

i'd push it another week or two. as hard as it is to wait, i always find bottled belgian beer comes around best after 5 weeks sitting at 70-74 degrees.

**UPDATE**

Wait another week chilled and opened another. Found the flavor profile has changed its not forward now its moved to the aftertaste. It almost tastes like a water hose would. I used the following for my water filter.

http://www.walmart.com/ip/Camco-Water-F ... e/14504321 &

http://www.walmart.com/ip/Camco-50-Fres ... e/14504302

In some of the reviews that I didnt read until tasting the 2nd time was ensuring that you run plenty of water to "prime" the filter. Well I did run some thru it to get rid of the initial carbon that was loose in the filter but I dont think I ran enough thru it to get rid of the flavor. Thats what the flavor seems to be. I am going to go locally here in StL to have more experienced brewer hopefully confirm this for me.

I am hoping that I have figured this out... We shall see.

 

[soup67]

Style: Belgian Blond Ale

Looks like a great recipe, but my recipe calculator has the OG at 1.053 and the ABV at 5.3. Is this beer intentionally lighter than the BJCP Guidelines for a Belgian Blonde Ale (Belgian Pale Ale?), or am I doin' it wrong? Regardless, I 'm brewing it next.

(read through a bunch of the thread before posting this).

 

[bribo179]

People get so hung up on guidelines. You are making beer to enjoy....not to constantly be judged. Make it how you want and forget guidelines!

 

[soup67]

People get so hung up on guidelines. You are making beer to enjoy....not to constantly be judged. Make it how you want and forget guidelines!

Guess you missed the part about me brewing it anyway. In fact, I just doughed in.

I am relatively new to brewing and still learning the ropes. The question was simply out of curiosity-- wondering if my recipe software is off or if this is intentionally out of the guidelines.