Belgian Dubbel

[Raize]

I am now having to make a new beer in a hurry as the wheat beer that I just made turned into a drainpour, mainly because I used Safbrew S-33 yeast as an experiment. Not appropriate to the style at all and just tastes horrible.

My plan is to now make a Belgian Dubbel - enough to fill a 19L corny - with:
6000g Pilsner Malt
50g Black Malt - for colour
500g Munich Malt
20g EKG 5.5% - for bittering
30g Perle 10% - for flavour
Safbrew Abbaye yeast

I've already bought all these ingredients and at this point I can't get any other ingredients apart from household sugar. I can't make candi sugar as I don't have an appropriate thermometer.
I'd appreciate any suggestions of steps I could take to try and bring this brew as close to the intended style as possible.

[jmc]

The black malt will change the colour but unfortunately it won't give you a dubbel flavour.

Dubbels tend to get their colour and complex maltyness from dark (but not too dark), malts.
You don't want the coffee & burnt flavours from very dark malts.

As ever Seymour has a recipe here/
Special B really helps as do other aromatic / crystal malts. 2 or 3 types help increase the complexity

Another thing that really helps is using a live Belgian Yeast. I've had luck with cloning dregs from Chimay Red.
Its a fantastic yeast and will eat its was through a 1070 wort quickly.
With a dried yeast you my need 2 packs or a starter to avoid a stuck fermentation.

You don't need a thermometer to make invert or candi sugar, just a close eye.
The sugar helps make it more drinkable as it thins it a bit and makes it less cloying.
I recommend 10-15% sugars, the more complex/raw the better.

[BenB]

I'll be brewing this one soon:

http://beersmithrecipes.com/viewrecipe/ ... hes-recipe

[MTW]

With what you have, I'd just make a Belgian single or tripel, with the Pilsner and probably the Perle only, plus up to 15% white sugar. If it's just one sachet of yeast and that's all you have, a realistically low OG. I wouldn't use black malt just for the sake of colouring it. Darker candi or some more appropriate grains for that.

[Belter]

Strangely in most of the breweries we visited in Belgium they listed their ingredients as Pilsner and black malt.

[Raize]

Sounds like I should leave out the black malt and a kilo of Pilsner and call it a Belgian Blonde then.

Can white sugar be substituted for light/clear candi sugar without losing too much of the character if I am not able to make the candi 'by eye'?

[Sadfield]

Sounds like I should leave out the black malt and a kilo of Pilsner and call it a Belgian Blonde then.

Can white sugar be substituted for light/clear candi sugar without losing too much of the character if I am not able to make the candi 'by eye'?

White sugar should be ok, cane sugar as opposed to beet sugar. Although there are better options.

Here's a handy link regarding sugar in dubbels.

http://www.themadfermentationist.com/20 ... t.html?m=1

And a white sugar showdown.

http://www.themadfermentationist.com/20 ... r.html?m=1

....Results from above showdown.

http://www.themadfermentationist.com/20 ... g.html?m=1

[MTW]

Sounds like I should leave out the black malt and a kilo of Pilsner and call it a Belgian Blonde then.

Can white sugar be substituted for light/clear candi sugar without losing too much of the character if I am not able to make the candi 'by eye'?

It's questionable whether clear candi sugar imparts any difference in taste vs white sugar. I've used both quite a few times, including candi syrup,and I'm still not convinced it does. The darker candis apparently do, but you can certainly make a decent Belgian blonde without candi. You may not need much if you're basing your OG on one sachet of yeast in a 20L+ brew.

White sugar should be ok, cane sugar as opposed to beet sugar.

How do you reckon beet works differently to cane? Just interested...

[Sadfield]

Can't honestly remember why, I seem to recall something to do with the refining process, but probably just a result of anecdotal evidence from other brewers. So take with a pinch of salt (table, rock or sea)

[Raize]

Sounds like I should leave out the black malt and a kilo of Pilsner and call it a Belgian Blonde then.

Can white sugar be substituted for light/clear candi sugar without losing too much of the character if I am not able to make the candi 'by eye'?

It's questionable whether clear candi sugar imparts any difference in taste vs white sugar. I've used both quite a few times, including candi syrup,and I'm still not convinced it does. The darker candis apparently do, but you can certainly make a decent Belgian blonde without candi. You may not need much if you're basing your OG on one sachet of yeast in a 20L+ brew.

I'll take out a kilo of pilsner and replace it with 0.5kg of white cane sugar. That should give me an OG of about 1.075 which one sachet of rehydrated yeast should - barely - be able to cope with.

[MTW]

Sounds like I should leave out the black malt and a kilo of Pilsner and call it a Belgian Blonde then.

Can white sugar be substituted for light/clear candi sugar without losing too much of the character if I am not able to make the candi 'by eye'?

It's questionable whether clear candi sugar imparts any difference in taste vs white sugar. I've used both quite a few times, including candi syrup,and I'm still not convinced it does. The darker candis apparently do, but you can certainly make a decent Belgian blonde without candi. You may not need much if you're basing your OG on one sachet of yeast in a 20L+ brew.

I'll take out a kilo of pilsner and replace it with 0.5kg of white cane sugar. That should give me an OG of about 1.075 which one sachet of rehydrated yeast should - barely - be able to cope with.

To give the yeast every chance, you may want to add the sugar in the later stages of fermentation (dissolved in boiling water and cooled promptly). I do that as a matter of course in high gravity brews anyway, even with plenty of yeast. It helps to keep the yeast 'match fit' on the malt sugars before getting the easy stuff, and reduces the chance of stress. I would say 1.075 in 20+L is risking some stress for one sachet of yeast, but you may well get away with it.

Can't honestly remember why, I seem to recall something to do with the refining process, but probably just a result of anecdotal evidence from other brewers. So take with a pinch of salt (table, rock or sea)

I heard it too at one point, tbh, and have forgotten any reasoning, so was interested to hear! Only the Tate&Lyle seems to be cane.

[BenB]

Adding the sugar late probably also gives the yeast adequate time to build up the free amino nitrogen reserves before hitting them with the dextrose.

[Barley Water]

Well to my mind one of the differences between say a Triple and a Dubbel is that the later is going to have some rummy/caramel/plumb/current type flavors. To get those as was suggested, use some Special B. Also (and it ain't cheap by the way) get some really dark liquid candi sugar (the rocks are a waste of money). One little trick I did that worked out really well is to run about 6 ounces/5 gallon batch of raisins through a blender then carmalize them with some first runnings. I wasn't using any dark grains at all for color but for sure don't do anything that will put even a hint of roast on the beer as that wouldn't be good at all. As far as yeast goes, I had really good luck with WLP530, WLP500 just got a bit too fruity for me. I really need to make some more of this style myself as it's been a couple of years.....so many beers, so little time.

[TheSumOfAllBeers]

I made a tripel with safbrew abbaye recently. 55L x 1.071 and it took it down to 1.011. You can skip sugar additions with that yeast I reckon. The yeast character is full on. Possibly a bit much for a tripel, would suit a dark Belgian better I think, but time will tell.

[BenB]

I was lucky enough to be given a crate of Ampleforth Dubbel for Christmas. Nice beer. For me it was quite light on the classic Dubbel flavour and perhaps bordering more on an Old Ale. More of a nod in the direction of a classic Dubbel.

Tonight I'm officially in mourning. It appears my friendly garden mice had gone on the hunt for spent malt and had somehow clambered up the side of the FV I keep in the garden for dumping spent grain in. Normally I tip some out onto the path to keep them happy during the winter months but hadn't brewed for a few weeks and looks like they took matters into their own hands (paws I guess). Trouble is they couldn't get out once they climbed in and it looks like it rained overnight. That's the only conclusion I can come to. Went to the brew-shed tonight to find outside of it a FV 1/3 full of water with two of my chums floating dead in the bottom. How the hell do they climb up sheet plastic. Silly idiots. Poor things. Proper gutted- they always cheered my up on nocturnal trips to the man cave. Sitting in an unheated brewshed drinking beer and talking to the local rodent population is normal right?