Dubbel Trubbel

[mysterio]

I brewed my Dubbel on Saturday. The yeast is shooting out the airlock. Should be good beer!

[smp465]

I did mine on Sunday. If i can find more than 10 mins spare at home i will post it up on the brewdays forum later.

Got it ATC controlled in the fridge (1st use), been increasing the temperature daily by 1°, so gone from 19 up to 22 currently. I read somewhere this is a good practice for the style, but does anyone have a tried and tested temperature protocol?

[Barley Water]

I just did a Blond and an agressive Dubbel both using WLP500. I started at 64F and let the temperature rise to about 75F over the course of a week. It worked out pretty well for both beers as there are no fusels or unwanted flavors. WLP500 can throw off alot of bananna and clove (a little is ok but it can easily get to be too much if you are not careful) and this temperature schedule seemed to work out pretty well. I did a starter on a stir plate for both, I want to say about half a liter and oxigenated the wort well before pitching. I have not used any of the other strains of Belgian yeasts so I suspect each is different and my guess ist that the whole trick is to stick with one for awhile and get used to what it will do. By the way, for what it's worth, I used jaggary sugar for the Blond and I was very happy with the way it came out (I got mine from and Indian grocery store, they have some really neat things in there, you should check one out in your neighborhood). I have a hard time dumping straight table sugar into beers when I can easily get some semi refined stuff that will add a little unique flavor at roughly the same cost.

[mysterio]

Good point about indian/asian grocers, great place to get whole spices for curries etc for a fraction of the price you pay at the supermarket. About £1.50 gets you a dinky jar of cumin in a supermarket, you can usually get a hefty bag full for that at the indian grocer.

I'm tempted by the jaggery for my blonde ale on friday but i've never tried it. I don't want my beer tasting like coconuts or something (i know it probably tastes nothing like coconuts). Does it ferment all the way like plain sugar?

[Barley Water]

It doesn't taste like coconuts at all, I really don't like that taste so I would never use it if it even had a hint of that. I would say it is almost a creamy, smooth taste, maybe even a little buttery (but not like diacetyl). You might try buying some and maybe put a little in your coffee (or tea) and see what you think. There are also some other semi refined sugars you can mess around with. If you have a health food store (look for the hippie types running it) they have some interesting stuff there also however they tend to sell at premium prices for some reason. My experience with jaggary is good, it will reduce the body of the beer and it attenuates well so it makes your Belgians more "drinkable" as they say. I also have messed with date syrup in my Dubbel but I changed several variables at once so I can not say for sure exactly what the contribution from that was (although I would rather use that than straight table sugar for the same reason I use jaggary). If you don't have it, the book "Radical Brewing" by Randy Mossier gets into the sugar thing in some detail. If you want to get some wierd ideas about additives for beer, his book is great. After reading BLAM and Radical Brewing, I look at recipie forumulation (and style guidelines) very differently.

[smp465]

I used the dark Belgian Candi Crystals, made a syrup on the stove and bunged that in. Pretty expensive stuff though, i like your ideas.

My FV also has yeast blowing through the airlock - the smell of the stuff is amazing! Very reminiscent of the beer style i am after. Very excited about this beer.

[Barley Water]

Well I can now report on the luck I had with a couple of Belgians I brewed recently. I will report on the screw up first. The Dubbel I made tastes great however, it is flat as a board. To tell you the truth, I think I forgot to put the &^%#$ priming sugar in before I bottled the ENTIRE batch. I specifically remember over yeasting the whole batch with some neutral dry ale yeast (so I wouldn't have this problem) but I don't remember putting the priming sugar in. Since I have never had this problem before, it has to be something stupid like that. It never ceases to amaze me how stupid I can be at times. I bottled the entire batch in Belgian 750's and corked the whole thing with wire cages (a somewhat labor intensive operation). Oh well, I got some good practice with my corker and I have a good formulation to work with so maybe next time I may actually have some carbonation. We have our club Christmas party (oops, I mean holiday party to be politically correct) coming up soon, I may just pull out all the corks and pour the stuff into one of my kegs and just force carbonate the damn stuff. That way at least I can free up my good bottles for another batch.

The good news is that the Blond came out really well. It is very similar to Leffe but maybe just a little bit more agressive tasting (in a good way). It is a pretty rich tasting brew though so I wouldn't drink more than one bottle at a time of this stuff. I put a little zest of lemmon in the beer which I don't taste so I may bump up that a bit next time I do this one otherwise I am very pleased.

[smp465]

Sorry to hear about the mix up with your Dubbel BW, we all do these things from time to time! At least both beers taste good!

Had a look at mine this morning and the yeast has now stopped spewing out of the airlock, although there is still a fair amount of activity (bubbling) even after 8 days fermenting!! When i go up the shed in the morning i will be taking a clean hydrometer with me to see exactly where it's at. Would i be right in thinking that this yeast head might not die back/disappear completely like most dry yeasts do? This is my first experience of a liquid yeast (WLP530) and i suspect it is a more typical top working yeast? It smells great!

[Barley Water]

You need to remember the old homebrewers quote "don't worry, have a homebrew". If the airlock is still going, just leave it alone until it stops then let it sit for a couple more days before racking the beer into secondary. The great Jamil himself does not even bother racking beer to a secondary fermenter for many of his brews so letting it sit for a couple days will not cause you any problems. To tell you the truth, I never bother taking hydrometer readings at the end of the fermentation anymore, I just taste a little of the beer as I rack it into the secondary. If the stuff is not attenuating, you will know it and then you can try to figure out what's going on. Remember that taking samples increases your risk of introducing an infection and also introduces a little oxygen both of which have the potential to adversely affect the taste. Some of these Belgian yeasts can stall on you if you let things get too cool so try to let the temperature rise when you get near the end of the fermentation. Once you pitch the yeast, the beer is in God's hands and you just have to trust that he knows what he is doing (and he always does).

[mysterio]

What a nightmare about the Dubbel BW! Bet you were kicking yourself, after all that work too

SMP, I'm using the same yeast in my Dubbel, like you theres yeast everywhere and it still looks frothy after 9 days fermenting. I'm going to forget about it until Friday, then take a reading then rack it to secondary before bottling.

My blonde, which i've got sitting inside at room temps (18/19C) looks far less impressive by comparison. I'm trying to think of ways I can warm it up while the Dubbel is in my heated fermenting fridge in the garage.

[mysterio]

My Dubbel is still at 1.022 (from 1.068ish)... too high, is that normal after 9/10 days? Probably worrying over nothing, not used to fermenting these styles.

Sample tastes great so far, much lighter than I expected though.

[Barley Water]

It sounds like you have a winner there Mysterio, good taste but lighter than you expected, sounds very good to me. I don't think I would worry too much about the gravity though, there is quite a bit of crystal malt in the style that will not ferment so I would expect the gravity to be on the high side. I say, kick back and enjoy.

Back to my tale of woe, it is very wierd. Last night after work, I pulled out my corked bottles, and cleaned up a cornie in an attempt to save my Dubbel. I pulled off all the wire cages from the bottles and pulled the cork out of the first bottle. I was greeted by a loud hiss which I guess is good but was unexpected. This bottle was carbonated just fine. Unfortunately, the beer was room temperature but waste not, want not, I drank it anyway. I really don't understand what is going on, the first two bottles were absolutely flat yet this one was carbonated just fine. I wonder if those corks sometimes don't completely seal. They are in the bottles tight, you need a corkscrew to pull them out so I know it is not the fit. Anyway, I guess more testing will be in order. I have never had problems bottle carbonating beer before, maybe all this is just part of the charm of bottle conditioned, corked beer.