Abbey Lemaitre - "Hubble Dubbel" 24/10/09

[adm]

The name's a working title...but I quite like it.


Anyway, this beer is planned as a base for my spiced Christmas Dubbel - but I haven't added any spices to the beer yet as my plan is to buy a bottle of gold or dark rum and infuse that with the spices, then add that to some or all of the beer later (of course, I'll experiment with small amounts first, and if I don't like it I will at least have most of the beer left unspiced!)

Grain bill:

5Kg Maris Otter
1Kg Munich
0.5Kg CaraRed
0.5Kg Wheat Malt
0.25Kg Medium Crystal
0.25Kg Crystal Wheat
(I think that's about the most complex grain bill I've ever done)/

Also, I added 750g of Molasses Cane Sugar to the end of the boil.

Hops:
40g EKG 4.6% AA First Wort
46g EKG 4.6% AA 15 minutes
This finishes up the kilo of EKG that I've been steadily working my way through.

Yeast was 750ml of thin slurry of Wyeast 1214 Abbey Ale from the Singel I brewed recently. It's difficult to get thick slurry from this yeast as it stirs itself up easily when you try to pour the beer off it.

Here's the pics:


Assorted grain


Weighed out with the Pale and ready to go. The mash on this one was three hours as I had to go out. I kicked it off at about 68C and it was 64.5C by the time it was done.


Some hops....East kent Goldings


First runnings. The wort tasted absolutely lovely


Molasses sugar to add to the boil


All set up and ready to run off


I was shooting for 23L, but ended up with nearly 26. I think that I did a "stupid" and ended up doing a 60 minute boil instead of a 90 minute one....I was busy doing other stuff, set the timer dial on my watch, but I think I moved it by mistake. Oh well. The bittering hops went in at the beginning and the flavour hops went in 15 minutes from the send, so it should all be fine! Just a bit more beer, a bit weaker than I'd planned.


Here's the yeast. Just under a litre of thin slurry Wyeast 1214 from the Belgian Singel I brewed recently.


Pitched, aerated and ready to stick in the fermenting chamber


This ended up at 1.072.....should come out to about 7.8% ABV or so.

[pantsmachine]

Very nice indeed sir, you are most certainly on a Belgian jag!

[adm]

The weird thing is, I keep telling myself I think Belgian beers are overrated......but I keep making them!

[WishboneBrewery]

That molasses sugar is going to give you quite a flavour, should be interesting

[adm]

That molasses sugar is going to give you quite a flavour, should be interesting

I know. It's going to be way out of "style" if there is such a thing for Belgian type beers......but then I've probably got too many flavour hops too.

Anyway - I asked the missus to get me some "nice, flavourful raw dark sugar" while she was shopping.....and she certainly did what she was asked!

I thought it might taste a bit treacly, but tasting the wort it didn't at all....just a lot of depth and complexity to it.

[196osh]

Looks like great stuff.

[WishboneBrewery]

The Sugar flavour should improve and round off with time. Bet its a good one.
I'd like to use some of this sugar myself sometime though I've probably not got the time or enough bottles free at the moment to do it.

[leedsbrew]

Looks very good adm. I will be very interested to hear about your rum experiments. Have you had any thoughts as to which rum and spices you will use?

[adm]

Looks very good adm. I will be very interested to hear about your rum experiments. Have you had any thoughts as to which rum and spices you will use?

I went off to the shops today and bought a litre bottle of Sainsbury's own brand dark rum. I didn't want to buy a bottle Havana Club in case the spices fcuk it up and I don't thinl there's any point using a premium brand as the taste probably won't come through.

Anyway. I poured it into a sealable jar and added three cinammon sticks, a dozen cloves, 8 cardamom pods, half a grated nutmeg, and about two ounces of fresh sliced ginger root.

I've stuck the jar in a dark cupboard and will give it a shake every so often and leave it for at least two weeks then give it a taste to see how it's getting on.

[adm]

Funnily enough....I just went to make sure this beer was behaving itself in the fermenter as I am off on a trip tomorrow and the first thing that hit me when I lifted the lid was a big waft of "rumminess"! It smelled almost the same as the rum I was playing with earlier. It's probably psychological, but maybe it was down to the dark cane sugar.

It's fermenting away happily at 23C

[SiHoltye]

I made this using that sugar and noticed a full on black treacle-y flavour. Had rubbish attenuation.

Ingredients

Amount Item Type % or IBU
5.00 kg Pale Malt (2 Row) UK (5.0 EBC) Grain 82.64 %
0.45 kg Roasted Barley (591.0 EBC) Grain 7.44 %
0.20 kg Wheat Malt, Ger (3.9 EBC) Grain 3.31 %
0.15 kg Chocolate Malt (Pale) (500.0 EBC) Grain 2.48 %
75.00 gm Goldings, East Kent [5.60 %] (90 min) Hops 42.0 IBU
1.43 tbsp PH 5.2 Stabilizer (Mash 60.0 min) Misc
0.25 kg Molasses (157.6 EBC) Sugar 4.13 %
24.00 L London, England Water
2 Pkgs SafAle English Ale (DCL Yeast #S-04) Yeast-Ale

Beer Profile
Measured Original Gravity: 1.063 SG
Measured Final Gravity: 1.023 SG
Actual Alcohol by Vol: 5.22 %
Bitterness: 42.0 IBU
Est Color: 60.4 EBC

[adm]

And I've used three times as much as you did!

Oh well......live and learn, eh?

Last time I used this yeast as a repitch, it attentuated 93%! So thats the baseline expectation I have. Although I mashed hot to get a lot of body, so I'll actually be happy if it attenuates over 80%. I'm off on a trip to the US this week, so when I get back at the Weekend, I'll see where it's at....

[arturobandini]

Good work on the Spices. I've used a vanilla pod before when making my own spiced rum (and Cinnamon and cloves) and the result has been pretty delicious. Good call on the own brand as well given that it's going into a beer and not drunk on its own or what not. You seem to come up with some "out there" stuff adm, I like it.

[adm]

Well....this went do to 1012 before I kegged it, so the attenuation was 82.5%, giving me an 8% beer - which is good enough for me. The molasses tastes isn't overpowering in the sample I had - and in fact is fairly subtle, so i think it's all good so far. Of course, I'll be able to tell better when I'm drinking a full sized glass!

The spiced rum is coming along nicely. I just added some more cinammon to it today as it was a bit light on that flavour. I'll leave it another week or so. The flavour is mainly ginger and cardamom now. Which is quite nice....

Not sure right now whether to mix this into some of the beer, or just to serve a glass of beer with a shot of spiced rum on the side..... I'll give the beer a few weeks in the keg to see how it turns out before deciding.

[adm]

Just had a quick preview of this beer, and the basic Dubbel has turned out pretty good on its own. There's a subtle, but definite molasses/treacle taste from the molasses sugar, but it's quite in context.

Now then......adding a shot of the spiced rum to the glass makes for a whole different drink! The flavour is pretty heavy on the ginger and light on the cloves and cinammon, but that's rather good in it's own way. Definitely a Christmassy flavour to it - and with the added rum, it's like Christmas rocket fuel for Santa's sleigh.

More experimenting is required.....