Abbey Single

[TheMumbler]

These are my thoughts so far

OG 1057
FG 1014 (will probably go lower than this)
abv 5.5% (probably more like 6%)
IBU 41
7 lovibond (3-4 ebc)

Belgian Pale 5000g
Sugar 500g

Magnum 10g (12%) 90 mins
Celeia 80g (2.6%) 45 mins
Saaz 25g (3.5) 30 mins
Saaz (3.5%) 15 mins

WLP 550 pitch at 20*C raisng to 26*C over a few days

One possibility is to use 900g of Jaggery Goor I have instead of the 500g of sugar and reduce the grain a touch.

Any comments or advice gratefully recieved.

[Morten]

It is a lot of IBU's for that style, I think it will be nice - but not exactly to style

But who cares

[HighHops]

I agree. I'd keep the IBU's down about 30

Never heard of jaggery goor before, but googled it - sounds nice!

[TheMumbler]

Thanks for the replies, I guess it is a bit high for the BJCP but the westvlertern green cap that I enjoyed the other day is 41 ibu according to BLAM.

Also I think my utilistation is probably not that good so I'd realistically see lower than 41 anyway...

[Barley Water]

Well I think the beer will be good, you are getting pretty close to a Belgian Blond from a style standpoint but it's a Belgian so who gives a damn. My next brew will also be a Single, pretty much as a prelude to a Triple, I want the beer but I also want the yeast off the bottom of the fermenter. My plan was to start just a bit lower, perhaps 1.050 or perhaps just slightly less. I may also add some specialty grain, maybe a bit of Victory or Bisquet and perhaps just of smidge of spices, we'll see what floats my boat when the time comes. Since I want to showcase the yeast contribution, I'll probably keep the bitterness down around 25IBU's or so. Anyhow, I plan to keg the stuff, I'll bottle the triple though, kegging the high O.G. stuff just gets me into trouble. The question becomes though, what yeast shall I choose? Most of my experience is with WLP500 but I'm thinking maybe something just a little less fruity, any suggestions?

I think you will like the jaggery by the way, it has an interesting taste. To my mind, if you are using sugar to thin the beer out a bit, why not go with something that will add some flavor? If I were doing a Duvel type brew, I might just go with corn sugar but for something like a Single I say go for the gusto. By the way, I just brewed a Saison yesterday and I used a pound of jaggery in a 5 gallon batch, got to love it. Once the stuff is in secondary, I'm going to spike it with Brett B (at the suggestion of a friend who has more experience with the bugs than I do) hopefully that will dry the hell out of the beer if the Dupont strain doesn't get the job done by itself, should be interesting.

[TheMumbler]

thanks for the feedback BW. I remember you talking about brewing a single and re-using the yeast for a triple a while back in another thread. I was considering using the yeast from this one to do something along the lines of Houblon Chouffe with simcoe and amarillo (550 is supposedly the achouffe yeast).

tbh I'm not exactly sure what a single should be like. They aren't exactly commonly available The closest thing I've had was the Westveleteren green capped one I mentioned above, which is 5.8% IIRC. Petitie Orval is a good bit weaker (3.5%) according to wikipedia. I really need to sort out my smaller mash tun if I want to do something of that kind of strength though, the grain bed is really shallow if I go much below 5kg of grain in my current one. Maybe 500g of jaggery is the way to go. I have some belgian candi syrup courtesy of lancssteve but I want to save that to do a dubbel with or maybe a strong dark for christmas.

The saison sounds good, I like a bit of brett in that kind of beer.

[Barley Water]

Well of course I have never had a Single either, you are way closer to the source than I but my understanding is that the monks hoard all that for themselves. Besides having no commerical examples to try, there is also very little in the way of literature to give us clues. My attitude then is, let's just make some using what we have and we will just define the style ourselves. I saw just a bit in BLAM and there is actually a recipe in Radical Brewing, which by the way is about 5.5% or so and I believe includes added sugar. Anyhow, my working model is basicly a Belgian pale ale with much more yeast generated flavors (and by the way my idea of a Belgian pale is DeKonick which is pretty close to lager-like in my opinion). Also if you like, you can spice the stuff a bit, what the hell? Naturally, take all this with a grain of salt, after all I'm a Yankee and also a Texan and you know we pretty much do whatever we want here in the Lone Star state. That's part of the great fun in doing obscure styles like this, you get to "break trail" as they say.

[barney]

I had it in my head that a triple was the first run of the mash and the dubbel was the second, therefore I assumed that a single was the third. I didn't think that it had to brewed to a specific recipe or style. Being the third run, a lot of the malt body would have been utilized previously so the beer would end up "hoppier" i also envisage that to hit a decent gravity a long boil would have been in order and therefore some caramelisation of the wort would have taken place.

Assumptions may be way off though.

[TheMumbler]

BW - I doubt I know any more than you do about this kind of beer. A more yeasty belgian pale or low abv tripel seem to end up being about the same thing as far as I can see and seems like the most sensible guess to me. It also gives a fair amount of wiggle room which is a good thing IMO. Style guidelines have their uses, especially for competitions, but I'd be pretty skeptical about a BJCP definition for beer defined by Belgian monks who aren't sharing it... I'll hold off on the spices this time around so I can get some idea of the yeast, I suppose I could just re-do my De Koninck type recipe with a different yeast but I quite fancy using the jaggery so it might as well differ all the way.

Barney - I don't think the tripel, dubbel thing has anything to do with partigyle mashing, just how strong the beer is. You would expect a tripel to be blonde and a dubbel to be dark but I'm not sure that was always the case, not a clue about enkels. I believe English brewers used to do something like what you are describing starting with a barley wine from the first runnings and a small beer from the third. They also re-used the hops in the small beer from what I have read. I'd like to do something like that at some point but time being what it is I may never actually get around to it.

[TheMumbler]

Brewday thread

[barney]

Found a brew that is sold as "Abbey Single".

Brewery is Witkap Pater and the single is "Stimulo"

[Barley Water]

I have read about that stuff in a couple of places but have never tried it. Can you give us a review of the beer?

I brewed my version of the style on Sunday. It has an O.G. of 1.048 and very simple grist, Belgian pils malt with just a smidge of Bisquet malt for a touch of character. Hopping was Magnum for bitterness (about 25IBU or so) and 1/2 ounce of Saaz 20 minutes from flameout and another 1/2 ounce at shutdown. Just for the hell of it, I also added the zest of 1/4 of a lemon for 5 minues. For the yeast, I am using WLP550, I started the stuff at 65F and I am ramping up the temperature to a little over 70F slowly, we will see how it goes. As you can tell, I am trying to differentiate this beer from a Belgian Pale Ale by trying to make it spicy but at the same time a quaffer. This is one of those beers that would probably not do all that well in a competition but hopefully will be really fun to drink. I'll keg this one and get it pretty fizzy so it will be a decent thirst quencher. I look forward to watching some football and having a challace or four of this, good times. Next up for me will be a Triple, the question will be, what sugar to use? I read about some stuff found usually in Asian markets that is generally used as a rub for meat, I need to poke around a bit and see if I can find some. I got that idea from the book written by the guy that runs Dogfish Head. Other ideas I got from his book have worked out really well, his deal is mainly using strange ingredients to make unique beers, if you get a chance to check it out you will come up with some novel ideas. Most of the recipes in the book are extract based but it is really easy to convert them to all grain.

[Phil_L]

Just a little thought, I would have brewed it with Magnum and Goldings. What yeast? Westmalle is the tits for this beer. I really want to brew a batch of this with Angelo at the BrewWharf, maybe next year now. I think the secret is in the mash temps - being able to step them, and the use of salt in the kettle. When I say salt, it's the very saline water about Westvleteren that give it that sweetness. (rec: 125ppm)

[Phil_L]

Found a brew that is sold as "Abbey Single".

Brewery is Witkap Pater and the single is "Stimulo"

Stimulo has wheat too, and is just goldings. I can confirm with Karel if you'd like?

[Barley Water]

Well, using Goldings is a good idea, it should give the beer what I guess I would call an "earthy" character. My initial thought was to go for "spicy" but since this is my first try at a Single, I want to see what happens. I will definatley keep your suggestion in the back of my mind next time I try this. A little wheat is also not a bad idea, if nothing else it will tend to accentuate the head. Of course, if I carbonate heavily I suspect that will not be an issue. Can you give us neophytes a review of the beer so we know better what we are shooting for?