What to do with Belgian pils malt

[Barley Water]

I have the kind of problem I just love. Our local homebrew supply store had several sacks of Belgian pils malt that he wanted to get rid of so he put it on sale at about half price. Being a greedy lad, I quickly purchased 25lbs but now I need to use it.

I usually make 5 gallon batches so I have enough to make maybe three batches depending on what other grains I end up putting into the mash. My first thought is that it would be cool to come up with a good formulation for a Belgian pale ale. It's wierd but in over 20 years of messing with this hobby, I have never made one and do not have any good recipies. I am shooting for something along the lines of DeKonik or Palm. Since you guys are closer to the heaven of beer styles than I am, maybe you have run across some good ideas.

Secondly, every summer I make a saison which I ferment at room temperature (which will be about 78F). I am really close to a great recipe but need some ideas for a different spice to make my stuff different than the usual Saison Dupont clones. If anybody has something good and unique, I would love to hear about it.

Finally, I have been trying to make a good dubbel and so far have missed the mark. Any help here would also be appreciated. I really would like to get as much "rummy" type flavors as possible. I would say the top starting gravity should be somewhere in the neighorhood of about 1.065 yet I don't want the stuff to be so heavy that I get filled up after one glass (and I don't want to be comatose either). Any special techniques like carmelizing sugar, wierd spices or "off the wall" adjuncts so much the better. Thanks in advance for the suggestions.

[mysterio]

No ideas on the first two, although i'd love to hear your Saison recipe.

I've heard quite a few times that the dark Belgian candi syrup is the missing link to making a good Dubbel, better than the rock stuff apparently. I would use this for 15 - 20% of the fermentables to keep it dry.

[Barley Water]

Yes, I had read about the candi sugar also. We can now get some liquid candi sugar that is pretty good. I have tried it once but the beer came out just a little thin and it was pretty alcoholic. Maybe I used too much so I thought I would cut back on the next try. The other thing I tried was adding raisens but to tell you the truth, I can not taste them in the final product. My next scheme will be to try and grind up the raisens in a food processor then soak them in a little rum get get the sugars out of them. I figure I can then throw this whole thing into the copper without causing any problems.

My other observation is that my formulation had probably eight different grains. My though was that the whole thing is getting too complicated and I need to go back to the KISS principle. My understanding is that the monks use relatively simple formulations and get all that great flavor by manipulating the fermentation (yeast, aeration, temperature etc.). Anyway, let me know if anybody has had good luck with this style. By the way, I will consult my notes and post my saison formulation for you.