Water treatment for Leffe blonde.

[Top Cat]

Hi guys.
I hope to brew the MaltMiller Leffe Blonde grain kit in the near future, always loved the drink out of the bottle, so due to its outstanding reviews have decided to try something a little different from English ales stouts and lagers.
As it’s classed as a Belgian Abbey beer, Graham’s water treatment calculator which I always use, doesn’t accommodate it.
Any ideas what the water profile should be or could be recommended?
Thanks in anticipation.

[Eric]

Can't find the recipe on the MM site, can you provide it and the yeast you will be using. Also if you could give the profile of your water supply I'll give my two pennyworth.

What is your expectation on the palate and aromatics?

[Top Cat]

Thanks for prompt reply Eric.
Please find recipe below
https://www.themaltmiller.co.uk/product ... ffe-clone/
My expectation is as the bottle version, full bodied, aromatic, drink with care at 7%!
Water profile as at a few weeks ago.
Alkalinity as CaC03 71 ppm
Calcium 40 ppm
Chloride as Cl 52 ppm
Sodium as Na 32 ppm
Sulphate as SO4 35 ppm
Magnesium 7.8 ppm
Sulphate as S04 34.6
PH 7.2.

Hope this helps.

[Eric]

Don't know what gear you will be using, so will talk in general terms.

90%+ Pilsen Malt means that without a decent dose of calcium in the mash liquor, alkalinity will need to be zero or less to keep pH withing bounds. Wheat malt needs even lower alkalinity that Pilsen, but the Aromatic should balance that.

I don't think it will be desirable to have malt flavour dominant, so I'd keep the total calcium down to 100ppm overall. Hallertauer Mittlefrauh are beautiful, so I'd be inclined again to emphasise those over the malt by having a sulphate dominant water profile.

The yeast is going to provide a lot of the character and needs treating with care. I'd advise rehydration at 29C half an hour before pitching, while letting it cool to 18C, wort temperature, before pitching. Let the fermentation temperature rise slowly to 20C initially to avoid warm alcohols, then after mid fermentation it could be allowed rise more if it will.

Presuming you use CRS, 0.4 ml/litre for mash liquor and similar for sparge liquor with a touch of lactic or phosphoric acid. That plus 0.25g of gypsum per litre of tap water should lift calcium to 100 ppm and raise sulphate by about 140ppm. How you do that overall might depend upon your brewing system and method. I'd add most of the gypsum to the mash and acidify the sparge liquor to keep runnings pH low and put the rest of the gypsum into the boiler.

What thoughts?

[IPA]

I have tried for years to get close to the taste of Leffe Blonde and have failed everytime. A brewer on here has tried the MM kit and even that did not have the correct taste. The elusive element is the strong taste of cloves. I have now decided that the next time I try I will bung some ground cloves in the boil.

[Top Cat]

Thanks for the advice Eric, the way I brew (three vessel system) is simple and I can adopt your advice.
I always rehydrate dried yeast so will continue so.

Ian, I think you’re right with the taste profile thinking about it, the glove taste is well pronounced. Let us know the outcome of your next Leffe brew with cloves.

[bitter_dave]

In 2006 (!) I emailed Hop and Grape to ask about sourcing the ingredients to make Leffe, based on a recipe I got somewhere (perhaps here?). Just found my old email.

The recipe (including a different yeast) was:

>>>>> 5340g Belgian Two-row Pilsner Malt
>>>>> 113g Belgian Biscuit Malt
>>>>> 113g Belgian Aromatic Malt
>>>>> 113g German Munich Malt
>>>>> 57g Honey Malt
>>>>> 226 g Belgian Clear Candi Sugar
>>>>> 57 g Malto Dextrin 2
>>>>> 31 g Pride of Ringwood at 9.3AA (4.7 HBU) (bittering hop)
>>>>> 14 g Styrian Goldings (flavor hop)
>>>>>
>>>>> 1st choice yeast: Wyeast 1762 Belgian Abbey II;
>>>>> 2nd choice yeast: Wyeast 3522 Belgian Ardennes;

I had only been brewing a short while at this point and never made it. Not sure if the suggested yeast in this recipe helps? The malt miller kit with T58 certainly gets good reviews. Might have to finally have a go at making it!

[Top Cat]

In 2006 (!) I emailed Hop and Grape to ask about sourcing the ingredients to make Leffe, based on a recipe I got somewhere (perhaps here?). Just found my old email.

The recipe (including a different yeast) was:

>>>>> 5340g Belgian Two-row Pilsner Malt
>>>>> 113g Belgian Biscuit Malt
>>>>> 113g Belgian Aromatic Malt
>>>>> 113g German Munich Malt
>>>>> 57g Honey Malt
>>>>> 226 g Belgian Clear Candi Sugar
>>>>> 57 g Malto Dextrin 2
>>>>> 31 g Pride of Ringwood at 9.3AA (4.7 HBU) (bittering hop)
>>>>> 14 g Styrian Goldings (flavor hop)
>>>>>
>>>>> 1st choice yeast: Wyeast 1762 Belgian Abbey II;
>>>>> 2nd choice yeast: Wyeast 3522 Belgian Ardennes;

I had only been brewing a short while at this point and never made it. Not sure if the suggested yeast in this recipe helps? The malt miller kit with T58 certainly gets good reviews. Might have to finally have a go at making it!

Good grief, there’s a lot of goodies in that recipe!

[timstaley]

I read somewhere in the past that leffe use a wheat beer yeast to get the clove flavour
Probably be more subtle than putting clove in

[IPA]

I read somewhere in the past that leffe use a wheat beer yeast to get the clove flavour
Probably be more subtle than putting clove in

Usually Belgian wheat beer is brewed using ground coriander and bitter orange peel. So I doubt that the yeast would contribute any clove flavour. If lt does I cannot detect it. Putting ground clove in the boil is no more different than coriander and orange.

[LeeH]

Hefe yeast give off more clove at the bottom end of their range. Banana at the upper threshold.

[Top Cat]

Hefe yeast give off more clove at the bottom end of their range. Banana at the upper threshold.

That’s interesting, the grain kit arrived today, and, doing a bit of reading on the T-58 yeast, Fermentis claim it has a strong fermentation character of phenolic flavours, especially banana, clove and peppery notes. May be wise to ferment towards the lower end to enhance clove notes.
Me’s thinks it might be part of an experiment!

[Top Cat]

Thought I’d give an update on this one.
I brewed the Leffe in early March, I took Eric’s advice on board with water treatment and went for sweet pale ale in Grahams water treatment file. I had a poor extract efficiency which I referred to in another post, but Eric mentioned to obtain OG with the ingredients in the kit would require top notch efficiency.
The beer ended up at around 5.2% ABV, surprisingly after completely clearing the beer had a genuine taste, if anything the clove taste/aroma was a little overpowering, but nevertheless very drinkable.
After 4 weeks in the keg I sampled it with a purchased bottle, the big difference was, I was comparing draught with a carbonated bottled beer, the bottled Leffe was sharper to taste.
I increased the CO2 pressure in the cornie and dropped the temperature in the keezer to get some CO2 into the beer.
This resulted in a beer very similar, I’m convinced the T-58 yeast was a dominant factor in the brew.
If you happen to read this post IPA (Ian) if you haven’t used the yeast before, give it a go, it surprised me, I don’t think you’ll need to add cloves to the brew.

[IPA]

Thanks TC I will try it in the very near future and let you know.
Ian

[Northern Brewer]

doing a bit of reading on the T-58 yeast, Fermentis claim it has a strong fermentation character of phenolic flavours, especially banana, clove and peppery notes. May be wise to ferment towards the lower end to enhance clove notes.

T-58 certainly isn't known for being particularly clovey, it's more peppery. But on the cooler side definitely helps.

As does a ferulic acid rest at 45C and pH 5.8-6.0 :
https://beerandgardeningjournal.com/ger ... -beer-iii/

Going back to the original question, the breweries in western Belgium traditionally used wells sunk into the same chalk that's in the White Cliffs of Dover and under London, so their water tends to be pretty carbonate-heavy like London. But I'd guess that over in the Ardennes they get more from surface water which will be a lot lower in minerals.