Big Brew Belgian Strong recipe
From Beertown.org:
Striking Gold Belgian Strong Ale
by Bob Kauffman
Batch Size: 5 gallons (19L)
Anticipated OG: 1.077
Anticipated SRM: 4.4
Color Formula Used: Morey
Anticipated IBU: 31.0
Hop IBU Formula Used: Daniels
Brewhouse Efficiency: 70 %
Wort Boil Time: 60 Minutes
Note: This recipe is wide open to experimentation. Try using different sugars (such as candi sugar, corn sugar, cane sugar, jaggery, piloncillo, and demerara); different yeasts or blends of yeasts; or different fermentation temperatures. Have fun brewing it, and then compare yours with others at the AHA National Homebrewers Conference. Bob also strongly recommends reading Brew Like a Monk, by Stan Hieronymus.
[Jaggery is a semi-refined solid or "concrete" sugar made from palm sap (and/or sugar cane), primarily in India. It has a soft texture and a rich creamy flavor, and has a history in British brewing starting in the mid 19th century. Jaggery is also sometimes labeled “gur,” and may be found in most Indian and Pakistani grocery stores, or ordered from mail order suppliers. Other semi-refined sugars--Latin, Thai or Philipino--may be substituted with similar results.]
[Piloncillo is made from pure, unrefined sugar that is pressed into a cone shape. It tastes very similar to brown sugar with a molasses flavor (even though it does not contain molasses).]
[Demarara is from the island of Mauritius off the coast of Africa. This is an all-natural, unrefined brown sugar that offers rich taste with caramel flavor notes.]
All-Grain
For 5 gallons using a 6-gallon or greater boil.
9.50 lb (4.3 kg) Pilsner Malt
14 oz (0.39 kg) Wheat Malt
7 oz (0.19 kg) Cara-Pils Dextrine Malt
3 oz (85 g) Aromatic Malt
1.33 lb (0.6 kg) Cane Sugar (10 min.)
0.67 lb (0.3 kg) Jaggery Sugar (30 min.)
1.75 oz (50 g) Kent Goldings pellet hops, 4.75% alpha acid (60 min.)
1.00 oz (28 g) Czech Saaz pellet hops, 3.50% alpha acid (5 min.)
Blend of Wyeast 3787 Trappist High Gravity & Wyeast 1214 Belgian Ale Yeast; or a blend of White Labs WLP570 Belgian Golden Ale & White Labs WLP500 Trappist Ale Yeast
Use a step mash with 30-minute steps at 142F (61C), 152F (67C), and 160F (71C). Mash out at 172F (78C) and sparge with 170F (77C) water. Collect enough wort (a little under 6 gallons or 22.7 L) to end up with 5 gallons (19 L) after a 60-minute boil. Bring to a boil and add hops and sugar according to the recipe. After a 60-minute boil, chill to 68F (20C), rack to fermenter, pitch yeast and aerate well. Pitch two packages of yeast, one of each kind, or a ½ gallon starter of the blended yeast. Ferment at 73-75F (23-24C) for two weeks, then rack to secondary and ferment another two-to-four weeks before bottling or kegging.
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recipe substitutes
We're going to make this an 11 gallon batch. Belgian malt will be substituted for the Pilsner Malt since we have some already and it will fit the style. Other malts will be the same as the original recipe. I have some Yakima Goldings whole hops that we could use in place of the Kent Goldings pellets. I might have some Czech Saaz. The main question is what yeast to use and what sugars to use. I have some leftover Saison yeast that could work. Any thoughts?
Yeast and Hops
I think the saison yeast will work fine. Do we want to break it into two batches with different yeast? I would be happy to pick up some trappist yeast or the like and some hallertauer or more saaz hops from the shop.
There is also some candy sugar at the shop I could grab. The light stuff is probably best for this job(?)
2 yeasts
Oh yeah, I'd prefer to use two different yeasts. This is going to be a high gravity beer so we need to make big starters and oxygenate well. I'll get back to you on the hops. I need to weigh out what I have. I don't know how different the light and dark candy sugars are, but the beer is supposed to be light in color so I'd agree to go with light.
I think we should use your mash tun for the less ghettofied effect. Plus I think it holds more grain. How many quarts is it?
Crystalized Ginger
Do you think that some Crystalized Ginger might be a little too weird?
ginger
I was just looking into the crystallized ginger. Sometimes it has sulfur dioxide as a preservative. AKA potassium metabisulphite. It's used in wine in the early stages, but not so much in beer making. My only concern is how it will affect the fermentation. Maybe we could add it to the secondary. Chop it up and add it with some dry hops? Of course, then we'd have a second fermentation going from the sugar. Maybe secondary in the keg and naturally carbonate with it. It would be tough to figure out predicted volumes of CO2, but we could always force carb it if it came up short. I don't think we'd want to add it to the boil anyway because the pectin could cause haze. Too much would throw it out of style. Lets try a little and see how it goes.
re: ginger
Tom has a book that has a recipe for a Ginger Saison. They take two oz of crystalized ginger and cut it into pea-sized bits and throw it in at the end of the boil. It sounded kind of cool to me after I saw some kind of Dogfish Head brew that had ginger in it. No big deal if we don't do it. I was just trying to think weird. I actually had the idea before I saw it in Tom's book, but then I started thinking it must be pretty normal.
We're doing an 11 gallon
We're doing an 11 gallon batch with half of it going to the club and half for us. So, my vote is to add the ginger in the secondary/ keg of our portion and to leave it out of the COHO portion. I like experimenting, just not on a large scale (i.e. I still have over a case of yarrow beer sitting in my office). If the ginger turns out good, we can always brew it again on a larger scale. Is that cool?
Yeah
I agree. I would be interested to taste the difference anyway. What do we still need in the way of supplies for this brew?