| Belgian Dark Strong |
| Recipe | Belgian Dark Strong | Style | Belgian Dark Strong Ale | |||
| Brewer | DT | Batch | 6.00 gal | |||
| All Grain |
Recipe Characteristics
| Recipe Gravity | 1.094 OG | Estimated FG | 1.024 FG | |||
| Recipe Bitterness | 30 IBU | Alcohol by Volume | 9.1% | |||
| Recipe Color | 23° SRM | Alcohol by Weight | 7.2% |
Ingredients
| Quantity | Grain | Type | Use | |||||
| 1.00 lb | Belgian Special "B" | Grain | Mashed | |||||
| 1.00 lb | Belgian aromatic malt | Grain | Mashed | |||||
| 1.50 lb | Belgian candi syrup, dark | Grain | Other | |||||
| 12.00 lb | Belgian pilsener | Grain | Mashed | |||||
| 0.50 lb | Belgian wheat | Grain | Mashed | |||||
| 1.00 lb | CaraMunich II | Grain | Mashed | |||||
| 3.00 lb | German Munich | Grain | Mashed | |||||
| 0.50 lb | Melanoidin | Grain | Mashed | |||||
| Quantity | Hop | Type | Time | |||||
| 2.25 oz | Hallertauer | Pellet | 60 minutes | |||||
| Quantity | Misc | Notes | ||||||
| 1.00 unit | Belgian Strong Ale yeast | Yeast | No starter, 6 month old smackpack | |||||
Recipe Notes
Lost my original dark strong recipe, so I pulled up Jamil's recipe since I used it as the base for mine last time. This time I dropped the pilsner base malt to 12 pounds for a little less alcohol. Also used a full bottle of Belgian Dark Candi Syrup, instead of corn sugar. Used a little less hops (didn't actually weigh them out), since the Hallertaur I had came in at 4.7% AA.
Batch Notes
12/29/2007 :: Mike came over for the brew session and brewed the BVIP. He also brought his power drill, so we didn't have to mill the grain by hand, which saved a lot of time. I managed to clean and sanitize everything the night before. Milled up the grains, dropped them in the mash tun, heated the strike water to 163 and hit a mash temp of 152. Let it sit for an hour while we ate lunch, then pulled off about 4 gallons of wort. Sparged with 180 degree water to pull off the remaining 3 gallons. Wasn't paying attention while draining the mash into the boil pot and ended up collecting too much wort. Boil pot (7.5 gallons) started to overflow. Stopped the flow and used a measuring cup to lower the collected wort level down to 7 gallons. This probably is the reason I ended up with an OG of 1080 instead of 1090.
Brought to a boil, added bittering hops. Boiled for 45 minutes and then added the Belgian Dark Candi syrup, then boiled another 15 minutes. After hour long boil was over, cooled wort over a 10 minute period. Poured into bucket, strained excess hops, aerated, and pitched one smackpack of yeast (no starter). Yeast was bought at least 6 months ago and is having a slow start, might have to repitch some fresh yeast.
12/31/2007 :: Pulled my 6 month old smackpack of Trappist ale yeast out of the fridge, let it warm up and smacked it to see how bad it was. No sign of fermentation yet.
01/02/2008 :: Smackpack has finally showed signs of being alive. It's not super puffy, but enough to know there are still some live cells in there kicking out CO2. Doesn't really matter though, as the bucket finally started bubbling yesterday, 01/01/2008. Not a super fast bubbling, but it's steady and getting stronger.
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