Chimay Clone

[Richard]

Chimay Blue Clone

This was copied from http://hbd.org/discus/messages/20001/25376.html which in turn was copied from a book called "Beer Captured". I've made a lot of the ingredients "generic", pulled the pilsner for standard 2-row, and replaced candi sugar with table sugar: I read somewhere it makes pretty much zero difference so long as you put it in the boil, which inverts sucrose to fructose & glucose.

Also having tried a sample of the "beer" from the yeast-harvest, I'm convinced that the absolute major player in the Chimay flavour-profile is the yeast.

OG: 1.087
FG: 1.015
SRM: 34
IBU: 27
ABV: 9.0%

Five Gallons:

Grains:
13.33lb 2-row Malt
8 oz Cara-Munich Malt
6 oz Aromatic Malt
4 oz Special B Malt
2.5 oz Chocolate Malt

Mash at 149F for 90 minutes. Maximum fermentability needs to be reached. This part is going to be real hard with my equipment.

Hops:
1/2 oz Magnum - 60 min boil
1/2 oz Hallertau - 15 min boil
1/4 oz Hallertau - 2 min boil

Other Additions:
1.5 lb Table Sugar - 60 min boil
1/8 tsp Grains of Paradise - 15 min boil
1 tsp Irish Moss - 15 min boil
1/8 tsp Grains of Paradise 2 min boil

[Brian_S]

Just a note about the Candi sugar, I think heat alone isn't sufficient for the "inversion??" process.  I've been reading up on it as I was planning on making some from sugar beats and it appears citric acid is needed as well.

B

[Shawn]

You can also consider adding the 1.5 lbs of table sugar into the primary, a few days in, whenever fermentation starts to slow a bit. Just boil it with a couple cups of water to sterilize, then cool, then pour into the fermenter. This allows the yeast to work on the less-easy-to-ferment sugars, and also means you technically have to pitch less yeast (since your OG at the START of fermentation will be lower).

[Richard]

Brian: I saw a technique using lemon juice for inverting sucrose, so I was planning on using that.

Shawn: I might just do that... worth giving it a go anyway as I have to boil the stuff to invert it regardless.

[Richard]

made the order... no Special B at NG mind, so if anyone has a good suggestion for a sub...

[Shawn]

The darkest Crystal you can find... 150 would be great, but I know they don't have that either. 120 L I guess?

[Richard]

I was looking around and I suspect a melanoidin malt might be a worthy replacement for high-lovibond crystal... Any thoughts?

[Shawn]

I don't think Melanoidin will give the raisiny flavors that you'd be expecting with a darker Crystal, or Special B (which also adds a bit of dark fruit, from what I understand... I guess raisins are kind of a dark fruit).

What about a mixture of the two, just to see what they bring to the table?

[Shawn]

Forgot to say, what exactly IS the Lovibond rating for Melanoidin? I know it says it on the bag from NG... I thought it was more 40ish as opposed to 120-150, but I'm probably wrong...

[Richard]

Google suggests 23-30, which is way out of the ballpark for Special B (110-150 depending on where you look). I'll add some Crystal 120 to the order tomorrow.