Dixon's Belgian Pale Ale

[sdixon]

So I'm second guessing the Chimay for a standard'ish Belgian Ale. It's my first all-grain in years :-) My pots are small and I have some 3 gal carboys, so I'm going to do a 3 gal. batch. What do you think of the following (assuming I can get ingredients).

5# - 2-row pale
1# - Munich
0.2# - Crystal
0.75 oz - Hallertau ~ 60min
0.5 oz - Styrian Goldings ~ 20min
0.25 oz - Saaz ~ 5min

WYeast - 1214 Belgian Ale

Mash @ 152F ~ 75min
Sparge @ 168F ~ 15min

Thoughts?

[Richard]

maybe get some special B / melanoidin / biscuit / aromatic in there too, but I figure the yeast will be bringing most of the flavour to that party.

Would suggest you move this to the All Grain Recipes section - you mind if I frag the post up for you?

[sdixon]

Yes, I agree with your additions... I was actually thinking of Biscuit. Not sure how much though. 0.25# maybe?

Please feel free to repost... how do you do it... just copy and post?

[Richard]

tada

[Richard]

Looking around looks like a whole pound of biscuit wouldn't be amiss.

http://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/belgian ... rec-63383/

Not a style I've tried to brew before though, so I'm just repeating other people's opinions.

[sdixon]

Sounds good to me. So my refined grain bill so far is:

5# - 2-row pale
1# - Munich
1# - Biscuit
0.5# - Special B
0.2# - Crystal

Then again, I may have to adjust to what I can get my hands on :-)

Is there any chance any members have these malts for sale right now... I would like to put this beer on this weekend? I'm way behind on my beer stock.

I'm looking forward to putting a grain order in. Can we do it at the meeting? How does it work? Is it by the pound, sack? Do people split orders? What are the typical costs/lb? I know... so many questions from one of the new guys :-)

[Richard]

I could part with a pound of melanoidin; would also suggest you go full-bore on vienna to replace the 2-row, and I can hook you up with that too, as well as a pound of munich.

FYI the full pound of biscuit was to suit a 5 gallon batch, and melanoidin is a different kettle of fish altogether. If it was me I'd go with 5# vienna, 1# munich, 0.5# melanoidin, and 0.5# Crystal 240. That being largely because I actually have all of those malts. Can sort you out for that at the meeting if you want, but heed my previous disclaimer that I've not done a belgian pale before

[Richard]

Actually I suspect the Melanoidin and 240 would probably be out of place in a pale. Could just replace them both with some Crystal 110 and let the yeast do the heavy lifting on the flavour profile, I guess.

[sdixon]

Yes, this sounds like it would be a good little experiment. 5# Vienna, 1# Munich & 1# Crystal 110, I think that would produce a nice Belgian with WYeast 1214. So if you can spare those, I will take them off your hands.

[brew]

This looks like it will be quite nice - hope I get a chance to give it a taste!

Interesting, but your first recipe is similar to Kyle's Light Summer Ale, except using Munich instead of Vienna - I almost tried this with my last batch (I will definitely soon)...

I'm looking forward to putting a grain order in. Can we do it at the meeting? How does it work? Is it by the pound, sack? Do people split orders? What are the typical costs/lb?

The grain order form can answer all your questions (yes, yes and prices are listed), look here for the reference: http://nbcba.org/forum/index.php?topic=413.0 (you need to be a member first - if you want to pay dues on Saturday that should be fine, Richard can probably add you on the spot...)

[Richard]

Aye can do on both counts; see you Saturday

[sdixon]

So I brewed this recipe last night for a 3 gal batch. I did it as a Brew In Bag (BIAB). Pretty easy, but the sparge doesn't

5# Vienna
1# Munich
1# Crystal
21g Magnum - 60min
18g Centennial - 20min
8g Centennial - 5min

Yeast - S-04

I only had a small amount of grains so I brought the mash water up to ~ 162F before adding grains. I used 3gal of water + another 0.5 gal to account for grain absorption... this turned out to be insufficient. This is what is looks like in the bag:

IMG_2655 by sdixon669, on Flickr


After ~ 60min mash (held well at 152F-154F) I tried to bring it up to a mash out temp at 168F, but got only to maybe 166F. Boil ~ 60min. After boil:

IMG_2657 by sdixon669, on Flickr

I don't have a chiller so wort goes into primary and into sink with ice and water. It took ~ 30min to bring down to 24C (don't ask me why I switch from F to C, but when I think mash and sparge, I think in F and when I think pitch and ferment, I think C??):

IMG_2659 by sdixon669, on Flickr

I was a full 1gal low on my wort volume. I'm sure some of it was because I didn't account for boil losses, and may have under estimated grain absorption??

I took SG before adding 1gal of water to top up and it was 1.062, after adding 1gal of water, it was 1.040

I used S-04:

IMG_2654 by sdixon669, on Flickr

Everything was bubbling away nicely this morning. We'll see how it turns out.

[sdixon]

Not sure why images aren't working. I'm using Flickr for url?

[Richard]

You're using the link to the page, not to the photo itself. Under the "share" tag on flickr, you want the BBCODE option.

e.g.:


IMG_2659 by sdixon669, on Flickr

Next time, sparge more if you don't have sufficient volume pre-boil, it'll be better for your efficiency than just diluting after the boil.

[sdixon]

Thanks!

So bring it up to temp and also hold it a little longer? Actually I didn't even know I was so low on water until I was done the mash-out and removed the grain bag. I'm pretty sure it was the boil off that I failed to account for... it was a 1hr boil in a large pot... that is likely to be about 1 gal there. Live and learn. It's been a while since I brewed all grain.