Tuesday, October 25, 2011

Homebrewing: Dubbel Down

I’m back again, after a brief hiatus due to technical difficulties (who knew my laptop wouldn’t like beer as much as I do?) and a paucity of beer related events.  Today though I finally got back in the homebrewing swing of things by brewing up what hopefully will be a fairly tasty Belgian dubbel in a few weeks. For anyone unfamiliar with homebrewing, here's a primer on the process that I wrote a couple months ago. I was aided during the process by glasses of Chimay Premiere (red label) and Ommegang Abbey Ale, as I’ve turned it into something of a tradition to drink some of my favorite versions of whatever style I’m making on brew day.

When it came time to put a recipe together, I leaned heavily on two books that I keep on hand. The first, Brew like a Monk, profiles the beers of the different monasteries producing trappist beers, as well as other Belgian and American interpretations of the style. The second, Brewing Classic Styles, gives a general overview and brewing tips for many different styles, along with a competition-winning  recipe for each. The key ingredient is dark Belgian candi sugar, which imparts some fruity flavors, as well as a sugar source that’s wholly fermentable (able to be consumed by the yeast), which will help give the beer an appropriately dry body. There are plenty of guides online for making your own candi sugar, but for my first crack at the style I decided to keep it simple and use imported syrup. There are several different readily available Belgian yeast strains, and I ultimately went with the commercial version of the Chimay yeast, because I just like their beer.

Brewday for me started at about noon, as I heated the water to mash in.  I mashed long (90 minutes) and low(149 degrees) to produce a wort that would be easy to ferment for the yeast. After drawing off the liquid from the grains, I added the candi syrup as well as some table sugar (to boost ABV without adding any residual sweetnes) and brought the wort to a boil. I used Mount Hood hops to bitter, and also for a small flavor addition, as I think they impart a very cool earthy, slightly woody character that could work well.  After an extended, 90 minute boil (necessary with the pilsner malt I was using), I chilled the wort down to about 70 degrees and pitched the yeast.  It’s now fermenting away happily, and will hopefully be ready for bottles in about three weeks.

No brew day ever goes entirely smoothly for me though, but at least this time my problems were a step removed from the beer itself. I pulled samples of the wort  at every step to track the sugar levels in the beer, but didn’t draw enough liquid for the first three samples, and the hydrometer (the instrument for tracking sugar concentrations) tipped over and broke before I could measure the last sample. Furthermore, the beaker that I used to build up my yeast supply fell over and shattered during cleanup. Still though, nothing went wrong that will affect the beer, it just adds a purchase or two to my shopping list for next time.

My brewing setup: Propane burner and boil kettle in the foreground, "command center" complete with beer in the middle, and mash tun in the background

My command center, featuring laptop, ingredients, equipment, beer (aka brewing fuel) and lunch leftovers
Chilling the wort: Cold water is run through the submerged copper coil, and the then hot water is collected in tubs to avoid scorching the grass

Recipe: Dubbel Down
Pilsner Malt 10lbs (78.62%)
Special B 10oz (4.09%)
C20 8oz (3.71%)
D2 Syrup 1lb (9.98%)
Table Sugar 4oz (3.59%)
mash at 149 degrees for 90 minutes

.75oz Mt. Hood (6.1%AA) @ 90 minutes
.25oz Mt. Hood (6.1%AA) @ 20 minutes

Wyeast 1214 (Chimay)

IBU: 20.4
OG: 1.065 (assumed 70% efficiency)
ABV: 6.9%