Hey everybody I apologize for the all the post I have been on a brewing frenzy lately. I have been experimenting with recipes I already have and diving into German and Belgian Styles now. This is my second Belgian beer I will be brewing and I am not totally sure on the recipe, here is what I have.
Grains/Fermentables:
12lbs Pilsner Malt-Any suggestions, not sure what the store will have available.
-.5lbs Weyermann Belgian Style Abbey malt- is this appropriate for this beer?
-.75lbs White Table sugar- to dry it out
I am not sure on the yeast or hops. For hops would Willamette be suitable or not? I am aiming for the lower end of the spectrum at around 15-20 IBU’s.
For yeast I was thinking WLP550 Belgian Ale Yeast because it seemed to be a reliable yeast and fits this style. Any Feedback is appreciated. Prost!
12 lbs of Pilsner conservatively at say 29 ppg would net ~1.070? That’s a Tripel not a Blond!
+1
I think the Abbey is Weyermanns Aromatic Joe.
Saaz and Hallertau would very likely be a candidate as well. You shouldn’t need any sugar in a beer like a blonde. I would maybe suggest subbing some Pilsner for Pale for a bit of complexity.
Assuming you are making 5 gallons, that is a big malt bill for a Belgian Pale, but only if sticking to the style guidelines is important to you! If not, keep calm and brew on.
I don’t think that the maltster of your pilsner malt is going to make that much of a difference, so whatever pilsner malt your store has will do just fine.
Abbey malt is just another kind of toasted malt; some contribute a bready flavor, others are more like a honey malt. Depends on the maltster. Is it appropriate for the style? Absolutely. If your store doesn’t have any abbey malt, simply substitute aromatic or biscuit malt. You could even use Victory malt if you wanted to.
Willamette hops should work just fine. And like Joe Sr just said, Styrian Goldings works too.
I would stick with the WLP550, and here’s why: it is appropriate to style, is reliable, and this is only your second batch of belgian pale. You know that yeast can have a huge effect on the flavor of the beer, and if you are constantly changing malts and yeasts from recipe to recipe, you’ll have a hard time figuring out exactly what works best for you. From my own experience, yeast is the last thing I change when I’m trying to get a recipe “just right.”
I agree with about 50% of what you said. Pilsner malt will matter (i.e. don’t use, say, Briess Pilsen) and subbing Aromatic for biscuit or victory wouldn’t be something I’d do.
[EDIT] I’d also venture to say that the yeast would be the #1 thing I’d want to get right from the get go. This is especially true for Belgian beers. The yeast rules. Malt, sugar and hops are all things to be tinkered with once you find a strain you like. For Belgian styles the absolute most important ingredient is the yeast. After all, a Dubbel, for instance, is just a brown ale without the right yeast strain.
Thanks for the advice everybody really appreciated. I guess looking at the BJCP 2015 guidelines I did hit the high end for the Belgian Blonde Ale 25A. At 70% Efficiency if I lowered the pilsner to 11lbs, my OG should be 1.064 and my ABV should be around 6.6%. which seems to fit the style. I will probably stick with the Willamette unless my store has Saaz and Hallertau then I will use those. I think the yeast is really the only thing I am undecided on it really depends what I have available to me. I have always used white labs because that’s what my store carries. `I think I will use the Abbey malt because it sounds like what I want in this beer.
I apologize for any confusion as I believe I have confused the Trappist Single with the Belgian blonde. My comment on the sugar should be disregarded either way. It was a brainfart
I will say that even as a voracious fan of Belgian beer, I have never tasted a non-Trappist single or blond beer I liked.
On the topic of Pilsner malt, I really like Dingemans and its is cheap and readily available (local shop) where I’m at.
Interestingly though you can see a trend as far as Pilsner malt is concerned (and base malts in general) with a bunch of the Brewers here from one of my other posts:
I don’t know what you guys are talking about with that being a big grain bill. Belgian blond is to be between 6 and 7.5% abv. I guess since you have the sugar in there maybe cut back on the base malt by a tad. Otherwise, leave the sugar out and mash low and long.
And I was going to say that 3522 Belgian Ardennes is a fantastic yeast. Joe Sr. beat me to it.
My recent Belgian blond had a pound of cane sugar in it. I’d probably omit that next time. It finished at 1.007, which was maybe just a tad too dry, but was still fantastic.
I only meant to say that at a conservative 78% efficiency, 12 lbs of Pilsner malt and 3/4 lb of table sugar would yield a very high PBG. After boiling for an hour you’d likely be >1.090 OG. That struck me as uncharacteristic of the style.
You’d be looking at a large ABV beer even with modest attenuation. Given the nature of good liquid Belgian strains when sugar is involved, >80% attenuation is not unlikely. If that were the case, you’d very likely be approaching ~9-10% ABV.
To each their own. It would be a tasty beer regardless. I am of course assuming a 5 gallon batch.
Agreed, that makes things so much easier. Personally, that’s how I think of recipes anyways. I have no clue what the actual quantities look like until I plug them into some software. With OG and percentages you can scale any grain bill and with hop additions I use IBU’s per addition for boil additions and oz/gallon for flameout/whirlpool/dry hops. From that point anyone can do the math for their particular system.