I like my brews in the 4.5 abv to5.5 abv range. If you have a recipe that fits those parameters for a Belgium dark and are willing to share it, I’d appreciate it.
Thanks
The only Belgian Dark recipes I can find are “strong”. I suppose you could simply take a “strong” recipe and reduce it to meet your ABV requirements. I’ve done this with several recipes because I also prefer ‘session’ beers over ‘one and done’ beers. Here are some ideas: Belgian Dark Strong Ale Beer, Mead and the Best Beer Recipes from the National Homebrew Competition
One thing I struggle with when reducing a recipe is when/how to treat the specialty grains. Jamil, in Brewing Classic Styles addresses this in the Scottish 60/-, 70/-, and 80/- recipe: “The recipe below can be easily adjusted to make varying strengths of the same beer. The specialty grains remain the same; it is only the base malt and hop bittering that changes. Many new brewers mistakenly think it is necessary to increase the level of specialty malts when making a higher-alcohol beer. That is incorrect, and doing so will make an over-the-top version of the beer. The increased base malt will add the additional body, alcohol, and some malty flavors and aromas, so there is no need to change the specialty grain amounts, unless you are making a larger or smaller volume of beer.”
This only addresses an increase in ABV but I am not sure if it applied to a reduction in ABV. Others may chime in to address this.
Many times I’ve brewed Hermann Holtrop’s Rochefort recipe scaled down to that gravity.
You could easily take a recipe for an English brown or porter in that range and ferment it with a Belgian strain. You could sub in a little special B or dark syrup if you want but neither are necessary.
Denny, how do you address scaling down the specialty grains? (Edit: …and spices)
Recipe Type: All Grain
Yeast: Belgian Abbeyll (Wyeast #1762)
Yeast Starter: No, I’m lazy and use two packs
Additional Yeast or Yeast Starter: no
Batch Size (Gallons): 5.5
Original Gravity: 1.078
Final Gravity: 1.018
IBU: 26.2
Boiling Time (Minutes): 75
Color: 27.6
Primary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp): 23 days @ 69-70
Additional Fermentation: Bottle condition for at least two months
Secondary Fermentation (# of Days & Temp): 14 days @69-70
Tasting Notes: It’s everything you would expect from our monk brewing friends… great beer!
10.92 lb Pilsner (2 row) Belgian (2.0 SRM) 70.24%
1.73 lb Caramunich Malt (46.0 SRM) 11.13%
0.58 lb Corn, Flaked (1.3 SRM) 3.75%
0.58 lb Special B Malt (114.0 SRM) 3.75%
0.23 lb Carafa special dehusked (302.0 SRM) 1.47%
1.50 lb Dark Belgian candy sugar (100 SRM) 9.65 %
1.73 oz Styrian Goldings [4.20%] Boil 60 min
0.75 oz Hallertauer Hersbrucker [3.50%] Boil 30 min
0.39 oz Hallertauer Hersbrucker [3.50%] Boil 5 min
0.38 oz coriander seed Boil 5 min (Crush first)
MASH PROFILE
Protein rest Add 12.64 qt water at 156.2F to get 142F for 30min
Saccrification Add 11.23 qt water at 170.2F to get 154F for 60 min
Mash out Add 9.83 qt water at 205.6 to get 168F for 5 min
Begin Vorlauf then drain Mash Tun
Sparge with 0.73 gallons of water at 168F
Carb with 4.83 oz corn sugar
This is the award winning recipe by Hermann Holtrop from a Rochefort 8 clone comp that was held in the Netherlands. I think it’s very close to the original Rochefort 8. A little darker then the original, but just as tasty… enjoy! If you can’t find Carafa Special, Carafa l (337.0 SRM) will work well but will be a bit darker so scale back a bit.
Thanks for the suggestions.
The one thing I worry about since I’ve never brewed a Belgium of any kind is the spices. Do I need to make a linear reduction of what’s called for in the higher gravity Belgiums or just throw the same quantity of spices in and see what happens.
Again, Thanks.
While I know that some people only scale the base malt, I feel like I get better results by scaling everything proportionally. I have also found that the step mash really isn’t needed.
I did this recently, albeit accidentally by getting terrible efficiency on this particular batch (first high gravity brew on the GF).
Big +1 to the Holtropp recipe . It’s damn tasty.
You could say, take a Table Beer/Patersbier recipe, add some darker cara malts (CaraMunich II, Special B, CaraAroma, CaraBohemian) and some unrefined sugar (Turbinado) and target a nice 12-15 SRM beer in the 12-13 Plato range.
Maybe:
45% Pils
45% Pale Ale
3% CaraBo
3% Special B
4% Turbinado
Just a thought.
Here’s my Belgian Dark Ale recipe. This is a hop-forward beer, but changing the hops to ~25-30 IBU of something nobleish would make a more traditional tasting beer. WY1762 also works in place of WY3864, which I don’t think is available right now.
HOME BREW RECIPE:
Title: Belgian Dark Ale
Brew Method: BIAB
Style Name: Belgian Specialty Ale
Boil Time: 60 min
Batch Size: 3 gallons (fermentor volume)
Efficiency: 80% (brew house)
STATS:
Original Gravity: 1.051
Final Gravity: 1.010
ABV (standard): 5.38%
IBU (tinseth): 36.89
SRM (morey): 16.32
FERMENTABLES:
4 lb - Belgian - Pale Ale (78.7%)
0.5 lb - German - Munich Light (9.8%)
0.33 lb - Belgian Candi Syrup - D2 - (late addition) (6.5%)
0.25 lb - Belgian - Special B (4.9%)
HOPS:
0.4 oz - Centennial, Type: Leaf/Whole, AA: 10.2, Use: First Wort, IBU: 15.44
0.25 oz - Motueka, Type: Pellet, AA: 7.2, Use: Boil for 15 min, IBU: 6.14
0.25 oz - Centennial, Type: Leaf/Whole, AA: 10.2, Use: Boil for 10 min, IBU: 5.78
0.5 oz - Caliente, Type: Leaf/Whole, AA: 15.3, Use: Boil for 5 min, IBU: 9.53
0.5 oz - Caliente, Type: Leaf/Whole, AA: 15.3, Use: Boil for 0 min
1 oz - Caliente, Type: Leaf/Whole, AA: 15.3, Use: Dry Hop for 7 days
0.33 oz - Centennial, Type: Leaf/Whole, AA: 10.2, Use: Dry Hop for 7 days
0.33 oz - Motueka, Type: Pellet, AA: 7.4, Use: Dry Hop for 7 days
MASH GUIDELINES:
- Infusion, Temp: 156 F, Time: 60 min, Amount: 18 qt, Sacc Rest
YEAST:
WY3864 (Canadian/Belgian)