Belgian Beers: You're Probably Doing It Wrong

[swenocha]

Interesting article...

Belgian Beers: You're Probably Doing It Wrong

[Inkleg]

Oh, I thought you were referring to this.

[swenocha]

Well, maybe that too...

I may well follow the multi-step mash for this project...

[Dawg LB Steve]

Interesting that one of them uses an equivalent of S-05, which imparts none of the Belgian style flavors that the Belgian strain yeasts do.

[BlackDuck]

I have never done a multi step mash before. Since I mash in a cooler, I guess I'll have to play with BeerSmith and see if it tells me when and how much hot water to add to bring the temps up to the next step temp.

[duff]

Interesting that one of them uses an equivalent of S-05, which imparts none of the Belgian style flavors that the Belgian strain yeasts do.

A relative of a friend of mine used to be really big into Belgian style beers and he played around with various liquid Belgian yeasts but went back to using US-05. He said as long as you brewed it at the more traditional farmhouse temperatures you really couldn't tell the difference. He's moved on to sours at this point but last I knew he was still doing primary with US-05 and then aging with whatever concoction of nasties he wants to cause the sour.

[DaYooper]

Speaking of, for those who live in Michigan's tri-county area there is a Belgian beerfest going on at Ashley's in Westland.

http://abbf.ashleys.com/

[mashani]

What that article misses is that not only is there a step mash but also a true decoction mash in some of the beers. Your still "doing it wrong" unless you do a decoction for such beers. We make up for the decoction by using other malts besides simple pale malt to give the malt nose and the dark fruit flavors beyond those provided by candi syrup, etc.

I'd agree you could probably make a wicked Belgian pale ale with something like S-05, but S-05 is not and will never sub for 3787... Maybe it or S-04 can sub for Chimay if you crank up the heat, but some of the Belgian yeasts make pear and plum esters and the like that you'll never get from an American yeast I've ever used, or S-04 at high temps, you'll just get banana like chimay. And nasty fusels too potentially with some yeasts if you go to real trappist fermentation temps. Some British yeasts might make the right flavors at warm temps though, if they don't throw off fusels too.

And you can still make damn good beer "doing it wrong", as long as you "do it wrong the right way".

[philm00x]

I like brewing mine the wrong way. I'll still call them belgian style. Don't tread on me!

[mashani]

I like brewing mine the wrong way. I'll still call them belgian style. Don't tread on me!

The official Belgian "style" guidelines are made up by non-Belgian brewers so your actually more authentic to the true spirit of the things!

[philm00x]

One thing about this article that I do agree with, is just let the yeast do its thing to make the beer taste the way you want it. With exception of the saison I just brewed (because it's a special one-off brew), I don't use any spices in my Belgian ales.

[mashani]

One thing about this article that I do agree with, is just let the yeast do its thing to make the beer taste the way you want it. With exception of the saison I just brewed (because it's a special one-off brew), I don't use any spices in my Belgian ales.

I agree in general - for the most part the only Belgians you should use spices in are WIT beers, and special holiday beers, and some types of Saisons. Everything else should come from the yeast.

Real Belgian beers are simple things.

That beer folks like to claim as the best beer in the world - you know Westvleteren 12 - I'm certain is made with nothing but pilsner/pale malt, candi sugar, and their house version of WLP530/3787. And a step/decoction mash. And a wide temperature schedule that gets up into the 80s.

You can find all sorts of homebrew attempts at making Westvleteren 12 with 6 different grains, yada yada, and that's really "doing it wrong". (I've said as much many times here and on the old forum too)

Without doing a decoction, mashing pilsner at low temps (147-148) for an extended duration, subbing some Munich for part of the pilsner malt, and using 2# of D-180L per 5 gallons and 3787 free rising into the 80s is the closest way I've found to get something close. I'm sure a step mash of something like 124 then 147-148 could get you even closer. Hops I'd use would be Hallertau/Hersbrucker and maybe Styrians Golding in some combination. You can get close with really good fresh pilsner extract like MoreBeer Pils with a low temp PM of some Munich - but you need to use more sugar adjunct, IE something like 1/2# of extra clear sugar of some sort to lighten the body even more as although it's the most fermentable stuff I've found, it's still not quite enough.

But to truely clone it you'd *need* to leave out the munich/aromatic/special b/other crap, and just do a step / decoction of nothing but the pils/pale malt and use the best dark candi syrup you can get (IE D-180L), but I could not tell you their exact schedule of how much wort to pull and how much and how fast to boil it down for the decoction, and/or how many pulls you should do. It would take a lot of experimentation and more time then I have to brew. If I was going to try it with a pseudo-decoction on my stove, I think I'd do the boil down of the pulled wort as fast as possible at as high a temp as I could without burning it, as that would seem to me to be something that would get you closer to the flavor profile it has, which although is not roasty/smokey is also not simply "plums/dark fruit" but something more earthy mixed in. (I think some late styrians can sort of simulate this which is why I like to toss some in at around 10 minutes in my attempts, but I'm not convinced that styrians are in the real thing).