Blonde gone awry

[mashani]

Using up other jar of Kvass wort in a more traditional strength / style Belgian Blonde like thing (which might be more like light amber, but will taste more like a blonde then a dubbel). Doing it short boil as the hops are high AA, so don't need traditional bittering. I'll brew something with a PM tomorrow maybe.

For 2.5 gallons:

3.50# Pilsner LME (MoreBeer)
1.21# Kvass Wort (1.013 PPG and I'm treating it like it's mostly sugar adjunct **)
0.25# Wheat DME
0.25# Dextrose

0.25oz Sterling (8.4AA) @30
0.25oz French Aramis (10% AA) @30
0.25oz Sterling @7
0.25oz French Aramis @7

Pitched 1L of a 2L starter of WLP500. Saved other 1L in mason jars for other things later.

** I am considering Kvass Wort to be "Rye flavored candi syrup" for the sake of this recipe. See the FrankenDampfbier recipe thread for why, but basically it seemed to ferment almost completely out with wheat beer yeast, so I see no reason why WLP500 will not do it as well. At it's PPG, this makes it approximately the equivalent of 0.35# of candi syrup from an OG/FG standpoint.

OG 1.064
IBUs 26ish
SRM is hard to say, due to Kvass wort, but a bit darker then it should be. It might look like a light colored dubbel, or fall somewhere in the nether regions between blonde and dubbel. But it won't taste like a dubbel.

I think WLP500's banana esters and spicy phenols will play nice with the rye and spicy/slightly citrusy hops.

EDIT: I still have 4 1/2oz of Aramis hops to use up. I bought a pound a while back when I saw them. Good thing I like them a lot.

[mashani]

Bottled at 1.010. Tasted mighty fine. Spicy bananas. But smooth.

[John Sand]

Great! I'm planning some Belgians now that the weather is warm. The Pale from my split batch is first up.

[mashani]

This is quite tasty, but very spicy and has less complex esters compared to say "Easy French Blonde" or "Simply Sterling Belgian Pale Ale". The earthy spicyness of WLP500 (Chimay) and the Rye combine in a potent way. If you like spicy/clove wheat beers, then you'd like this. But I prefer the banana, so if I did this again I'd crank up the heat more - even beyond recommended specs - to get more banana and less earthy/clove vibe. There is banana here, but it's not in the ratio I would prefer. It's faded a bit since bottling.

I did a better job with the other batch I used WLP500 in of getting my temps more where I like.

But I actually prefer the Abbaye yeast to WLP500. It's more like Westmalle in the flavor profile. And that's my favorite yeast... although I'm really liking Abbaye... It might turn into a fight.

[John Sand]

I definitely need to try Abbaye.

[monsteroyd]

Great news - I like the Safale version, but I haven't had a chance to get the Lallemand one. I like saisons and I like the Safale Abbaye, so I gotta try the Lallemand one.

Thanks for guinea pigging this.

Monty

[mashani]

And I still need to try the Safale Abbaye and see if it's the same or not. Next time I order from Northern.

[monsteroyd]

OK I got some Lallemand Abbaye and I just made a batch with it. I'll see in a couple of months how it goes. I just finished some of the Safale and it was good. Had a party and people at least told me it was good. I'm always suspicious if they are being nice or actually like it. I like it, but, as my wife says, she never saw a beer I didn't like.

These are both 2.25lb golden DME, ounce of hops (20-30 IBU) and yeast. Although in the belgian today, I did Belma.

Monty

[BigPapaG]

And I still need to try the Safale Abbaye and see if it's the same or not. Next time I order from Northern.

In my experience, same same, but different, but still same...?

Both are good but I believe I like the Lallemand best...

The Fermentis seemed a bit more subdued and not as flavorfull.

Yet, there are brews I would use it for like a Dubbel for example or a Belgian Dark where I wanted more malt presence than yeast presence.

[mashani]

When I get cooler weather I'm going to try the abbaye in a dubbel. At my current upper 70-lower 80 temps, it would be too intense I think - but it's awesome in light blonde beers.

Good to know you think the safeale version is a bit more subtle but "same". But hard to say if that is just recipe or pitch rate (Lallemand has different packaging process) or temperature differences, lots of factors there. So I think I'll just wait until I've got 60something temps to work with again.

I do like everything I've made with it. Quite a lot. It pushes all my buttons.

EDIT: BTW, I'm "semi open fermenting" these days in my LBCs - (lid on but barely, no gasket, no airlock, just the plug which never pops up because the lid vents freely). Lack of head space pressure changes the ester profile and increases it. So my taste perceptions are likely adjusted by that too. Started doing it to see quickly if I got some of my house Brett C into a batch - as the pellicle forms fast if there is some oxygen that gets in, basically at around day 10-12 I will see signs of a pellicle forming or not, once it stops venting CO2. That changes my bottling procedure/priming rate that's all... I don't dislike the brett and there is nothing I can do to completely prevent an infection in my house, although I'm getting better at it (lid on boil/hop stands at the end, etc.) - but it's important to know to avoid gushers. Anyways, I liked the results fermenting just about everything this way that for anything but a lager/clean American style I've been doing it regularly. Just saying, because the same yeast in an airlocked fermenter might not be quite as flavorful as the results I've gotten.