BeerBorg

well I got a reply to my inquiry as to what malts go into affligem, since heinehole took over production.

'to achieve the unique taste of affligem, different caramel malts are used.'

lol..seriously? no sht! really? if you didn't want me to know why not just say 'sorry but that is proprietary information'? or 'we're sorry but we don't know.'

oh well. between the replies I got here and experimentation (whenever I can get to brew again), I'm sure i'll hit something comparable... if not better.

-z-

FWIW, if they just aren't saying that as a "generic" answer (IE whoever got your question was a CS rep who just looked up a scripted answer to beer question - as in they have no freaking idea)...

Then Special B is a caramel malt, and if I was going to mix something with that in a dubbel it would be C120 or maybe some CaraMunich or 80L. But I'd go really light handed with any of them. Dubbels should not have noticeable crystal malt sweet so any lighter crystal is just going to muck it up.

which makes me think it was in fact a CS scripted answer... oh well. with all the help ive got here I think I might be able to come up with a reasonable or better recipe. this is what ive been playing with mentally so far:

batch 2.5 gallons
all grain - biab (kind of). was going to line a coleman cooler with a bag, use it to mash, then remove the bag to a bucket with holes lining another bucket... sparge/rinse at 170f...lightly press down and add to other wort. I figured 3 gallons of mash water, 1 gallon of 'sparge'.. estimated boil size near 4 gallons.

4 lbs Belgian pale ale
3 oz Belgian spec b
.5 lb Belgian cara 45L
.5 Belgian munich

mash temp around 152F for 70 - 80 mins.

60 min boil with .5 oz spalt for 60 mins (or styrian goldings), .25 oz saaz for 20 mins.
yeast wlp530 with starter, letting it ramp up to mid 70s

as was suggested, adding .5 lb Belgian dark candi syrup..the really dark one d-180 around day 3 or 4 so as not to stress the yeast.

I ended up with OG 1.065 FG 1.015 predicted, abv 6.58% ibu 23.03 srm 16.33 (daniels scale)
estimated efficiency 75%... i'll be happy to get close to that. this will be largely experimental to see if I can do all grain, if I like it, if the water tweaking makes it better or worse subjectively... etc.




I was going to use publix brand spring water... they were kind enough to tell me where to find the spring code, then pointed me to their well source.. who was kind enough to provide me their annual water analysis report. I wanted to treat both mash and 'sparge' water to get it close to the 'balanced' profile found on brewers friend... ca 80, mg 5, na 25, cl 75, so4 80, hco 100 (mg/l) ph of mash water 5.4 after adding lactic acid to the mash. the numbers I got were ca 89.5 mg 9.9 na 31 cl 65.2 so4 72.4

overall water report showed: balanced so4/cl ratio 1:1
alkalinity ppm as caco3 77.0
residual alkalinity ppm as caco3 7.4

don't know exactly if the alkalinity is good or not but it's closed to being a balanced water profile for beers dark golden to deep amber. this will be my first foray into all grain. I'm going to do my due diligence until I'm able to brew so this 'recipe' will probably go through many changes.

zorak1066 wrote:well I got a reply to my inquiry as to what malts go into affligem, since heinehole took over production.

'to achieve the unique taste of affligem, different caramel malts are used.'

lol..seriously? no sht! really? if you didn't want me to know why not just say 'sorry but that is proprietary information'? or 'we're sorry but we don't know.'

oh well. between the replies I got here and experimentation (whenever I can get to brew again), I'm sure i'll hit something comparable... if not better.

-z-

I'd say that, "sorry but that is proprietary information" is exactly what they told you but in a much "softer" way.

FYI: You will quite possibly end up with more like a 78-80%+ level of attenuation between using the sugar (which will almost completely ferment out) and feeding it and letting the temps ramp. So don't assume it's done until it's done.

If it tastes too sweet, next time use much less C-45.

knock the c45 down to 3oz and increase the munich slightly? in order to cut down on any noticeable crystal sugars? or get rid of the c45 altogether? thanks for the help.

zorak1066 wrote:knock the c45 down to 3oz and increase the munich slightly? in order to cut down on any noticeable crystal sugars? or get rid of the c45 altogether? thanks for the help.

If I was going to use c-45 or caramunich or even C-80/C-120 along with special b and some munich then, 3-4oz would be all I would use. I don't remember exactly how much noticeable residual sweetness affligem dubbel has that is not of the malty/decoction/candi sugar type - which isn't the same as crystal sweet. So I'm not sure if you should pull it completely to get what you are looking for or to go light on it. Light on it won't hurt. Heavy on it won't make a dubbel, it will make something more like an amber bier de garde or sorts. (not that that's a bad thing to drink, but it's not a dubbel)...