Belgian Dubbel

Yesterday I finally brewed the Belgian Dubbel and my brew session was quite successful. I ended up with about 5 1/2 gallons of wort (a little more than expected) at an original gravity of 1.066 (recipe predicted 1.065), and my "tiny-mash" yeast starter worked great - my airlock has been blowing crazy CO2 and I can see the yeast churning with delight.

I have a couple different Belgian Dubbel recipes, but this time I chose to buy an all-grain kit from Northern Brewer. I wanted to try using less specialty grains and allow the flavor to rely primarily on the Belgian yeast and candi sugar (crystalized beet molasses), so ordering this kit was a quick, easy solution.

The kit included:

10 lbs. Dingeman's Pale Malted Barley
0.5 lbs. Dingeman's CaraMunich
0.25 lbs. Dingeman's Special B
1 lb. Dark Belgain Candi Sugar

1 oz. Spalt hops (60 min boil)
1 oz. Czech Saaz hops (1 min boil)

Wyeast #1214 - Belgian Ale Yeast

The suggested mash schedule called for:

122 degrees for 20 minutes (protein rest)
153 degrees for 60 minutes (sacharification rest)
170 degrees for 10 minutes (mash-out)

A great, simple recipe. I noticed quite a few weird stems and chunks of barley plant in my grains for the first time, but my efficiency didn't really suffer, so I guess it was no big deal. Here's some other takes on the Belgian Dubbel style:

(For 5.5 Gallons)

12 lbs. Belgian 2-Row
0.75 lb. Cara-Munich
0.25 lb. Belgian Biscuit
0.25 lb. Aromatic Malt
0.25 lb. Special B

1 lb. Belgian Dark Candi Sugar Syrup

1.375 oz. Styrian Goldings 4.2% Pellets 60 min
0.75 oz. Czech Saaz 3.4% Whole 15 min

White Labs Belgian Golden Ale WLP-570

OG: 1.078
SRM: 18
IBU: 25

OR TRY THIS ONE:

12.00 lbs. Pale Malt(2-row)
0.63 lbs. CaraMunich Malt
0.50 lbs. Victory Malt
0.25 lbs. Aromatic Malt
0.25 lbs. Special B Malt
0.13 lbs. Chocolate Malt
1.00 lbs. Candi Sugar

1.50 oz. Fuggle Pellet 5.00 60 min.
0.50 oz. Fuggle Pellet 5.00 5 min.

WYeast 3787 Trappist High Gravity

Ugh, one thing that I never look forward to on a brew day is the clean-up. Here's my mash tun, bucket & wort chiller, 7.5 gal brewpot with strainer, and 4 gallon brewpot, all filthy and waiting to be hosed down and cleansed:



What a day! See you next time...