Teach a Friend to Homebrew Day Dubbel

Yes, it has been many many months since I have posted anything on this website.  Who's got the time?  But Matt's recent proliferation has me feeling guilty about the neglect, so here goes.

November 7, 2009, was the AHA sponsored Teach a Friend to Homebrew Day.  As a West Sound Brewers club event, I hosted several people at my house for an All-Grain demonstration. The intent was to expose extract brewers to a couple different approaches to all-grain brewing. With that in mind, I brewed a batch on my 10 gallon single tier rig, and Matt brew a batch on my old 5 gallon converted cooler rig.

I thought I'd try my hand at a dubbel this time around. Matt helped out a bit with the recipe formulation.  Here's the recipe:

Specs
Style: 18B. Belgian Dubbel
Yield: 11 gal
OG: 1.067
FG: 1.007 (Wyeast 1214)/1.010 (Wyeast 3787) (1.5L starters in each 1/2 batch)
Color: 14.8 SRM
Bitterness: ~26 IBU
ABV: 8%

Grain Bill
19 lb Belgian Pilsner Malt
1.75 lb Melanoidin Malt
1 lb Special B

Adjuncts
1.56 lb Corn Sugar
1.5 lb Dark Candi Syrup (I used D2)

Hops
2 oz Saaz, 5.1% Alpha Leaf, 90 minutes
1 oz Saaz, 5.1% Alpha Leaf, 30 minutes

Procedure
-Mash at 148°F until converted
-Mash out at 168°F for 10 minutes
-Recirc until wort runs clear
-Sparge at 168°F
-Boil 90 minutes
-Chill to 64°F, oxygenate, and pitch yeast

Fermentation
Batch split into two 6 gallon carboys. Split batch between Wyeast 1214 and Wyeast 3787, pitching slurry from 1.5L starters of each. Started fermentation at 64°F, increasing 1° per day after active fermentation started up to 72°. Trasferrred to secondary after fermentation complete and cold conditioned at 35° for at least 3 weeks.

Packaging
Kegged the 1214 half. Bottled 3787 half using Wyeast Pasteur Champagne (4021) at bottling. Conditioned bottles at 68-70°. Beer was well carbonated after two weeks.

Tasting notes
I have had a love/hate/love relationship with this beer.  I loved every sample I took during fermentation, up until the last. They were spicy and flavorful, especially the 1214 half. After fermentation was complete it just seemed blah. Mildly spicy, no complex "dark" flavors I'm used to tasting in commercial dubbels. The 3787 half seemed to be even more boring. I even sat down w/ a bottle of Westmalle Dubbel and my beer and compared them side-by-side. That just made me more discouraged.

Then one day my in-laws were over and I gave my F-I-L a sample.  He doesn't typically appreciate Belgian styles, so I wasn't expecting him to like it. To my surprise he really liked it. That forced me to change my perspective. It's a good beer. It may not taste like a Belgian Dubbel, at least the commercial examples available, but it's a good beer. Maybe even a good introduction to Belgian styles for people who don't typically like them. So I broke out of the "it's a dubbel" paradigm and now I'm just calling it an abbey style beer. It is tasty, very drinkable, and you'd never guess it was 8%, so be careful.

Next Time
OK, so I still want to brew a dubbel that tastes like a dubbel. I'm thinking maybe half pilsner/half munich for the base, and Matt suggested maybe all dark candi syrup instead of half corn sugar. Also, I think it attenuated just a tad too much, so maybe up the mash temperature to 150°, or add a little more Special B.

Download this recipe: Promash | Beer XML (you may need to right-click & "Save As" the Beer XML file)