Belgian Dubbel

The Brew and Build Belgian Dubbel, similar to Westmalle dubbel, but with slightly more flavour. (I didn’t say better, but we prefer this over Westmalle)

A few years ago, I started trying to clone Westmalle dubbel. After a couple of brews, I was getting close, but my beer was more rich, and more full of flavour than the beer I was trying to copy. When we sampled them side by side, we decided that we preferred my version, and at that point I stopped modifying the recipe. I’ve been brewing this version ever since, and have no plans to change it. It’s one of our ‘house’ beers now.

Let’s go through the recipe.

Ingredients

The mash

It’s a good proportion of dark malt, which makes for quite a contrast in the mill. This is the MattMill Master. I’ve milled to 1.1mm which i find optimal for the Braumeister system.

The Braumeister is filled with 25 litres of water for a full boil volume mash, which will give 18 litres going into the fermentor.

Weighing out the minerals for the mash. It’s a fairly heavy mineral content with a balanced Cl/SO4 (145 ppm-146 ppm) ratio. In lighter beers, this profile comes across as noticeably minerally, but in dark sweet beers, it helps to offset the lingering sweetness, and dries out the end of the mouthful, making you want to go back for another sip.

Pouring in t he grains to the malt pipe, and the chocolate and malt aroma in the air is very strong.

Stirring the mash thoroughly to get out any dough-balls.

Put on the top filters.

And start the mash. I’ve mashed in at 40°c and then raise the temperature to mash for 67°c for 60 minutes. This is going to get a double decoction, one as it reaches 60°c, then a second at 67°c just before mash out.

Decoction

My decoctions are not perhaps full decoctions, as i take between 1/3 to 1/2 of the grains, and boil them for 15 minutes. This version of decoction is not really a large increase to work load, or adding to the mash length, as I take the grains out, and reset the filters to continue the mash whilst I’m decocting. It does however, produce a noticeable (if hard to define) difference to the beer, which I have tried in side by side comparisons.

Resetting the filters, to continue mashing whilst boiling the decoction.

Then boiling the grains for 15 minutes.

Then, re-incorporate the decocted grains back into the mash.

The Boil

After a 60 minute mash, and two decoctions later, the mash is complete. I’ve done an iodine test, which showed full conversion of the starches to sugar.

The temperature is then turned up and brought to the boil. With a rolling boil, the first hop addition is made. 34 grams of Saaz for 60 minutes.

It’s also the point I add the Belgian Candi Sugar.

The Candi sugar is the real key to brew a belgian dubbel, and gives it the complexity and richness that can’t be found just using malts.

I find it’s easiest to place it in the hop basket, which allows it to dissolve and mix into the wort, rather than melt into a large lump on the bottom of the kettle.

Cooling

Once the 1 hour boil is finished, the wort is quickly chilled to a yeast pitching temperature of 17.5°c.

A quick sample taken at 20°c shows an original gravity of 1.058

The cooled wort is transferred into a Speidel fermentor.

Then the yeast starter of the WLP530 is added. This was about a 2 litre starter, with most of the wort decanted off the top before adding to the beer.

As this is a slightly higher gravity beer, and I am wanting a fully attenuated fermentation, I am oxygenating the wort for between 30-60 seconds. I don’t do this with dried yeast so much, but I feel it’s helpful with liquid yeast.

The fermentor is then placed in the boiler room, and on a heat mat, so that the fermentation temperature can be kept steady. The first 24 hours is at 17.5°c, and then it is slowly raised to 22°c over the period of about 2 weeks.

After 24 hours, the fermentation is the usual vigorous effort that I always see on this beer.

By the 3 week mark, fermentation has ceased. A gravity sample shows a final gravity of 1.016, which is somewhat higher than the estimated FG of 1.007 that Beersmith always predicts, however, it never goes that low.

Priming for carbonation

Now this has finished fermenting, I have transferred it to the unitank where I am clearing or fining it with gelatin. So the temperature has been lowered to 3°c, and a dose of gelatine has been added. This clears out yeast, proteins and haze so that the final product will be crystal clear.

Whilst it clears yeast, this is not the same as filtering. There is still ample yeast left in suspension of the beer to consume any new sugar, and therefore carbonate the beer.

So, 24 hours after the gelatin addition, the beer is ready for the carbonating sugar. The sugar I’m using is more of the same Belgian Candi Sugar from the main recipe. I’m weighing out enough sugar to achieve 2.8 volumes of carbonation in the finished bottles.

The sugar is heated with enough water to allow it to mix in the cold beer. If there is too little liquid here, the sugar will just form syrup as it’s poured into the beer at 3°c, and will settle to the bottom in a lump.

When adding the sugar to the tank, it is important not to draw air in at the same time. Therefore, I’m running CO2 through the tank to provide a positive flow out of the tank rather than into.

With the sugar in, and mixed through, the beer now gets bottled. The full bottles then get kept at 20°c for 2 weeks to help the yeast re-activate, and then moved to cold storage for another month before drinking.

The Tasting

The beer pours with a high carbonation level as a good Belgian ale should. The head that forms is thick with a slight tan colour. As far as beer colour goes, it’s a very dark mahogany if you get enough light through it, otherwise it looks dark brown to black.

As soon as this beer is poured, you can smell the chocolate and coffee aromas from the carafa special. The first sip confirms this. Imagine drinking dark sweet chocolate, with a shot of strong espresso poured in. This is sweetened by the caramel notes of the Belgian Candi Sugar. On the back end, you are left with enough bitterness from the hops to offset the sweetness, which makes you want to come back for another sip.

Absolutely decadent and indulgent. This will be a perfect winter beer, ideal for sipping beside the wood fire, and being a strong dark beer, it will age well, and get better as the months go by.

To watch the full brew process, click here for the YouTube video.

Otherwise, until the next brew……..