Today we are are proud to present an article written by Al Raschdorf. The following, well written and excellently illustrated piece details Al’s brewing of his Belgian Dark Mild for the B.E.E.R. OktoBEERfest. Please enjoy it as much as we did and thank you Al for both writing this and allowing us to share it.
It had been a busy summer and the OctoBEERfest was rapidly approaching without my having brewed anything with the Briess Special Roast malt.
Earlier in the summer I had my sights on brewing up a 10 gallon batch of Belgian Dark Strong (BDS). That style benefits from aging and I knew I’d be happy with my forethought come wintertime. With an Original Gravity of over 1.100, I knew I’d need a truckload of yeast. The plan was to first brew a batch of Belgian Blonde to serve as a large, drinkable starter that would go well with the hotter weather of the present.
Fellow Brewer’s East End Revival member Chris Cassatto and our friend Zack Kinney (of New York City Homebrewers Guild) brewed up a 10 gallon batch of the Blonde on a great early summer day. We used Zack’s grain mill and wound up with a much higher efficiency than usual on my system. It seemed like a shame to leave so much sugar behind, but we didn’t want too strong a wort that might stress out the yeast since we were aiming to re-use it. On-the-fly, we decided to add hot water the mash tun to pull wort for five more gallons of a smaller brew, parti-gyle style. This gave Zack 5 gallons of “free” wort to play with (he’s been experimenting with Sour Beers.) I had dueling Erlenmeyers on stir plates, and it turned out we had enough White Labs 530 Belgian Abbey Ale Yeast to pitch all three carboys.
(After it had fermented in the primary, Zack transferred the small beer to secondary, added some puréed rhubarb and apricot and the dregs of many sour beers he’s been collecting. I’m looking forward to trying this crazy beer out soon.)
The Belgian Blonde came out great. Some of you had the opportunity to try it at the August B.E.E.R. meeting (held at Brickhouse Brewery). It also supplied me with more than enough yeast for a 10 gallon batch of the BDS. But the summer ambitions of BBQ’ing, and beaching and just plain relaxing got in the way of the brew schedule. With the upcoming weekends mostly spoken for, I didn’t know how I was going to get time enough to brew the BDS *and* something with the Special Roast Malt to bring to the OctoBEERfest. Parti-Gyle brewing to the rescue: The Belgian Dark Strong recipe called for 50% Belgian Pilsner Malt and 50% Belgian Pale Malt. The recipe was a partial decoction no-sparge recipe, so once again we had plenty of sugars leftover in my mashtun for a smaller beer. The light-bulb went off in my head and I came up with a plan to get that Special Roast beer brewed.
So: We added 7 gallons of hot water to the drained grain and crushed and added the 2 lbs of Special Roast. After 20 minutes of steeping we drew off the second runnings. Pre-boil gravity was 1.030, so we added 6oz of DME and just under a pound of homemade dark candy syrup, which brought it up to 1.037 post-boil. We hopped it with Warrior Hops to 25 IBUs. Fermentation labor brought to you by White Labs 530 Belgian Abbey Ale Yeast.
I like that the malt bill is pretty simple, so the Special Roast should really stand out. However, Zack and I made this recipe up on the fly and I’m kinda concerned that we may have gone overboard on the Special Roast! 2lbs for a 1.037 brew. That’s like 25% of the fermentable sugar… Yikes. There’s nothing like decision-making fueled by Beer.
I put it in the keg today: O.G.: 1.037 F.G.: 1.007 ABV: 3.9% About 7 SRM. It turned out pretty light considering the 2 lbs of the dark Special Roast and pound of black candi syrup.
Thanks to Mark from Brewtopia for the grain and to Kevin and Alicia (of BLC) for the Special Roast malt event concept. It will be fun to try out all the different recipes.
