Partial Belgian Blond Ale

[Cassius]

Looking to do a Belgian Blond Ale as my second partial mash, based on this recipe.  I haven't worked out the exact size of the mash yet, but I've worked out the recipe and I'll just reduce the light dry malt extract as needed.

 

Batch size: 10L, OG: 1.062, FG: 1.014, IBU: 19.4

1.2kg light dry malt

0.25kg wheat dry malt

0.20kg white sugar

25g Hallertauer 60 min. boil in 3.75L

T-58 yeast

 

My plan is to use 100g of aromatic malt and between 650g and 1.2kg of European pilsner malt, depending on my setup.

A few questions: 1. What sorta ferment temp should I be looking at? I haven't tried a huge number of Belgian Blonds, but I like both Leffe and La Trappe.

2. My LHBS has an aromatic malt that is 19L, similar to the Franco-Belges aromatic malt called for in the recipe. Will this be similar stuff?

3. Any other advice on the recipe? It's only my second partial and I'm doing it on a style I've never made before, which is slightly risky.

 

TIA, Cassius.

[Greenyinthewestofsydney]

Pitch low and ramp i have found the best. I pitch at about 18c. Wait for the krausen and then 1c a day. Depends on the yeast and what flavour I want but I will stop the ramp anywhere between 24 and 28. 

The amount of yeast you pitch also makes a huge difference but one pack of t58 in a 10L should be right. I find blonds are slightly better overpitched. 

 Your recipe looks good. Similar to my all grain recipe.

[Cassius]

Thanks very much @Greeny1525229549. One other thing I've seen a couple of times while looking around, is that people suggest a 90 min boil that has something to do with the pilsner malt. Is that something I need to worry about if it's a partial mash? If it matters, I've decided I'm going to aim for half my fermentibles from grain, so about 1.2kg of pilsner malt.

[Greenyinthewestofsydney]

23 hours ago, Cassius said:

Thanks very much @Greeny1525229549. One other thing I've seen a couple of times while looking around, is that people suggest a 90 min boil that has something to do with the pilsner malt. Is that something I need to worry about if it's a partial mash? If it matters, I've decided I'm going to aim for half my fermentibles from grain, so about 1.2kg of pilsner malt.

Yeah a longer boil is always better for clarity. I have found that especially for my Asian lagers which contain rice but doing it for others now have found the same thing. 

[Shamus O'Sean]

Google "DMS in beer".  Dimethyl Sulfide.  Got this statement from Beersmith:

"The half-life for DMS is 40 minutes, so half of the DMS will be boiled off in a 40 minute vigorous boil. So if we do the math, a 60 minute boil gets rid of 64.7% of the DMS and a 90 minute boil rids us of 79% of the DMS. That is why most experienced brewers recommend a 90 minute or longer vigorous boil."

Pilsner Malt tends to be a bit higher in the compounds that produce DMS, hence why it is suggested by some to boil pilsner based worts for longer.

[Cassius]

Brewed this yesterday and had a question.

I'm doing the oven mash method, so I didn't bother stirring during the mash, assuming I would lose some efficiency. I did my 1.3kg of grain in 4L of water, then sparged up to about 7L total wort for the hop boil. I had worked out this would give me close to 1.040 gravity for the boil, but thought I might be a little low considering my lack of stirring.

After sparging, i got a gravity reading of 1.039 at 53 degrees, converting to 1.049 at 20 degrees. I think I must have miscalc'd something to be so far over 1.040. I didn't think much of it and completed my 7L boil, thinking I'd just add less extract.

I added the 200g cane sugar during the boil and 750g dry extract in the fermentor. I got an OG reading of 1.053, quite a bit LESS than the expected 1.062. I can't understand how I had a higher pre-boil gravity than expected and then a much LOWER OG.

Any thoughts would be much appreciated.

[Naughty Corner Brewing]

How long did you boil for? How vigorous was the boil? Did you record the post boil volume? What was the volume of wort into the fermenter?

[Cassius]

90 min boil. Fairly vigorous. 5L post boil and 5L into the fermentor, then topped up to 10L before pitching. 

[Naughty Corner Brewing]

Just punched it all into beersmith and ended up with an expected OG of 1.056 so your 1.053 isn’t that much under, and mashing it in 4l water was probably a little thick so could explain the loss of efficiency.

The 1.3kg could have only given you about a 1.042 gravity for 7l, so not sure what or where you missed it on the calculations.

Sorry I can’t be more help on this one.

 

[Cassius]

@NewBrews that's a huge help. I've looked into it a bit more using IanH's BIAB spreadsheet and I think it basically comes down to the number that multiple websites were telling me for deduction of dry malt to make up for the grain in the recipe. The websites say to reduce the dry malt by 0.53kg for every 1kg of grain. I'm not sure where this number came from, but it seems to assume an extremely high (perhaps impossible) efficiency.

Next brew I'm going to use the spreadsheet to calc my dry malt and assume a slightly lower efficiency. I'll up the water for the mash a bit too. Cheers.