With our continuing expansion at White River, we are constantly trying to make ourselves more efficient everyday. With our fermentation side nearly complete this has brought forth new opportunities for the taproom and my ability to brew new creative beers to showcase.
I’ll explain…. We previously used seven bright tank/serving vessels that are single walled and stored in a temperature controlled cooler. Three of those are grundy tanks that can hold enough pressure for our nitro beers. With a new 20 barrel 2 bar bright tank due any day now, we are left with a choice, to sell or keep these tanks. They are no longer needed for our production. I decided to keep them and turn them back into the serving vessels for which they were intended.
We will need to run a long glycol draft line from the tanks to the taproom but after that we will be able to put on multiple beers without tying up precious tank space normally used for production. I can also brew specialty beers on the big system rather than our pilot system which only produces 10 gallons at a time. (I’m never usually happy with the beers produced on this system either.)
So today after the decision was made I immediately wanted to brew a beer! I kicked around several ideas (to myself) and eventually ended up on a Belgian Dubbel- a style not too common, but very delicious when done correctly.
After building a recipe I realized I did not have any Belgian candi sugar (a must have for a good Dubbel in my opinion). I nearly gave up on brewing this beer until it clicked in my head. The joy of working on Commercial street is the various shops and small businesses I have the fortune of meeting on a daily basis. One of which was Ryan from “The Date Lady”, a small business on C-Street who specializes in date syrup and date sugar.
I emailed and in no time was able to get two gallons of date syrup. Date syrup is a perfect substitute for candi sugar. If you decide to brew this beer, you can find their syrup at many local shops around Springfield, MO or online. The beer was back on!
I decided to use the bulk of my base malt as pilsner malt from Rahr. It’s what we had, to be frank. If I were planning far enough ahead I would prefer to use a Belgian pilsner malt. I also added some American 2-row and a light Belgian Munich malt.
I enjoy splitting base malts up. I rely more on them in developing flavor in a beer than I do specialty malts. However, this being a very malt forward beer, I do have a big portion of the specialty grist split between a UK extra dark crystal from Thomas Fawcett (120 lov) and Caramunich 2 from Weyermann. Each adds a different type of sweetness to the beer. German crystal can add some bready, biscuit, and honey undertones while English varieties are more of a caramel sweetness. The Thomas Fawcett variety being a double roasted crystal, it will lend more to a raisin, plum, and caramel flavor.
I also decided to attempt a decoction mash, or at least what my system will allow for. This is more traditional in Belgian brewing and will help caramelize the sugars. (At least I hope.)
The first rest was at 140* for 40 minutes, I then had 30 gallons of water boiling in the kettle and moved it on top of the mash. I then moved from under the mash and replaced the 25 gallons of water with wort into the kettle and brought it to a boil. That wort was placed on top of the mash and this process was repeated two more times.
I never really achieved a mash temperature greater than 150* though. My goal was to go from 140 to 150 and then to 158. I fell short, next time I will use the steam jackets to assist in raising the temp faster while still boiling portions of the wort. The wort ran clear and all my ph and sugar readings were on point. I boiled extra long (2.5 hrs) to account for the pilsner malt and hoping to caramelize more of the sugars.
My hops were simple with a 60 minute addition of Glacier and a 15 minute addition of Northern Brewer. Hops in this beer need to stay out of the way and just keep the beer from being a sweet mess.
The date syrup was added at 5 min left in the boil. By the time I emptied both containers, my timer had gone off.
While whirlpooling, I went to ready my yeast, much to my surprise the dry yeast we keep on hand for Belgian beers was empty! Uh oh, I scrambled with my co worker to make something work, even trying to pull yeast from kegs of our wit beer that had been sitting for a while, no luck. I could not get any overnighted from our yeast supplier either.
Sometimes the best beers are made from the lack of supplies, big mistakes, and sheer luck. I was forced to use a clean American ale yeast we had on hand. So while I will not be able to enjoy the classic Belgian Dubbel I was looking forward to, I might really like this American double.
Cheers
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American Double w/ date syrup
5 gallon batch assuming 80% efficiency
9.55 lbs american pilsner (rahr)
2.75 lbs american 2-row (rahr)
10.8 oz belgian munich light (castle)
15.2 oz Dark crystal (120L) Thomas Fawcett
15.2 oz Caramunich II (weyermann)
16 oz date syrup (purchase online at The Date Lady)
.75 oz glacier (4.9AA) @ 60 min
.45 oz Northern Brewer (8.9AA) @ 15 min
OG 1.073 IBU 19
