I just brewed my 2nd batch ever. Just started primary It’s a Petite Oránge dubbel extract/specialty grain kit. I picked it up in the sale with the Choco milk stout.
I’m picking up beers that aren’t my typical go to styles for shear Value as I figure the more I brew the better I’ll get. I do like strong Belgians but I’m afraid this will turn out to be a blue moon clone of sorts. IMHO that’s not a good beer. For this reason I don’t plan on adding orange rind or coriander. I do like the idea however of dry hopping the secondary to add some hop character. I was thinking citra hops to give the citrus character of this beers namesake. Or just some more styrian goldings to get more earthy Belgian tones which I enjoy. Should I do both? Should I leave it for fear of ruining a decent beer with my novice experiments? What are your thoughts?
I would leave this one as is for your first brew. This is a dubbel. Far from Blue Moon. The Witbier extract kit is more like Blue Moon but tastes much better if you add all of the extract at the beginning of the boil.
No by experimenting you learn lots. I would try to experiment first by adding more hops. Dme lme. See how this comes out. Once you are happy. With you fine tunning of you brew system. Start adding flav. Like. Orange. Corinader nutneg and all kind of spices. A good beer to start with a imperial ipa.
I agree with @flars. Although you’ll learn by experimenting you’ll learn a TON more by getting your process down then changing things. If you change things up without a sound process it is very hard to troubleshoot. Plus, how do you know you won’t like the kit as is?
I’ll jump on the same platform of don’t tweak yet. You need to understand whats going on while brewing. Once you have the tools to make a good brew, then its time to loosen the collar… Sneezles61
If you like to experiment, looks for ways to fail quickly and in small increments.
One way to do this with dry hop combinations is to dry hop in half gallon canning jars. All you need are canning jars and a scale that weighs in .1 (or .01) gram increments – about $25 to get started. Plus hops 
. Plus freezer space for the hops you don’t use immediately. 
Fill the jar to the 40 oz (five cup) level, add the hops, use the lids (held loosely by the cap) as the “air lock”. Three jars use about one gallon of beer. For each canning jar, the result is three bottles which you can sample. Typically, I’ll sample two, four, and six weeks after bottling.
What type of yeast are you going to use?
Thanks for the responses everyone. I tend to agree that it’s better to practice my method by following recipes and learning the ropes. This is why I posted the question. In the hopes that a veteran may have their own tweaked recipe I could follow rather than wing it on my own. Anyway I appreciate the advice.
Cheers.
I used the recommended dry yeast. Sarfale belgian strain. Forgot the number. I rehydrated this time. My first batch I had just sprinkled it over the aerated wort.
Unless you fermented that warm you may not get alot of the Belgian yeast flavors. So you could dry hop it if you like. If you fermented it warm and got the esters I would leave it. You can always taste it before you dry hop. Citra can be strong and overpower your ale.
Another newbie question about this batch of Petite orange. I only have 2 brews to compare so I have no idea what is “normal.” My first batch was the block party amber ale, a lower gravity beer than the Petite orange. I don’t yet have a hydrometer so I can’t give too many details but compared to the amber ale the Petite Oránge lost a LOT of water during the boil. Approximately 3/4 gallon. The specialty grain bill was much larger so I suspect that absorbed some of the water. But based on weight I don’t think it absorbed 96 oz. Anyway I followed the recipe and boiled with 2.5 gallons and added water to reach full volume after cooling the wort. I ended up adding over 3.25 gallons to reach the full 5 gallon volume. Are these numbers within the normal range or did I screw something up?
A lover of Trappist beers I was worried about not achieving the estery flavors a dubbel should have so I chose not to set up a swamp cooler. I brew in Florida so yeah it will ferment warm. Between 70-75 degree room temp.
That’s a good range for that yeast. I’d taste it first. Harvest that yeast and get some pale malt and try to build a recipe for a hoppy Belgian. Kind of a waste to use pilsner and biscuit. Try 2row and Munich
