Does anyone have an extract belgium quad recipe they’d be willing to share? I’ve been looking for one for a while and haven’t seen any that look particularly promising or could be used as starting points. Any help is much appreciated!
I would buy enough light DME to get you to 1.075 (if you want a 1.080+ O.G.) and then add a pound of D2 Syrup and a pound of white sugar (add a little water and make a syrup so it does not foam when you pour it in) on day 3 or 4. I would also use 1/2 Lb Special B and 1/2 Lb aromatic malt (specialty grains) to give it some raisin and malt character. I like East Kent Goldings to 35 IBU for bittering and flavor with Styrian Goldings. I had a Rochefort 10 fresh from Belgium once, and it had a wonderful noble hop aroma that does not usually last when it is imported. You could add some saaz or Hallertau for aroma if you wanted to, but it will fade quite a bit as the beer ages. If you like Chimay Blue, use WLP 500, If you like Rochefort 8 or 10, use Wyeast Abby II ( I forgot the number). My favorite is WLP 530 or WY 3787 which is Westmalle yeast. Westvletern and Achel use this yeast for their beers. If you brew 5 gallons, I would split the batch between two carboys, because this yeast will jump out of a full carboy, and there will not be enough yeast to finish the beer. It will not taste good if it finishes too sweet. It needs to finish below 1.017 if you do not want it to be sweet. Ferment in the 60s for 4-5 days, and then let it go up into the 70s to finish.
I was able to find this on the brewer’s website for what I was going for (Smuttynose Gravitation Quad):
Description: This big, dark ale is brewed using a variety of Belgian specialty malts along with 200 pounds of raisin puree per batch. The resulting flavor is a viscous mix of dark fruit, rum, toffee and raisins balanced with aromatic fruitiness of the Belgian yeast. This beer has a starting gravity of 23 degrees Plato.
12.5% ABV
25 IBU
Starting Extract: 24.9 Finishing Extract: 3.0
Malts: North American 2-Row, Cara-Red, Aromatic, Special B, C-60, Wheat
Hops: Sterling
Special Guests: Demerara Sugar, Amber Belgian Candi Syrup, Dark Belgian Candi Syrup, Raisin Paste
Yeast: White Labs WLP-500 Trappist Ale
Doing a little math, if the SG is 23 Plato per the brewer, that comes out to approximately 1.096 and to hit the 12.5% ABV, the FG would need to end up somewhere around 1.002 which seems to be pretty low.
Any ideas on reverse engineering a recipe from this?
Sorry for the bump but I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions about how to go about concocting a recipe from a list of ingredients like that?
Also, I’ve heard Jamil’s Belgian Dark Strong Ale in Brewing Classic Styles is somewhat close to a Quad. Has anyone brewed this before?
Starting Extract: 24.9 Finishing Extract: 3.0
Malts: North American 2-Row, Cara-Red, Aromatic, Special B, C-60, Wheat
Hops: Sterling
Special Guests: Demerara Sugar, Amber Belgian Candi Syrup, Dark Belgian Candi Syrup, Raisin Paste
this is from your post then OG would be 1.105 and FG would be 1.012 with ABV of 13.5 %
The book Beer Captured has a nice extract with specialty grains recipe for Rochefort 10 that I have made a few times. In Brew Like A Monk they list the Wyeast Rochefort yeast number and if you use that it is very close to Rochefort. Hope that is helpful.
