Chimay Blue Clone extract recipe

[djbradle]

Ingredients:

Northern Brewer Amber LME 6 lb - 60 min.

Northern Brewer Munich LME 6 lb - 45 min.

Hard Dark Belgian Candi sugar 1 lb. - 30 min.

Lyle’s golden syrup - 15 min.

2 packets dried wine yeast as nutrient - 15 min.

Whirflock tablet - 15 min.

Steeping grains 45 min. at 155 degrees straight in 8 qt.pot with 6 qts. water and poured through colander into full boil 32 qt. pot with 5 gallons of boiling water

Belgian aromatic malt 0.25 lb
CaraMunich 0.50 lb
Munich (German) 2.00 lb
Special B 0.50 lb
Torrified wheat 0.50 lb. as adjunct

Hallertauer (Germany) 1.00 oz pellet - 60 min.
Styrian Golding (Slovenia) 1.00 oz pellet - 30 min.

Yeast:
White Labs WLP500 3L starter
Give 4 days advance starting 1l and step up twice into 2L flask. Can cold crash in fridge night before brew day after action stops and decant wort but I threw it all in since my yeast was still in suspension. Pitched at room temps. Wort at room temps.

OG was 1.111

I got this recipe from homebrewtalk and tweaked a bit by addding the full 6 lbs. of Amber and doing dark rock candi instead of syrup (made that booboo). I would do syrup if I’d do it again and throw it in at flameout. Maybe dark 90.

[djbradle]

Of course this is open to critique since I am a supreme newb. I have four batches going and I’ve never even bottled one yet!

[friedlbug]

I’m not a big fan of steeping basemalt and other starchy ingredients (your Munich and wheat). I don’t see a point, as they aren’t converted to sugar and don’t impart much flavor other than starch, which isn’t really appropriate. You might want to try a small cereal mash next time.

This is just my opinion. You will definately make beer, and it should be tasty. Enjoy.

[djbradle]

Very useful information friedlbug. I was not aware of this matter of base malt steeping. It seems they should be mashed to avoid tannins and astringency and to properly convert the starch to sugar. I think your opinion may be more than just that but after seeing some rudimentary experiments with steeping, the base malt imparts many starches contributing the bad flavors. I didn’t notice this in my sample recently but that may change after it properly conditions. Does torrified wheat have the same effect as the base malts when steeping, that is, imparting the starches? I was looking for head retention particularly with that grain.

I’ll be sure to try this out with my next batch. Thank you very much for the assessment.