At Big Brew Day in May we cracked open my bottle of Belgian Dark Strong that got second at the Colonial Cup in the Belgian Strong Ale category.  A lot of people asked for the recipe.  Here it is:

The batch size is ~5.5 gallons.

 

Grains:

17.5 lbs Pilsner

1lb Caramunich

1lb Dark Candy Sugar (to the boil)

1lb Cane Sugar (to the boil)

0.5lb Biscuit

0.25lb Special B

0.25lb Aromatic

0.25lb Chocolate

I mashed at 145 for 40 minutes

Then 155 for 40 minutes

and then a mash out at 163 for 10 minutes.

I sparged a lot on this one. I had to add boiling water to the mash to raise the temp. All said and done I sparged ~10 gallons into the boil kettle. I think I did a two hour boil on this one but only hopped for the last hour.

 

Hops:

60 min 0.7 oz Magnum 12.5%AA

15 min 0.25 oz Hallertauer 4.4%AA

15 min 0.25 oz Tettnanger 4.8%AA

1 min 0.25 oz Hallertauer 4.4%AA

1 min 0.25 oz Tettnanger 4.8%AA

 

Yeast:

Wyeast 1214 - I made a 1.5 liter starter with 250ml of yeast slurry that came from a Belgian Triple.

I started fermentation in the low 60s for the first three days and then let itrise to the upper 60s.

OG = 1.100

FG = 1.010

A fast ferment test was performed and confirmed the FG. With the simple sugarsand the mash profile this was a very fermentable wort. The ton of yeast I pitched help too.

 

Water profile:

97ppm Ca

100ppm Na

94ppm SO4

150ppm Cl

180ppm HCO3

alkinity as CaCO3 147

RA as CaCO3 76