Raspberry Dubbel Trouble

Work has been keeping me busy and is the main reason I haven’t posted in a while. After three weeks of not brewing, I finally had the time to brew some beer. During the time between my last batch and this one, I’ve been reading Randy Mosher’s Radical Brewing to get some ideas on some off-track brews. Specifically, Belgian beers have been appealing to me lately and I want to brew a series of abbey ales: Dubbel, Tripel, and Quadruppel brews.

A Dubbel was typically a session ale brewed by trappist monks that are darker from highly modified malts and use dark Belgian candi sugar. A Tripel goes in the other direction and is a pale brew made from primarily Pilsner malts and simple sugar. Tripels were reserved for the most revered monks and often approached 9% ABV. A Quadruppel is another dark and malty beer but has the highest amount of alcohol, sometimes in excess of 11% ABV. All of these beers, however, use Belgian abbey yeast strains that leave noticeable aromas of clove, bubblegum, and other Belgian-like esters.

Every homebrewer should definitely take a look at Radical Brewing as many of the recipes really get the creative juices flowing. For this brew I plan on splitting the batch, where 2.5 gallons will be aged and kegged per usual, but the other 2.5 gallons will be racked onto 5 pounds of fresh rasberries. The recipe:

5 gallon batch:

• 6 lbs Belgian Plisner malt
• 4 lbs Munich malt (5.0 L)
• 1 lb White wheat malt
• 1 lb Special B (180 L)

Single infusion mash at 154°F for 1 hour and mash out at 165°F. I miscalculated my strike water temperature needed for mash out but no harm done.

Boil additions:

• 1 oz Styrian Goldings at 60 minutes
• 1 oz Saaz at 5 minutes
• ½ tsp of irish moss at 15
• 1 lb of homemade Belgian candi sugar at 5 minutes (amber in color)

OG: 1.070

Made a 1 liter starter of Belgian Abbey 1214 and pitched  at 65°F. I will slowly ramp up to 69°F over the course of fermentation.