Thu Sep 07, 2006 8:47 am
Tireman,
According to the book title in your subject line AND the Belgian Ale Style book, most belgian styles are charactized by a lack of strict guidelines. Wheat, Sugar, Spices, American Hops, marmalade, fruit, anything goes. However, if you're looking for a more traditional example of this "style":
Malt - stick to pilsener malt for 75% or more of the grainbill. You can use anything you want to fill out the rest. More Pils, Aromatic, Munich, malted wheat, etc. Just keep the color pale golden. You probably want to use a good bit of sugar too. A pound of clear candi sugar or just plain corn sugar will do nicely and help dry this out, but you can use cane syrup, honey, invert sugar, whatever you like.
It's "okay" to do a decoction, but it's not necessary in this style at all. It may even leave too many unfermentable sugars as you want this pretty dry (i.e. low mash temp). If you're itchin' to try a decoction save it for a German Lager like a bock or a nice malty Oktoberfest/Marzen.
As for Hops, Vinnie from Russian River says Styrian Goldings, but you can use anything European really. Czech Saaz will work and so will German Hallertauer or Tettnang. Keep the bittering around 20-25 IBUs max and the aroma hops about 1/4oz for 5min.
For spices you can try the usual 1/4 - 1/2 tsp Grains of paradise, maybe some corriander, etc. though most of the "Spiciness" comes from the fermentation. They say to pitch this a little low if you can, 63f - 65f and then let it rise on it's own. I wouldn't let it past 75f at the most. This is also a big beer so you probably want to use a starter.
Hope this info helps. If you are looking for an actual recipe just say so.
Rob
