Belgian Pale Ale

[brewfly]

Hey BN'ers. Anyone tried doing a smallish Belgian like a Pale Ale with either WLP500 or WYeast 1762? Wanna try my hand at building up the yeast in a small beer, then repitch to a Dark Strong around 1.100. I'm thinking like a Palm or De Konnick but don't know how the abbey style yeast will play with a less complex malt bill.

[MikeB]

Not with those yeasts, but I did try something similar with WY#1388. Its still in the fermenter, but the idea was to build up some yeast for a Golden Strong and then possibly a Dark Strong after that. I wanted to see if the orange and pear notes this yeast is famous for would come through in the BPA.

I'd go for it if I were you. If I were trying to be cautious (not very often), I'd maybe formulate the recipe to be more like a scaled down, low alcohol Dubbel. You know that yeast works well in a Dubbel, so it should work well in a patersbier-type beer.

[chopper]

I'm on the second keg of a 10 gallon batch that is going pretty quick.

2/3rds pilsner malt
1/3 pale malt
some victory
some crystal 40
and a bit of wheat
nugget hops for bittering
willamette for flavoring and aroma, along w/ some goldings for aroma
I used a slurry of WL 550

IBUs are at 29 and the OG was 1.053 FG was 1.012

this was my first go around w/ this recipe and I think it's going to become a staple.

[whoateallthepies]

I've got a 2 x 20L batch of BPA waiting to be kegged this week. I've acquired 4 different chinese teas and I'll be adding something to one of the kegs. The other will be a straight BPA. I used the Leuven Pale Ale yeast from Wyeast and it tastes great in the hydrometer samples.

[brewfly]

Thanks guys. Having never tried doing a BPA or repitching harvested yeast, I've decided to go the simpler route of a scaled down, more "sessionable" Dubble -- which has always interested me. I basically stripped out a couple specialty grains and dialed back the base grains to get a 1.050, 18 IBU, 20 SRM beer. I've also decided to split 10 gals to compare WLP500 and WLP545 and repitch the winning slurry. I'll probably "cold-in" around 63F and ramp-up to around 68F.

FWIW, here's the basic recipe:

65% Pils
15% CaraMunich
9% Aromatic
7% Special B
4% Table Sugar

Styr Gold for bitt
SG and Hallertau for flav/aroma

Just finished listening to last week's session. Pies- sorry about your dog...congrats on DOTW.

Cheers fellas.

[scotchpine]

I have'nt done it with 1762, although I love that yeast in a BDS. I have done it with 3787 in a patersbier and then pitched in a trippel and it worked great. Foot note: When I tried blending the 2 beers together 50% each, I found it was better than either one was alone. You never know what you may find when you experiment with blending beers. Sometimes duds, but sometimes a jewel that can inspire ideas for a whole new beer.