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#1 Big Nake

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Posted 10 August 2013 - 09:42 PM

I started brewing in the mid-90s at a Brew-On-Premise in Chicago.  One of the recipes that my buds and I made there was called Dubbelfest.  We had no idea why it was called that.  It does not appear to have anything to do with a Belgian Dubbel, as far as I can see.  Eventually the BOP went out of business and that started my homebrewing in 1999.  I tried to contact the BOP owner for the recipe but couldn't find him.  I searched and found a company called Cask Brewing in Canada that had a bunch of beers listed on their site and they were numbered the same way the recipes were numbered at the BOP.  I sent an email to someone named Jamie Gordon at Cask and he sent me a recipe that was extract (as was the BOP recipe) and it was also for 50 liters and in metric (grams, liters, etc).  I tried making it many years ago but the fact that the recipe needed to be 40% (ish) of the one he gave me and also the conversions... I must have messed it up.  What he gave me was this...

 

6 liters light lager extract

2 liters MEQ  (not really sure what this is)

800 grams of dextrose

400 grams crystal malt (no more info)

85 grams roasted barley

 

30 grams Northern Brewer for 45

30 grams Hallertau for 15

20 grams Saaz at flameout

eight 2-3" cinnamon sticks at flameout (at flameout, add the Saaz and cinnamon, put the lid on the pot and steep for 15 mins)

 

25 grams SafBrew Ale yeast

 

I tried this a few times and whiffed mainly because I tried using some Belgian strains of yeast because I didn't know any better.  My guess is that SafBrew ale yeast is a neutral yeast like US-05.  The beer we made at the BOP was not "Belgiany".  So after 13 years of having this recipe, I'm going to try it again with 1056.  I put this recipe together from the one above...

 

10 lbs Rahr Pale Ale malt

.33 pounds (about 5.3 oz) Crystal 40L

1 oz Midnight Wheat or Debittered black malt

 

.5 oz Northern Brewer 9.5% for 45

.5 oz Hallertau 4.3% for 15

.3 oz Saaz 4% at flameout

1 tsp ground cinnamon added at flameout

Wyeast 1056

 

OG: 1.058, FG: 1.015, IBU: 22, SRM: 10, ABV: 5.5%

 

I don't like the idea of adding the dextrose/corn sugar so I'm going to leave it out.  Not sure how much character it added to the beer or whether it was just for gravity.  This beer (when made properly) is really delicious and very unusual.  I tried to make it 3-4 times in the past and eventually gave up.  I can't find any search results for DUBBELFEST besides one from my site where I mention it in a recipe.  If anyone sees anything wrong with my math or conversions, let me know.  Making this beer in the next few weeks.  Cheers.

 



#2 positiveContact

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Posted 11 August 2013 - 04:08 AM

I think that will make a nice beer.  not sure on the right amount of cinnamon though.



#3 Big Nake

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Posted 11 August 2013 - 07:21 AM

I think that will make a nice beer.  not sure on the right amount of cinnamon though.

Too much or too little?  I bought sticks for this recipe years ago and still have them but I would think I should get fresh sticks.  If I used sticks I would use 3 of the 8 mentioned in the recipe (about 37% of the 50 liter recipe).



#4 armagh

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Posted 11 August 2013 - 08:23 AM

Too much or too little?  I bought sticks for this recipe years ago and still have them but I would think I should get fresh sticks.  If I used sticks I would use 3 of the 8 mentioned in the recipe (about 37% of the 50 liter recipe).

Definitely go with fresh sticks, and get real cinnamon, not cassia. Break them up in pieces before adding.  Based on your previous posts about how your tastes run, I'm guessing you want it as a background note, barely  detectable, so 3 should work.



#5 Big Nake

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Posted 11 August 2013 - 08:29 AM

Definitely go with fresh sticks, and get real cinnamon, not cassia. Break them up in pieces before adding.  Based on your previous posts about how your tastes run, I'm guessing you want it as a background note, barely  detectable, so 3 should work.

Yeah, it was a background thing for sure.  You could tell it was in there but you had to search for it... it was not right in your face.  I will look for the fresh cinnamon sticks, break them up and try it.  Also, in recipes where I add any type of flavor, spice, fruit, etc., I usually do this in secondary so I don't burn off the flavor.  I know we added the sticks to the brewpot at the BOP so my guess is that it should be done that way.  Usually the brewpot and the primary scrub out a lot of the flavor you want... but I will add them to the brewpot as the recipe suggests.  I know this won't appeal to most of you but I also found another reference to this beer online that described it as a "Belgian Specialty" beer.  It's hopped low but otherwise I don't see why it would be called a "Dubbel"-anything.  Thanks gang.



#6 MyaCullen

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Posted 11 August 2013 - 09:40 AM

Safbrew Ale yeast from those days was S-04 Ken

 

and my guess on the MEQ is this stuff which I guess to be an amber LME, as it is described as Medium Malt Extract https://homebrewsupp...-Per-Litre.html



#7 Big Nake

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Posted 11 August 2013 - 02:20 PM

Safbrew Ale yeast from those days was S-04 Ken

 

and my guess on the MEQ is this stuff which I guess to be an amber LME, as it is described as Medium Malt Extract https://homebrewsupp...-Per-Litre.html

Right, I thought it to be some sort of "medium" or amber LME.  The beer we made at the BOP was not dark at all.  My recipe comes up as SRM 10 and I'm not sure it was even that dark.  I went downstairs and found my [sealed] bag of cinnamon sticks and they still smelled good.  I cracked one in half and it smelled heavenly so maybe I'll take three of these sticks and crush them lightly in a bag and add them for the steeping part of the process.  Thanks for the S-04 reference... I knew the beer had a neutral yeast profile and the other yeast that was popular at this BOP was a dry ale yeast called Edme.  Many of the recipes there used dry ale yeast unless it was a Belgian or something like a Hefe where the beer's character was driven by the yeast.  Liquid yeast was available but rarely used and of course it was extra dollars too.  Looking forward to making this beer!



#8 positiveContact

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Posted 11 August 2013 - 02:39 PM

Too much or too little?  I bought sticks for this recipe years ago and still have them but I would think I should get fresh sticks.  If I used sticks I would use 3 of the 8 mentioned in the recipe (about 37% of the 50 liter recipe).

 

i really meant I don't know :lol:



#9 MyaCullen

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Posted 11 August 2013 - 03:05 PM

Right, I thought it to be some sort of "medium" or amber LME.  The beer we made at the BOP was not dark at all.  My recipe comes up as SRM 10 and I'm not sure it was even that dark.  I went downstairs and found my [sealed] bag of cinnamon sticks and they still smelled good.  I cracked one in half and it smelled heavenly so maybe I'll take three of these sticks and crush them lightly in a bag and add them for the steeping part of the process.  Thanks for the S-04 reference... I knew the beer had a neutral yeast profile and the other yeast that was popular at this BOP was a dry ale yeast called Edme.  Many of the recipes there used dry ale yeast unless it was a Belgian or something like a Hefe where the beer's character was driven by the yeast.  Liquid yeast was available but rarely used and of course it was extra dollars too.  Looking forward to making this beer!

if you for some reason wanted that EDME yeast it's available as SAF-33 :D



#10 Big Nake

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Posted 11 August 2013 - 03:27 PM

if you for some reason wanted that EDME yeast it's available as SAF-33 :D

Oh, see?  I had no idea.  These dry yeasts are all foreign to me because I rarely use them.  I know US05 is supposed to be dried 1056 (ish) and I know there is S23 Saflager for dry lager yeast but otherwise... I have no clue.  Nottingham, Windsor, T-58, blah, blah, blah. I would fail at a dry yeast game show for sure... We have some lovely parting gifts!  :lol:



#11 Big Nake

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Posted 14 February 2017 - 11:32 AM

Resurrecting an old thread. I went back and checked my notes for 2013 and I do not see that I brewed this beer. I'm not sure if it got pushed off the schedule or what but I never made it. I saw the recipe hanging on the wall of the brew bunker a couple weeks ago and thought about this beer again. I also checked this thread and saw that Mic mentioned that the yeast called for in this recipe (SafBrew Ale yeast) is actually S-04 which... I happen to have up and running at the moment. Yesterday I stopped at one of the LHBS in the area and picked up some other stuff as well as some new cinnamon sticks. I have everything I need to make this beer again and it's next up on my ale schedule. The one bud who originally asked me to go to the BOP back in the 90s was over last weekend and I told him "I'm making Dubbelfest!" and he had to scan his memory for a second and then his eyes lit up. I hope to get it right because the real deal is such a nice beer. I will report back.

#12 Big Nake

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Posted 22 February 2017 - 08:58 AM

On Friday afternoon (2/24) I'm going to make this beer. It's supposed to be close to 70° and then drop off over the weekend so I'm going to make it Friday afternoon into the evening. I'm envisioning this as a beer that's kind of "20 years in the making" because I have not had it (well-made) in 20+ years. I'm probably more prepared and ready to make this beer as a homebrewer as I've ever been and I'm looking forward to it. Below is the closest thing that I have to "ancient brewing texts" :D... this is an email that was sent to me in August of 2000 when someone I found in Canada had the original recipe for this beer. Back then I couldn't find the right way to convert things, the LME was measured in liters instead of pounds, etc. My email address was on AOL at the time. :D I did a lot of scribbling on that piece of paper and it's been tacked to the wall of my brew bunker ever since.

dubbelfest20005.jpg

#13 Big Nake

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Posted 16 March 2017 - 03:49 PM

Here we go...

2udunbn.jpg

First sample from the keg of this 20-years-in-the-making beer. My assessment: It's excellent. It's really, really smooth and the character of the S-04 with this grain bill and low-hopping rate is really remarkable. It's an ultra-delicious beer. If I whiffed anywhere it was with the spice because there is almost no detectable cinnamon in the beer. I used three fresh, short cinnamon sticks and I cracked them in half before putting them in the kettle. They steeped in there for 15 minutes along with the last hop addition (Saaz). I know that the cinnamon was added to the kettle when I made this beer at the BOP too so maybe I would just need to use a little more next time. This is my kind of beer... smooth, refreshing, balanced, straightforward, clean. I'm kind of jacked that I feel like I have most of the recipe in place and that everything seemed to end up very close to the beer I remember. I might consider doing something where I add the beer to a secondary for a couple of days with a tsp or tbsp of ground cinnamon and then send it to a keg. Cheers Beerheads.

#14 neddles

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Posted 16 March 2017 - 03:54 PM

Glad your plan came together after all this time. :cheers:



#15 armagh

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Posted 16 March 2017 - 04:18 PM

Well done, glad it turned out the way you wanted.  As a side note, there are some Belgian yeasts that will ferment higher gravity beers cleanly, as in without the fruity esthers you eschew.



#16 Big Nake

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Posted 16 March 2017 - 04:26 PM

Well done, glad it turned out the way you wanted.  As a side note, there are some Belgian yeasts that will ferment higher gravity beers cleanly, as in without the fruity esthers you eschew.

Don't you try to bamboozle me. :D I've heard this over and over and used many different Belgian yeasts and ruined many gallons of otherwise-great homebrew. Tell me which Belgian strains you're referring to so I can do some homework. To be honest, I have no idea why this beer is called "Dubbelfest". It sounds like a cross between a Belgian beer and a German Festbier but it has cinnamon and is made with an English yeast. That's about as nutty as it gets but what can I say? The beer is really outstanding with its simple, straightforward character. Cheers.

#17 armagh

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Posted 17 March 2017 - 06:23 AM

WY1762 fermented at the lower end of its temp. range (65-68) and WY3655 (63-66) produce clean ferments, but hell, there's always distillers yeast B)



#18 Big Nake

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Posted 17 March 2017 - 06:37 AM

WY1762 fermented at the lower end of its temp. range (65-68) and WY3655 (63-66) produce clean ferments, but hell, there's always distillers yeast B)

I think that the S-04 is one of the things that's correct about this beer. The BOP that I originally went to was notorious for using cheap, dry yeast in most of its beers unless the beer was a Hefeweizen, a Belgian or something else where the yeast drove the character. I thought it might just be that particular place subbing ingredients but the recipe I got from this guy in 2000 had SafBrew Ale yeast which is apparently S-04 or very close to S-04. Also, I have not used S-04 in a very long time. Like I don't know how long. The first batch that I made with it had a smidge of diacetyl which does not make me happy. But then I made a hoppy blonde with it (sampled but still in the on-deck fridge), this Dubbelfest and then last weekend a Cascade Pale Ale. I like the yeast's character very much. I'm now considering using it for a 5th batch of another pale ale but I haven't made up my mind on that yet. Thanks for those suggestions... I will keep them in mind possibly for another project.


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