This is an unofficial recipe of making a Belgian Blonde Ale. The mastermind behind this brew is a mate of mine named Ben.
Organic Wheat
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- 200g helps beer keep a creamy head.
Yeast
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Melanoidin
- 300g enhances Malt flavour
Pilsner Base malt
- 6 kg’s of un-cracked pilsner malt was used
PH 5.2 stabiliser
We added an exact amount (just a sprinkle to keep the ph at 5.2)
Mash Tun
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This has a Water/Grain separator that enables the liquid to be drained without the grain coming out.
Mill
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Method
The Melanoidin, pilsner malt and Organic Wheat were milled by hand, this does take a bit of time, it is good to watch the grain cracking as you can adjust the mill just right as you go.
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We added all the milled product as well as a sprinkling of the ph 5.2 stabiliser (white powdery substance you can see on top) to the Mash Tun
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Next we got the burner going and heated up 15 litres of water. This was heated to 70 degrees Celsius and then added to the Mash Tun. We let the Mash Tun sit for about one hour and a half then drain into a stainless steel final boiling pot.
The water temperature is important as lower temperatures (60 to 65) predominantly produce small chain sugars and higher temperatures (65 to 75) produce long chain sugars. Basically high temperatures equals Malty Beer and lower temperatures equals dryer and slightly more alcoholic Beer due to the way that the Yeast reacts with the sugars during the later stages of the brewing process.
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After the Mash Tun was drained we heated another 15 litres of water and added that to the Mash Tun. This time we only let it stand for about 10 minutes or so until draining in the stainless steel final boiling pot. We did notice that the draining process the second time around is much slower, I guess this is due to the fact that the grains etc have compacted.
This seemed like a good time to work out the hops needed. We were aiming at 25 International Bitter Units (IBU). Ben worked this out using beer making software and we arrived at 20 grams of Saaz Czech Hops and 25 grams of Hallertau New Zealand Hops. The Hallertau were added at the start of the 60min boil, and the Saaz added with 10mins of the boil remaining. The Hallertau will contribute mostly bitterness to the beer, and the Saaz will add flavour and aroma.
Final Boil
We brought the final mixture to a boil then added the hops and boiled it for an hour.
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Next step is to add the Saaz flavour hops at 10 mins to go.
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We then finished the boil, and drained it into a plastic cube to cool.
