Recipe of the Week: Liquid Stupid Belgian Strong Ale

The next addition of the ROTW is another tried a true internet recipe. This one comes from Jeff aka "Alpha Male" over at the brews-bros.com forum. You can check out the praise of this recipe here. The key to this recipe as with a lot of strong ales is to let it age a good while. At least four or five months, it will mellow somewhat and be really drinkable, just watch out, you'll be on your ass before you know it.

Grain Bill:
13 lbs Belgian or German Pils malt
1 lb Honey Malt
.5 lb Carapils

Use a single infusion mash at 150 degrees for one hour

Boil:
(hops)
2 oz Hallertauer 4AA at the 60 minute mark
(spices)
1.5 oz orange peel at the 15 minute mark
1.25 oz coriander (crush) at the 15 minute mark
.5 oz candied ginger (sliced for more surface area) at the 15 minute mark

**while cooling**
When you reach 180 degrees add 3 lbs of orange blossom honey

Gravity will be around 1.090

Ferment:
Use Wyeast 3787 Trappist High Gravity Ale yeast at 65 degrees

After yeast has brought the gravity down quite a bit boil 1 lb of clear Belgian candi sugar in a small amount of water. Add to the fermenter. This is so that the yeast will not become totally stressed out in the initial fermentation with all the sugars in there.

Let this ferment again til you get down to around 1.014 - 1.018, if you are having trouble getting your yeast to get you to that point let the fermenter warm a little and if you are still having issues use some champagne yeast and watch closely.

After you get to your final gravity range transfer into a secondary and let sit for at least 4 or 5 months...like I said before this is a key step, the longer you let it age the better it will turn out. Just make sure you have plenty of other stuff in your stash to hold you over. When you taste at transferring times you may sense a good presence of alcohol hotness, this is normal and what the aging mellows out.

You will not be disappointed with this recipe...