"The Devil's Bats" Belgian Ale

Soon after the Saison Dupont clone was brewed June 30, I fired up the kettle for another Belgian homebrew session. This time, my favorite Belgian beer: Duvel.

"Duvel?" you may ask? "What's that mean?" Question not the wiki:

To commemorate the end of World War I, the Moortgat Brewery named their main beer Victory Ale. But during the 1920s, an avid drinker described the beer as "nen echten duvel" (a real devil in Brabantian) - perhaps in reference to its formidable alcohol content (8.5% ABV) - and the name of the beer was changed to Duvel. It has become the brewery's flagship beer. Considered by many the definitive version of the Belgian Strong Golden Ale style, Duvel is brewed with Pilsner malt and white sugar, and hopped with Saaz hops and Styrian Goldings. The yeast still stems from the original culture of Scottish yeast bought by Albert Moortgat during a prospection-tour in the U.K. just after WWI.

The recipe, again straight from the book Clone Brews:

The ingredients:


And the spooky brewing session that summoned three BATS to circle the driveway and generally creep me out. Hence, "The Devil's Bats" moniker.


A lot of hops were added for this beer. Mainly to offset the 7 pounds of malt, the pound of Belgian candi sugar, and 1 1/3 pounds of corn sugar added! The kettle's false bottom really prevented a lot of sludge from making it over through the plate cooler into the fermenter:


I finished cleaning by about 12:30am and pitched the yeast at that time. (The "cold" water from the hose running through the plate chiller really wasn't cold enough to FULLY transfer heat from the wort so it took a little longer to cool to a pitchable temperature.) After pitching, all in all, a successfully vigorous fermentation. I used my first blowoff tube for the primary fermenter instead of my usual airlock. I grew weary of cleaning up explosions. Not that I'm bitching. Having explosions means your fermentation is strong.

First, freshly aerated wort, then 8 hours into fermentation, then a closeup of the krausen:



And finally the video (complete with Lhasa Apso toenails wondering why daddy is kneeling in front of the kitchen counter). I love the constant gurgling from the bubbles:


This one won't be ready for a while yet. After the week or so in primary, I add another pound of sugar to secondary and let that ferment out (probably another week or so). Then, once it's settled, I need to cold condition it for 4 weeks. I needed to remove shelves in the garage fridge to make room (and consequently remove inventory by consumptive methods). Then, it's bottling time and another five weeks to condition! So, we're looking at the FIRST WEEK OF OCTOBER for this one to be ready to drink.

Damn. I guess I need to brew up a quicker beer to consume in the meantime...