I am in general a fan of Ommegang. You know when you have one of their beers that it will be a solid, tasty beer. Not necessary the most interesting and complex flavor, but a great drinking beer. After the Achel dregs went bad, I needed a back-up so a quick run to the local good beer store, Best Damn Beer Shop, and I had a bottle of Ommegang Dubbel.There is some mystery as to if the White Labs 410 is the Ommegang strain or if it is only a proprietary yeast strain not available to homebrewers. I will try to find out by comparing my results with the reviews of WLP410 and see if I agree. It appears like it is on the phenolic and spicy side of the Belgian flavor spectrum and some report a small amount of tartness produced.
This batch got the same treatment as the other dregs beers. I used 6 oz of a 1.030 starter wort + nutrients boiled and cooled. And added directly to the 750 ml bottle. Do this 3 days before and shake as often as possible. It was pitched at 65F and allowed to free rise up into the high 70s. I had activity in 12 hours and this beer seemed to ferment out in less than a week. Then it was bottled after 3 weeks.
12 hours
Day 1
Day 2
The three-way taste test will be posted shortly with the 575 Dubbel and Westmalle Dubbel.
Any update on this? What was your attenuation like? I was planning on fermenting with my cultured Ommegang yeast and letting it get up to ~77.
ReplyDeleteThe attenuation was great - the beer ended at 1.005. The taste was not my favorite, but I'm not that sure it was the yeast's fault. I think you should try it out, others have with good success. And let me know how it goes for you. I'm planning to post a tasting with my Dubbel and 3 different yeasts soon.
DeleteWas the yeast a tannish color? I am used to working with 1056 and the Bell's strain which are very white. This seems to be a loosely packed tan colored yeast cake. It also seemed to start pretty slowly.
DeleteTo be honest I don't pay much attention to the yeast color because I don't think that means too much.
DeleteFor me, after making a small starter in the bottle and adding that to my 1 gal batch, I had activity in under 12 hours.
Well it smells good, I guess we'll see in a couple weeks. Mine is a 5.5 gallon batch (with the starter stepped up to 1.6L).
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