CiderTropica
New Member
Kasteel Donker is my favourite beer. It is a rich, dark and sweet Belgian quad at 11% ABV with tasting notes of liquorice, banana and raisins. It is expensive to buy in the UK at £4.20 per 330ml bottle, so I wanted to create my own cheaper homebrew alternative.
The only recipes I could find online were for a fully brewed version from scratch, and I don't have all that gear, so I wanted to create a version using a kit. My results were great, and here's what I used:
Then I boiled another two litres of mineral water and dissolved all the candy sugar and spraymalt in a 5-litre jug. It took a LOT of stirring to dissolve all the candy sugar. Then I poured the contents of the jug into the FV and gave the entire mix another good stir.
When the mix was cool enough, I took an initial gravity reading and it was very high. I then topped up the FV incrementally with more cool mineral water and took further readings until I reached the target OG of 1.090, which would yield 10.5% ABV if the brew went down fully to 1.010. The total volume at this point was 8 litres.
The mix was still very hot due to the ratio of boiling water to cool water, so I had to let it stand for a few hours to get it down to pitching temperature. Somebody else needed the kitchen, however, so I ended up pitching the yeast at 32°C. This is quite high, but pitching the yeast at this temperature got the fermentation going rapidly. A few hours later, it had the biggest krausen I've ever seen:
I used Mangrove Jack's M41 Belgian Ale yeast as it has the high alcohol tolerance needed to get the 11% ABV I desired. The yeast that came in the kit would not have tolerated this.
I used a heat pad to keep the temperature around 24°C for the duration of fermentation. I kept the temperature this high intentionally in order to create the fruit esters present in Kasteel Donker.
Three days later, the SG was 1.040. The beer poured into the testing tube with a creamy off-white head, and already looked and tasted very much like the finished product.
Twelve days after starting fermentation, the SG was 1.012. Readings taken over the preceding days indicated that this was now the final gravity. According to the ABV calculator, the beer was now 10.24% ABV. It looked and tasted amazing.
I bottled the beer with 5g (one heaped teaspoon) of white table sugar per 330ml to further drive up the ABV to near the target of 11%.
I put all the bottles into a big box on two heat pads keeping the temperature between 18 and 24°C. After three days, I opened a bottle to check the carbonation and found that it poured with a thick, creamy off-white head which lasted all the way down to the bottom of the glass – a success.
The Belgian Dubbel beer kit instructions recommended I age the beer in a cool place for 6–8 weeks. It has been ageing in my garage for 5 weeks at time of writing.
The beer looks and tastes almost identical to Kasteel Donker. The raisin and liquorice flavours have come out nicely. However, instead of banana, the fruit esters taste more like plum. Since I like the taste of plum, this is not an issue for me.
Is the beer I have made identical to Kasteel Donker? No. However, it is damn close, and looks and tastes amazing. At 11% ABV, it does not take much to do the job.
The cost per bottle of my homebrew works out at around £1.20 per 330ml bottle – significantly cheaper than £4.20 for a real Kasteel Donker in the shops.
I am very happy with the results.
The only recipes I could find online were for a fully brewed version from scratch, and I don't have all that gear, so I wanted to create a version using a kit. My results were great, and here's what I used:
- Brewferm Belgian Dubbel 16-pint beer kit
- ~7 litres Tesco Ashbeck mineral water
- Muntons Dark Spraymalt 500g
- Brewferm Crushed Brown Belgian Candy Sugar 500g
- Mangrove Jack's 10g Beer Yeast - M41 Belgian Ale
Then I boiled another two litres of mineral water and dissolved all the candy sugar and spraymalt in a 5-litre jug. It took a LOT of stirring to dissolve all the candy sugar. Then I poured the contents of the jug into the FV and gave the entire mix another good stir.
When the mix was cool enough, I took an initial gravity reading and it was very high. I then topped up the FV incrementally with more cool mineral water and took further readings until I reached the target OG of 1.090, which would yield 10.5% ABV if the brew went down fully to 1.010. The total volume at this point was 8 litres.
The mix was still very hot due to the ratio of boiling water to cool water, so I had to let it stand for a few hours to get it down to pitching temperature. Somebody else needed the kitchen, however, so I ended up pitching the yeast at 32°C. This is quite high, but pitching the yeast at this temperature got the fermentation going rapidly. A few hours later, it had the biggest krausen I've ever seen:
I used Mangrove Jack's M41 Belgian Ale yeast as it has the high alcohol tolerance needed to get the 11% ABV I desired. The yeast that came in the kit would not have tolerated this.
I used a heat pad to keep the temperature around 24°C for the duration of fermentation. I kept the temperature this high intentionally in order to create the fruit esters present in Kasteel Donker.
Three days later, the SG was 1.040. The beer poured into the testing tube with a creamy off-white head, and already looked and tasted very much like the finished product.
Twelve days after starting fermentation, the SG was 1.012. Readings taken over the preceding days indicated that this was now the final gravity. According to the ABV calculator, the beer was now 10.24% ABV. It looked and tasted amazing.
I bottled the beer with 5g (one heaped teaspoon) of white table sugar per 330ml to further drive up the ABV to near the target of 11%.
I put all the bottles into a big box on two heat pads keeping the temperature between 18 and 24°C. After three days, I opened a bottle to check the carbonation and found that it poured with a thick, creamy off-white head which lasted all the way down to the bottom of the glass – a success.
The Belgian Dubbel beer kit instructions recommended I age the beer in a cool place for 6–8 weeks. It has been ageing in my garage for 5 weeks at time of writing.
The beer looks and tastes almost identical to Kasteel Donker. The raisin and liquorice flavours have come out nicely. However, instead of banana, the fruit esters taste more like plum. Since I like the taste of plum, this is not an issue for me.
Is the beer I have made identical to Kasteel Donker? No. However, it is damn close, and looks and tastes amazing. At 11% ABV, it does not take much to do the job.
The cost per bottle of my homebrew works out at around £1.20 per 330ml bottle – significantly cheaper than £4.20 for a real Kasteel Donker in the shops.
I am very happy with the results.
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