My Dubbel came out ok, but not good enough.What went wrong?

[grainman]

So I brewed an all grain belgian dubbel, from the BCS book (Black Scapular) and need a little help from you fine individuals figuring out went wrong. I hit all the numbers pretty much dead on, mashed at 150 though slightly high, but still in "close enough" range. The beer has an unbelievable nose, I mean fruity as all hell ..... smells great, and on the front end it has a decent amount of that fruity figgy flavor, but then everything completely disappears on the back end, like there needs to be more body. This came out to 7% abv and I used wyeast 3787. 1.070 og... 1.019 fg. I had no aromatic malt so I subbed with melanoidin malt, and I added thd D90 candi syrup with 15 mins left instead of using it in the beginning of the boil. Except for those 2 things everything else was dead on as per the recipe. Could it be the late addition of the syrup?

[rossiski]

1.019 seems a bit high for a final gravity.

[DBear]

I just bottled a dubbel with the same yeast 1.069-1.011. 3787 will finish dry and the yeast characteristics will change over time.

[Ozwald]

Your %ADF is still pretty good, but all in all 19 points is still pretty high to finish at. I'm not looking at the recipe, but a 150 rest for the majority of your mash is a bit high (depending on your system). Did you just pitch the smack pack or did you do a starter? A 5 gallon batch of 1.070 is way too high for just a smack pack. If you did do a starter, how was it treated? Multiple steps? Gravities? Temps? You didn't give a lot of information, but I'm leaning towards a yeast problem/underpitch with what's been presented.

[grainman]

Your %ADF is still pretty good, but all in all 19 points is still pretty high to finish at. I'm not looking at the recipe, but a 150 rest for the majority of your mash is a bit high (depending on your system). Did you just pitch the smack pack or did you do a starter? A 5 gallon batch of 1.070 is way too high for just a smack pack. If you did do a starter, how was it treated? Multiple steps? Gravities? Temps? You didn't give a lot of information, but I'm leaning towards a yeast problem/underpitch with what's been presented.

Did a 2 qt starter with 2 smack packs on a stir plate the night before brew day. I thought i treated the yeast pretty good. Used yeast nutrient too.

[grainman]

I guess 1.019 is high for this brew, but the issue is dryness and / or lack of body , so I would think that if it finished lower it would be even dryer or have less body. Now I'm starting to think maybe i'm mistaking lack of body for something else. Not sure exactly.

[Ozwald]

First off, I can't really address the lack of body/dryness without tasting it. Finishing at 19 would highly suggest otherwise. I suspect you're picking up on something else, but I couldn't speculate with any degree of accuracy without actually tasting it.

What were you trying to accomplish with your 'starter'? Some may argue otherwise, but I really wouldn't consider that a starter as you didn't accomplish much more than what the nutrient packs did. It may wake them up & get them going, but that's what the smack packs are partially intended for. I doubt you would've gotten much different results than by pitching directly. The timing was too short & the volume was too low to see any significant growth. You would've needed 3, 4 maybe even 5 days with a 5L starter. You also underpitched by roughly 1 smackpack. Without getting out a calculator, I'm roughly counting 300 billion cells needed. If there was a bit of age or mishandling with the packs before you got them it could be even more. I don't have enough experience with that exact yeast to say, but I've got a pretty good idea that is a major contributing factor to your high FG & "fruity as all hell" nose.

To answer your original question regarding the late addition of the sugar, no. Sugar is sugar in this case. It's going to taste a bit different in the final product but only due to the differences in caramelization. That difference in character could potentially be what you're perceiving as off, but again without actually tasting it I can't say with any degree of accuracy. Perhaps you have a club/highly experienced palette nearby?

[Afterlab]

I mean fruity as all hell ..... smells great, and on the front end it has a decent amount of that fruity figgy flavor, but then everything completely disappears on the back end, like there needs to be more body.

Belgians are typically supposed to be thinner towards the end to allow for greater digestibility.

If you're looking to alter the body and add more to it, ask yourself where does body and mouthfeel in a beer come from? Could a little more Calcium Chloride round out the mouthfeel? You could possibly use a malt with a great percentage of proteins or maltodextrins or even consider using less fermentable sugar in the grist because the sugar doesn't offer up any protein materials, it offers up ethanol which leads to a lower gravity. It may not technically be to style but there are many alterations that can be made to provide more body on the back end. The Abbey Ale yeast is also going to leave a greater body to the beer, but like the others said 1.019 seems high enough to me.