All the stuff that you said is correct, but it was not what you said before.
Having quality ingredients and solid techiques are manditory, but not sweating the small stuff cannot be bought at your LHBS. It comes with experience. There are SO many myths out there in homebrewing that it’s difficult to REALLY know what is true and what is bunk. Once you’ve done something repeatedly with success, however, you can figure it out on your own.
FWIW, I don’t take OGs either, but that doesn’t mean that I’m careless. All that it means is that I am not that concerned about the EXACT ABV of my beer or my efficiency. Truthfully, FG is WAY more important anyway, because if you don’t take FGs you could be setting yourself up for a problem.
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A lot of comes down to how interested you are in repeatability, if you never brew the same thing twice and you don’t mind getting something other than you intended (b/c what we intend, sometimes isn’t as great as we think it will be), then it’s not a big deal. But repeatability can also be tied into quality. If I brew a recipe and write down every frickin little detail about my ingredients and process, as I do. When I’m drinking the product thinking, say, this could use a slightly stronger roast character, a little less residual sweetness, and little cleaner ester profile. I’m in good shape to rebrew and change those things. A few times of making little changes and you have just the beer you are looking for. That’s the magic.
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I just transferred this into secondary, and it is at 1.016. Tastes pretty good with nice fruity esters in the aroma and just a little hotter alcohol. It does taste pretty sweet though, so I’m hoping a few weeks in secondary will help it get down a few more points, though I don’t know how likely that it. The color is a honey-brown amber, and is a little lighter than I was going for, but now looking back I can see that I didn’t recalculate for the lower amount of special B that I put in and probably should have thrown a couple ounces of caraffa special to compensate.
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Doubt that it’ll drop much, but it is at a decent FG anyway.
The sweetness and alcohol "problem" can be solved with some bulk and bottle conditining.
This is why you keep good notes like Uncle Charlie told you to, right?
So that you can make this change next time around.
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Let the temps go a little higher in the secondary. Too low on the temps (60"s to low 70’s)
and you’ll end up with higher than acceptable banana and clove esters. Room temp, assuming your room is mid to high 70’s, will do best.
Also...Special B is usually not something found in commercial Belgian Strong Dark. Adds too much crystal malt profile, because that’s what it is. High kiln crystal malt. Up the dark sugar or make your own Spanish liquor from cane sugar for color and attenuation.
Either way, I’m sure it will be great.
With almost anything "Belgian", temperature is your friend, not enemy. Same can be said for under-pitching. Builds more esters early so the unwanted esters are more readily scrubbed off in an extended secondary. This helps develop the nice rummy, raisiny profile that normally eludes most homebrewed Belgian strongs.
Just my $0.02
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