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Introduction

Hi you all! Last year Jan Willem van Groenigen posted a message on the Homebrewdigest, asking for directions for cloning Rochefort 8 (HBD #3910). Since this didn't result in a satisfactory answer, the users of the Dutch Hobbybrewing forum Hobbybrouwen.nl put together a joint effort for designing a clone recipe for Rochefort 8. A lot of research went into it from all participating brewers and some of our own experiences were taken into account. After putting together the recipe, we organized a contest as to who could brew up the best clone. As the proud winner of this contest I would like to share with you the results of this competition. We noticed that there is still not much known about Rochefort, so we hope you'll find this interesting.

The objective was for all brewers to brew the same recipe in the same manner. However, all brewers had slightly different ingredients from different suppliers. After brewing and some 4 months of maturation, the beers were judged together with the original Rochefort. This event took place on February 15 at De Maasland brewery in Oss, the Netherlands. A total of 15 people from all over the Netherlands and Belgium came together to meet for the first time in real, a very cool experience on its own.

On tasting day 10 beers were brought in, plus the original, totalling 11. The judging panel consisted of all brewers, one of whom was a certified beer judge (BKMG, which is comparable to BJCP) completed with one neutral certified judge. In between the tasting, we received a tour of the brewery from brewmaster Frans. he also took care of serving us with all kinds of good food, very necessary when tasting such strong beers.

With the exception of one soured sample (which nevertheless was quite tasty), all beers came quite close to the original, although all were a bit too dark. When we started this whole cloning contest, Rochefort beers with the original Special B were still available at shops. However, the beer we used at the tasting was of more recent date, using the new Special B from maltster Dingemans. Some clones were made with the original DWC Special "B" (including the winner), others with the replacing Dingemans version.There is a surely a different taste to it now.

The winning beer was made exactly following the recipe below. Fermentation temperature was 21-23C. No water treatment, my water is 10D. For more info about water treatment regarding the Rochefort area, i refer to HBD#4116 & HBD#4115 (article by Jacques Bertens & Jan Willem van Groenigen).

Ingredients for 10 liters, 1.080 OG, 32 IBU, 70 EBC :

Hops (whole) & Spices	Amount	Boiltime
Styrian Goldings 4.2%	23 grams	75 min.
Hallertau Hersbrucker 3.5%	10 grams	30 min.
Hallertau Hersbrucker 3.5%	5 grams	5 min
Coreanderseed whole, freshly crushed	5 grams	5 min.

Yeast: Wyeast 1762 Belgian Abbey II or recultered from a bottle of Rochefort. The winning recipe used the Wyeast.

Mashing: 3 liters per kg malt. Flaked corn boiled separately before adding to the mash.

Mashing schedule	Temperature	Rest
Intermediate	60-62C	30 min.
Saccharification	68C	60 min.
Mash out	75C	5 min.
Sparge	78C	'till complete

A promash recipe file is available by rightclicking the link to its zip-file.

Below, I listed some findings based upon variations in the recipes. Of course, this wasn't set up in a randomized, replicated fashion, but I think it might be of interest nonetheless:

1)	The use of chocolate malt instead of the dehusked Carafa resulted in a bit of a licorice taste or even a bit of a burned taste.
2)	If you can't get Carafa Dehusked, look for a debittered/dehusked dark chocolate/Black malt. It can also be had from Weyermann
3)	The use of the original yeast instead of the Wyeast didn't change much in the tasting profile. Which makes sense, because they're said to be similar.
4)	The second placed beer (Theo Verschoor) was fermented at 28C, which resulted in a very strong banana and fruit aroma!
5)	The third placed beer (Edwin Hoogedoorn) tasted very close to the second, but had a less pronounced aroma, because of a lower temperature fermentation.
6)	To get a color more resembling the original, it is suggested to slightly bring down the amount of Carafa.
7)	Some beers had problems during bottle-conditioning. When bottling make sure to do it in time or to add a healthy yeast.
8)	Samples with added (non-Rochefort) yeast for conditioning did not seem to result in a different taste.

All in all a very cool experience, which is to be repeated by a joint Orval cloning contest. A recipe of which has already been agreed upon. :-)

Take care, Herman Holtrop

References

An example recipe in the HBD

A trip report in the HBD

An article about Rochefort by Alan Moen, including a recipe

An article in Burpnews about a Rochefort 10 clone

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For comments or questions, contact me at :

Herman Holtrop h.e.holtrop@zonnet.nl