Christmas Ale recipe

[sunny_jimbob]

Afternoon all.

I'm after a bit of advice please I've started pondering on my Christmas beer as I want to give it plenty of time to condition. I'm thinking of the usual dark spiced type beer, and from various places around the net I have assembled the below recipe. I've read the various posts about making a spice tincture using vodka, and thought to use the same theory only soaking in Navy rum for an extra bit of background spice. Because I've only "made up" pretty simple recipes so far, I just wondered if anyone could cast their eye over it and tell me what they think please? Thanks for reading

Periodic Porter
Christmas/Winter Specialty Spiced Beer

Recipe Specs
----------------
Batch Size (L): 11.5
Total Grain (kg): 2.751
Total Hops (g): 62.00
Original Gravity (OG): 1.051 (°P): 12.6
Final Gravity (FG): 1.013 (°P): 3.3
Alcohol by Volume (ABV): 5.01 %
Colour (SRM): 38.5 (EBC): 75.8
Bitterness (IBU): 54.5 (Average - No Chill Adjusted)
Brewhouse Efficiency (%): 70
Boil Time (Minutes): 60

Grain Bill
----------------
2.200 kg Pale Ale Malt (80%)
0.220 kg Chocolate (8%)
0.193 kg Crystal 60 (7%)
0.138 kg Roasted Barley (5%)

Hop Bill
----------------
14.0 g Target Leaf (9% Alpha) @ 60 Minutes (Boil) (1.2 g/L)
14.0 g First Gold Leaf (7.9% Alpha) @ 15 Minutes (Boil) (1.2 g/L)
14.0 g First Gold Leaf (7.9% Alpha) @ 1 Minutes (Boil) (1.2 g/L)
20.0 g Savinjski Golding Leaf (3% Alpha) @ 0 Days (Dry Hop) (1.7 g/L)

Misc Bill
----------------
3.0 g Irish Moss @ 10 Minutes (Boil)

Soaked in Rum for a fortnight Bill
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10 Black Peppercorns @ 0 Minutes (Bottling)
3 Cinnamon Sticks @ 0 Minutes (Bottling)
1 Cloves @ 0 Minutes (Bottling)
80.0 g Ginger Root @ 0 Minutes (Bottling)
2 Oranges Peel @ 0 Minutes (Bottling)
1 Vanilla pod @ 0 Minutes (Bottling)

Single step Infusion at 66°C for 90 Minutes.
Fermented at 20°C with Safbrew T-58

Recipe Generated with BrewMate

[seymour]

Looks complex and delicious. You've already got all kinds of things going on there, but I love a little "Christmas tree" in my Christmas beers: some piney, resiny, evergreen essence. I accomplish it using a few crushed juniper "berries", a handful of juniper twigs, or some cut spruce tips. Many people add them at the end of the boil, but surprisingly, stirring them into the mash tun sends flavor all the way through to the bottle.

[Barley Water]

Well just looking quickly at your formulation I would cut down on the hopping. If you want to feature spices, then let them do the talking and keep the hops in the background. My holiday beer this year is going to be an Imperial Vanilla Porter with bourbon (and I may well oak it also). There is this hippy in Oregon that came up with this stuff, it's supposed to be great but I have yet the try or brew it. With a starting gravity in the 1.080 range it should surly help you forget the holiday bills for a time at least.

[Alton_Bee]

As you say this is a Porter would you be better off switching some or all of the roast barley for brown malt ??

[seymour]

As you say this is a Porter would you be better off switching some or all of the roast barley for brown malt ??

+1

[sunny_jimbob]

Thanks for your thoughts guys.

Looks complex and delicious. You've already got all kinds of things going on there, but I love a little "Christmas tree" in my Christmas beers: some piney, resiny, evergreen essence. I accomplish it using a few crushed juniper "berries", a handful of juniper twigs, or some cut spruce tips. Many people add them at the end of the boil, but surprisingly, stirring them into the mash tun sends flavor all the way through to the bottle.

Interesting! I'll see what I've got lying around...

Well just looking quickly at your formulation I would cut down on the hopping. If you want to feature spices, then let them do the talking and keep the hops in the background. My holiday beer this year is going to be an Imperial Vanilla Porter with bourbon (and I may well oak it also). There is this hippy in Oregon that came up with this stuff, it's supposed to be great but I have yet the try or brew it. With a starting gravity in the 1.080 range it should surly help you forget the holiday bills for a time at least.

Do you think trim the last 3 additions, or just knock the dry hops out completely? Imperial Vanilla Porter sounds stunning. I'm already jealous!

As you say this is a Porter would you be better off switching some or all of the roast barley for brown malt ??

Noted and recipe amended. It was just something I'd copied from the source recipe, but thinking about it I agree!

[Barley Water]

Yeah I think I would probably just drop the late hops because any aroma will get in the way of the spices. Most people taste with their noses first so you want to preview the flavor in the aroma, in other words lead with the spices. Also, your IBU/O.G. ratio looks a bit high, I would drop it to maybe .5 or below. One other thing to think about is attenuation. Generally speaking, Christmas beers are on the sweet side so in this case I would go with a less attenuative yeast strain. Think about some holiday foods you enjoy that are spiced in a similar manner you propose doing the beer, I bet they are sweet (think Fruitcake or Ginerbread for example). If you think of beer as the liquid form of bread that might give you some inspiration. I guess the other thing you can do to sweeten the beer is jack up the gravity, that will also tend to get you more in the way of yeast derived flavors depending on which strain you select. By the way, be very careful with the vanilla, I once made a beer with vanilla and cinnamon and I swear the stuff tasted like apple pie (and yes, I did it twice just to see if the first itteration was a fluke). Vanilla can do some very cool things to beer but it's very easy to overpower everything else with it so I would urge caution when using it, good luck.