Christmas Brew ???

[gazbo]

Am looking to brew a dark ale for xmas next,(3rd all grain) giving a nice 3 month cask conditioning time.
looking along lines of an Old ale or Porter around 5%abv, but am not a great fan of too much in the way of coffee overtones.
Any suggestions , or better still one of your favourite brews that fits the bill would be most welcome.
Thanks gazbo

[MightyMouth]

No exactly what you are looking for by my recipe which I call Titan Stout is a nice sweet stout. It does have a little bit of coffee flavour but more liquorice and chocolate flavours.

Brew length 18L
O.G. 1.080

Grain
5 kg Maris Otter
450g Black Malt
450g Crystal Malt
350g Munich Malt

Hops
50g Northdown 8.4% 52.6 IBU 60 minutes

Yeast
24g s-04

[kevthebootboy]

Aup, have a look at what i just made for xmas,may be completely wrong but it might give you some insperation ?

viewtopic.php?f=24&t=26412

hope it helps, kev

[lancsSteve]

Been thinking exactly the same thoughts myself. Found this one deeper in the archives of this bit of the forum which sounds tasty and very festive

Here's a right good one that three of us did last year. None of the candle smell that I hate in a Christmas brew. Pale extract was added late in the boil to boost the gravity as my mash tun wasn't big enough to handle all the grain for a 10 gallon batch. Note: this batch was a 10 gallon batch split among three people and fermented three different ways. The guy who followed the directions below had by far the best brew. I let mine just sit in the basement and it turned out the least desirable of the three. Still great, just not as good as it could have been.

Batch Size: 37.85 L
Boil Size: 45.43 L
Estimated OG: 1.091 SG
Estimated Color: 18.1 SRM
Estimated IBU: 37.3 IBU
Brewhouse Efficiency: 72.00 %
Boil Time: 60 Minutes

Ingredients:
------------
Amount Item Type % or IBU
2.72 kg Pale Liquid Extract (3.5 SRM) Extract 18.85 %
10.89 kg Pale Malt, Maris Otter (3.0 SRM) Grain 75.39 %
0.68 kg Caramel/Crystal Malt - 80L (80.0 SRM) Grain 4.71 %
0.15 kg Black (Patent) Malt (500.0 SRM) Grain 1.05 %
85.05 gm Centennial [10.40 %] (60 min) Hops 37.3 IBU
0.26 tsp Cloves (Boil 0.0 min) Misc
0.26 tsp Ginger (Boil 0.0 min) Misc
0.50 tsp Cinnamon (Boil 0.0 min) Misc
0.50 tsp Nutmeg (Boil 0.0 min) Misc
2 Pkgs SafAle English Ale (DCL Yeast #S-04) Yeast-Ale


Mash Schedule: Single Infusion, Light Body, Batch Sparge
Total Grain Weight: 11.72 kg
----------------------------
Single Infusion, Light Body, Batch Sparge
Step Time Name Description Step Temp
75 min Mash In Add 30.57 L of water at 71.9 C 65.6 C


Notes:
------
10.4 AAU's of hops
Mash at 148
After primary ferment is slowing down, slowly (5 degrees a day) drop temp. to 138 for three weeks. Transfer to secondary (or not) and raise temp to 158 for three days to clear diacytl). Then drop to as near 32 degrees as possible for additional two weeks

[Cheshire-cheese]

Here's a right good one that three of us did last year...
------
10.4 AAU's of hops
Mash at 148
After primary ferment is slowing down, slowly (5 degrees a day) drop temp. to 138 for three weeks. Transfer to secondary (or not) and raise temp to 158 for three days to clear diacytl). Then drop to as near 32 degrees as possible for additional two weeks

I'm possibly being a bit dim, but I'm not following the temperatures that I've coloured in red. Are they as read and what units are they in?
All I can think is that they are in Fahrenheit and are meant to be 38 and 58 respectively.

[lancsSteve]

^ Must be lagering instructions at 3C then raised to 13C... So not really anything like trad brit winter/xmas ale... Didn't spot that!

Found a good-looking extract recipe here:
http://www.celtnet.org.uk/recipes/brewi ... istmas-ale

Which gets its own thread here: viewtopic.php?f=5&t=16435 as it's STRONG!!!

And this along the way which is useful if not specific

Next up was the Brewery’s ‘Red Hat Spiced Ale’, a red beer made with bags of crystal malt and a fantastic mix of spices including ginger, nutmeg, cinnamon, orange peel and cloves. “The spice is added to the brewing kettle with the final hops, so the oils are slowly released from the spice, but the subtle volatiles are not driven off by prolonged boiling. The beer tastes like a mouthful of Christmas pudding!” The motor in Tony’s Magimix blew up with the effort of grinding the kilos of spice!
http://www.saltairebrewery.co.uk/html/f ... _ales.html

This german-style one sounds very interesting...

http://www.homebrewrecipeexchange.com/r ... 3b5d932a92

But really I'd like to make a slighlty more spiced version of St Peter's winter ale:

http://www.stpetersbrewery.co.uk/store/ ... 7&P_ID=188

The search continues...

[lancsSteve]

I'm thinking of doing this for xmas. His recipe is:

3700g MO
350g Crystal
250g Chocolate malt
240g Black malt
390g cane sugar

50g northdown [90 mins]

30g Asda mixed spice [15 mins]

Asda mixed spices have been specified because they are easily obtainable in a single container. They contain cinamon, coriander, nutmeg, cloves, pinetto, ginger and should be added in the last 15 minutes of the boil.
OG 1045
30 EBUs
mash temp 67 degrees
23L

Looks like the one for me - though will have to substitute hops... Have glacier, willamette, or challenger instead of northdown. Will prob use one of the small muslin bags of mulling spices as well and may swap out the black malt for special b as not sure there will be sufficient mellowing/ageing time...

[flytact]

Here's a right good one that three of us did last year...
------
10.4 AAU's of hops
Mash at 148
After primary ferment is slowing down, slowly (5 degrees a day) drop temp. to 138 for three weeks. Transfer to secondary (or not) and raise temp to 158 for three days to clear diacytl). Then drop to as near 32 degrees as possible for additional two weeks

I'm possibly being a bit dim, but I'm not following the temperatures that I've coloured in red. Are they as read and what units are they in?
All I can think is that they are in Fahrenheit and are meant to be 38 and 58 respectively.

Wow! YES those temps are Fahrenheit and are 100 degrees off! Probably should go higher on the diactyl rest.. The goal is to clean the beer out with the steady temp drop. Not a lagering issue at all. As I said in the original, following this made a fantastic beer.