1st Recipe Advice Appreciated (Chrismtas beer!)

[james1988]

Hello all,

I've done a small number of AG brews so far and I'd really like to start to produce my own beers and not rely on others for recipes. I've just knocked the following recipe up for a Christmassy beer. Ideally I'd like something with Christmas spice (not to over powering), malty and a bit of a hoppy kick to it.

For 23L I've come up with the following:
4.8kg of Pale malt - Main body of the beer
270g Carared - Malt and colour
270g Torrified Wheat for head retention

50g Cascade hops - Spiciness. I've really no idea how what quantity of hops to use.

Cinnamon sticks in the boil and steeped in the FV

Safale T58 Yeast for spiciness
Irish moss
Maybe Orange peel

Any advice would be hugely appreciated!

James

[Lugsy]

You should have a look at this one by kevthebootboy, I'm led to believe that it's a cracking Christmas pint. I'll be using the spicing to do a stout this year that I'll be adding rum-soaked oak chips to for a nice Jamaican feel

[james1988]

I've ordered the ingredients as curiosity got the better of me. I've upped the Carared to 540g to give it more oomph as it's not an ingredient I've tasted in a beer before so I'm interested in the effect it will have on the beer.

James

[Barley Water]

Well I would advise keeping the bitterness and hop flavor down if you spice, it just tends not to mix so well. By the way Lugsy, a little molasses will also give you a bit of the rummy action and would work in a stout. I just made an Olde Ale and you can taste the little bit I put in that beer. Now all I have to do is age it a year so I get some sherry action going, should be an interesting experiment.

[james1988]

In your experience, would you say it's a good idea to scale the hops back to 25-30g and boil them later or leave as they are and boil them for a full 90mins?

[Barley Water]

Well, it's a bit difficult for me to give you decent advice without knowing what your expected O.G. is going to be as well as the expected IBU's since I don't know your system. Generally speaking though, let's say you make a beer with an O.G. of 1.060 (most holiday beer is on the strong side since most want the beer to be a bit warming and infact many go much bigger than that). If you bitter it such that you have say 25-30 IBU's with no hop flavor or aroma that sounds about right to me. Anyway, that's an IBU/O.G. ratio of maybe a little under 0.50, you might use that as a guideline. That should let whatever spices you add stand out a bit and avoid clashing with the hops. By the way, I'm not sure I would use Cascade hops, they are going to add a grapefruit flavor to the beer and I wouldn't think that would not work all that well with cinnamon, maybe try a noble type hop that won't stand out that much and give smooth bitterness? When making beers like this, take a page from bakers of Christmas cakes and deserts, try to emulate the flavor of a favorite holiday treat in liquid form. Also remember that aroma heavily influences what people taste, you want a bit of cinnamon aroma if possible, not hops.

Incidentally, my holiday beer this year is going to be in Imperial Porter with bourbon, vanilla and possibily some oak (we'll see, it will be a gametime decision I suspect). The stuff is going to be hefty with an O.G. over 1.080, think brandy snifters by the fire once the weather turns cold (to the extent it ever does in Texas). For some reason, this year I have several larger beers on my schedule, I wonder what's up with that (did a Double Bock and an Olde Ale already)?

[james1988]

I'm in work at the moment so I haven't got exact numbers on me but I seem to think I was aiming for 1050. The reason I went with cascade was because I'd read that they provide a spicy flavour. I've got Target (I think), Bramling X and Saa already at home. Would you suggest any of those or should I order some different hops? I'm open to ideas

James

*Edited to include valuable info*
Christmas Beer Attempt 1

Original Gravity (OG): 1.050 (°P): 12.4
Final Gravity (FG): 1.013 (°P): 3.3
Alcohol (ABV): 4.91 %
Colour (SRM): 6.3 (EBC): 12.4
Bitterness (IBU): 19.6 (Average)

85% Pale Malt
10% Carared
4.99% Torrified Wheat

2.2 g/L Cascade (7.8% Alpha) @ 20 Minutes (Boil)


Single step Infusion at 66°C for 90 Minutes. Boil for 90 Minutes

Fermented at 20°C with Safbrew T-58


Recipe Generated with BrewMate

[Barley Water]

Well your expected bitterness should be ok for a spiced beer, just a bit more than a mass market lager. I would probably use a really smooth lager hop but you might get away with cascades since the bittering level is pretty low anyway. At some point, you really just need to brew it and see what you think, really that's about 90% of the fun anyway.

[weiht]

Go easy on the cinnamon in the boil, a little goes a long way. It can be overpowering and can add some bitterness and astringency if boiled too long.

[james1988]

Tomorrow is brew day! I'll use one stick of Cinnamon towards the end of the boil (probably the last 15 mins) and maybe use Bamling X instead. Hopefully all will go well!

James

PS: Thanks for the help chaps!

[Barley Water]

There is another way to add spices to beer that is a bit less risky. What you do is soak the spice in a neutral spirit (like vodka for instance) for about a week. Then you filter any crap out of the liquid and use it to dose the beer in the secondary or just before you package. Pull a sample of the beer and add a measured amout of the liquid spices. Once you get it the way you want it just scale up and do the entire batch. That way you can avoid ruining an entire batch if you add too much in error during the boil, just something to think about. Also of course, if you do it this way you will retain more of the aroma, generally a good thing.

[Dr. Dextrin]

With a Christmas pudding type flavour, I'd just go with Fuggles hops. Tried and tested and they won't argue with the other ingredients.

[crafty john]

I would steep the spices at flameout for 40 minutes or they may overpower the malt and hops.

[james1988]

Thanks all, I'm just about to get started. I don't think I have any Fuggles left. If I have I'll use those instead.

James

*Edit*
Found some Fuggles (I've only got 40g) so I'm going to use those and I found some Nutmeg so I'll add a teaspoon after the boil.

So the recipe now stands as follows (to make for easier reading):

For 23L, aiming for OG of 1050:
4.8Kg Pale Malt
530g Carared
270g Torrified Wheat
2.5L Water / kg
Mash 90mins

40g Fuggles @40mins
2 Cinammon sticks steeped for 40mins at flameout
1tsp of Nutmeg at flameout
Boil 90mins

1 Stick of Cinammon in the FV (tasted daily)

Hopefully this will work

[crafty john]

I think you are overdoing the spices, here's my recipe I did last year viewtopic.php?f=2&t=45386 as you can see I used far less spice than you are proposing and it turned out spicy enough. If you have already added the cinnamon sticks at flameout I would personally forget the extra stick in the FV, mind you it all depends how much of a spice head you are.