All-Grain - Great Lakes Christmas Ale Clone - Page 3

slykwilli · 09-21-2011, 09:31 PM

Hey Shinglejohn, just a quick question: are you adding 3 sticks of cinnamon to the secondary? You're not making a "cinnamon tea" and adding that to the secondary ... correct? I'm going to be brewing this weekend and just wanted to make sure that I have everything lined up. Thanks for posting this btw

BarleyOH · 10-01-2011, 10:09 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Newbeerguy

Weird you said that about Dortmunder. I agree every bottle I seem to get just tastes plain bad. Everything else has been good, but the Dortmunder is hard to choke down.

Serving temperature is extremely important with Great Lakes Dortmunder - 48 degrees is recommended. They actually used this beer on their tour to demonstrate how serving a beer too cold can destroy the flavor.

**Julohan** · 10-02-2011, 12:46 AM

No temp is fine. Dortmunder sucks now. At least 50 minutes from the brewery it is, bottle or keg.

**scottatdrake** · 10-10-2011, 08:48 PM

Looks good. Planning on trying this out on Saturday.

Seems like there is conflicting information about where/when you add the cinnamon and ginger. Do you add at the last 5 min of the boil? Transfer to primary? Or just add to secondary?

Hop_machine · 10-10-2011, 08:53 PM

Just made this last weekend...the London ale yeast blew off my stopper three times. Crazy fermentation. I'm gonna just add the dry stuff to the secondary.

slykwilli · 10-10-2011, 08:57 PM

I ended up throwing the ginger in the boil and making a "tea" with the cinnamon sticks that I added to the secondary. Not sure how it will turn out, but I'm sure it will be ok.

FBSmith2000 · 10-12-2011, 02:30 AM

I don't have all-grain equipment so I used 2 lbs of the 2-Row and 8 lbs of extra light LME from the Brew Kettle. Kept all the same specialty grains, except used torrified wheat, and added an extra cinnamon stick (which I also transferred to the primary). I actually forgot to add the honey at flameout so I pasteurized while the wort cooled and added it to the primary with an OG of 1.083. I just bottled it at 1.016 and it tasted fantastic. This was by far the closest clone I remember brewing. Can't wait to compare it when Great Lakes releases the Christmas Ale.

dannerdave · 10-14-2011, 10:20 AM

I'll try this recipe. Looks great@

slothorentropy · 10-17-2011, 08:45 PM

Looking to make a Christmas Ale for gifts to the family this year, and this looks great. Been doing AG for about a year, but never did a spiced ale before. Any tips? Do the ginger and cinnamon go right into secondary for the whole 14 days? Are they put in whole, or do they need prepared?

Also, any thoughts on doing this with Danstar Nottingham? Seems like you'd want a clean, unobtrusive yeast.

FBSmith2000 · 10-17-2011, 11:08 PM

I never added the ginger or cinnamon to the secondary. They went in for the last few minutes of the boil then were transferred to the primary. I left the spices behind when I transferred it to the secondary.