Spruce tips cont...

A few weeks ago I clipped some spruce tips from per some suggestions in here. Currently they are frozen waiting to be used.

I have a nice Pale Ale that I regularly make and I thought it would be interesting to add the spruce tips to mod the flavor slightly. I also understand that it's real easy to go too far. If I were to go with my regular recipe for a 5 gal batch (6 lbs extract, cascade and columbus, WLP001) how exactly does one go about adding this to a batch without screwing things up?

Any thoughts?

I would wait until the beer is ready to keg/bottle. Pour near boiling water over the thawed out tips to steralize them. Let them steep for a while to make a tea of sorts. Pour the liquid directly into the carboy and give a gentle swirl. Taste it. Keep adding more of the liquid until it's how you want it.

cvstrat said:

I would wait until the beer is ready to keg/bottle. Pour near boiling water over the thawed out tips to steralize them. Let them steep for a while to make a tea of sorts. Pour the liquid directly into the carboy and give a gentle swirl. Taste it. Keep adding more of the liquid until it's how you want it.

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Oh I see...sort of like dry hopping with spruce tips...great idea.

Thanks!

How did this turn out with the spruce tips dry hopping technique? I am intrigued.

macabra11 said:

How did this turn out with the spruce tips dry hopping technique? I am intrigued.

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I had to pass this time around. I had to get it out of the fermenter and into the keg with no time to spare. I do intend to try this though. Hopefully on my next batch of PA I can actually follow through on it.