So far none......until possibly last night
I made a nice partial mash pale ale with more earthy, piney hop profiles (Simcoe & Fuggles). I have been wanting to experiment with adding cedar spirals to a brew, so now was my chance to make an earthy, danky pale ale to compliment the cedar. I just couldn't decide if I wanted to steep the cedar spirals or soak in rum and add to a secondary. I went to my basement, grabbed a red cedar log that I already had stripped the bark off of for another project, and used my draw knife to obtain 2 oz. of cedar spirals. I made sure to knife the sap wood and heartwood for equal representation.
I decided to steep them and my plan was to put the cedar spirals in a steeping bag, throw it in a gallon of water and steep from cold to 170 degrees, hold for 30 min., remove the bag of spirals, and add to the BK for the boil. I started the cedar steep on my stovetop inside. While preparing the equipment, the mash, etc., I lost track of time and my wife indicated that my cedar steep had just started boiling, so she turned it off immediately, so it only boiled for less than a minut. The cedar tea was an amazing color....a deep amber color (think Tahquamenon River) and since it had boiled I figured what the hell, it's sterile...just add it to the fermenter to top off to five gallons when I was done. I left the cedar spirals in the water for the next 1 1/2 hours while finishing up the mash sparging and the boil, until it fell back to room temp.
So I finished the boil, used my IC to cool it down to pitching temp., topped off with the cedar tea (minus the bag of cedar spirals) and water up to 5 gallons, aerated the hell out of it and took a sample for my OG. My OG was spot on and the wort had a noticeable, yet subtle smell of cedar. I sampled the wort and holy sh*t.......BITTER!
Not so much bitterness from the Simcoe, but just a resin bitterness that was strange and dominated the hops. I may throw an ounce of Simcoe and an ounce of Fuggles into a secondary and rack onto that to cover it up to some degree, but I haven't a clue what it's going to turn out like. It's chugging away right now fermenting and the aeroma is of hops and subtle cedar. I assume the bitterness is from tannins released from the cedar.....I hope to hell it tames down with age!
Advice or suggestions????