Allspice

Brewing a Tripel this weekend and was planning on adding a little Allspice hoping to achieve a bit of the Unibroue spiciness. Not sure La Fin Du Monde has Allspice, but thought I would give it a shot anyway. My questions:

1. Anyone every brew with Allspice? Experience?
2. How much to add?
3. When to add it?
4. Any other suggestions for a La Fin Du Monde clone?
5. Ground spice or whole berries?

As always, thanks!

I'd stick with coarsley crushed Grains of Paradise, coriander and sweet or bitter orange. Add with 10 minutes remaining in boil. Start with .1/.2 oz of coriander/GOP and .25/.3 of orange. You can always add to secondary if this is not enough. It's really about the Belgian yeast not the spices. Just a hint makes for a nice Tripel. Check out my drop down for some reference...

Thanks for the reply. My only concern is that I do not want this beer to taste like a Belgian Wit and I fear the coriander and orange will do that. Did you not find that to be the case in your recipe?

Well most the spice should come from yeast and temperature control.

But that dose not answer the question. This is what I would do:

Make a tea with some water and some allspice berries. Crush a few and boil for two minutes in water to simulate a late addition. Let this cool then sip a little, then a big gulp then sip and swirl and spit. This should give you an idea of what the process will add to a beer.

You could also buy a clean example of triple, maybe something accessible like New Belgium. Chill the bottle (to retain CO2). Get your capper ready and some bottle caps. Add a crushed berry or two to a bottle, recap and let set warm for a week. Then chill this down and sample. This will give you an approximation of what you should expect from a "dry" addition of the berries.

If you go with the dry idea and you are worried about sanitation, just crush your addition and let set in a tine splash of starsan solution. Or a soak in some vodka for a day or two.

There are other techniques, you could make a tincture or extract, but that is getting complicated.

Sorry I don't have better suggestions or actual reference info, but I have never done this. So all I can offer are my techniques for experimenting with additions.


I wouldn't grind the spice, but rather crush them coarsely between two hard surfaces. That is what I do for Allspice when I cook with it.

It won't taste anything like a wit if you use a Trappist yeast...

good point. Any preference for the bitter vs sweet orange peel? Thanks for the help, btw!