Orange Clove Beer for Fall - recipe help needed

I know I have had commercial brews that had orange and clove flavors in them, yet a google search gives me 0 hits when i try to find a home grain bill with it. I am new to the ad lib brewing (putting together recipes) but can follow directions pretty well. Any chance someone has done a recipe like this and will help me out or can concoct a recipe for me to follow? Please let me know, and I appreciate the help.

saisons, wits and various other belgain beers often have citrus and clove character to them - sometimes added, sometimes just from the yeast.

If I were looking to make a 'fall' beer, I might go with something like this:

8lbs pilsner malt
1lb flaked oats
1/4lb pale chocolate malt
1/4lb c-120
Mash low, ferment with Wyeast 3724

in the final 5 mins of the boil, add 1 oz bitter orange peel, 1oz sweet orange peel, 4 clove buds, 2 cardamom pods, 1/4tsp cinnamon

bitter to ~15 IBU of anything, 1/3 oz of Magnum should be about right for a nice neutral bitterness


Swap out the yeast to something cleaner if you're not into belgian saison character in your beer

Prosper,

I'm interested in this recipe but I'm really new to home brewing. Is this recipe for 5 gallons, and if so how can it be cut down to 2 gallons?

I'm just going to assume you put all of those grains in a bag and boil for an hour, then in the final 5 minutes you add the rest of those things (the spices and orange), remove the grain bag and ferment for 2 weeks?

that would be for 5 gallons, give or take (it depends what your efficiency is).

Use a recipe calculator to scale it down - hopville.com (beercalculus.com) is a good free one. A good starting point would be to divide everything in half, and assume a 75% efficiency.

That is an all-grain recipe, so you'd have to be set up to do a mash - you certainly wouldn't want to boil the grains - make sure you remove them before you start the boil. Basically, steep them for 60 minutes at about 150F, then remove and begin the boil. The 'brew-in-a-bag' technique would work for you (search the forum or Google for brew-in-a-bag pics and instructions).

In addition to the barley-juice, you'd also want to boil the bittering hops for an hour as well - again, a brewing calculator would help you figure out how much you need. 1/6th oz of Magnum would probably be in the right ballpark to get 15 IBU's out of a 2 gallon batch.

And, yeah - you got it. Add the spices and orange peel after you've already been boiling everything else for 55 minutes. Boil for 5 more minutes, then chill it, add the yeast, and wait.

So do a mash, gotcha. I was going to buy a muslin bag for this purpouse, I assume that's one way of doing it.

So to make sure I have it straight, I steep the grain for an hour at 150F, then boil the hops for 55 minutes, and continue to boil with the spices for 5 more minutes? Or do I steep for an hour, then boil the hope for an hour, THEN boil again (without the hops?) for 55 minutes and add the spices?

Thanks so much, you're really helpful!

Steep the grain for an hour at 150F, then boil the hops for 55 minutes, and continue to boil with the spices for 5 more minutes. That would be the technique.

I'm almost ready to start making everything, when I realized I didn't include any sugar in the recipe. Do I need to add sugar? If so, do I add it when I'm boiling the hops? Also, how much? From what I can gather, I'll need around a cup of sugar (I'm thinking brown) for a 2 gallon brew.

You're going to get the sugar from mashing the grains. You could add some brown sugar during the boil if you'd like. I suggest buying Homebrewing for Dummies and The Complete Joy of Homebrewing and reading them both cover to cover to understand the brewing process before moving forward. These books were invaluable to me when I began brewing. They have step by step instructions and include when the best time to add spices/fruits to your brews.

That's what I figured after some frantic research.

Well, I did the brew in a bag method and here's to hoping I didn't screw anything up. We'll know in a couple weeks when I taste the beer prior to bottling.

I'll definitely keep those books in mind as I continue.

You'll probably make okay beer just from reading the suggestions here. You'll make awesome beer if you study the books, practice, and ask for help here. These guys know their stuff.

MacGruber said:

You'll probably make okay beer just from reading the suggestions here. You'll make awesome beer if you study the books, practice, and ask for help here. These guys know their stuff.

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I know they do. I learn best through actually _doing_ something, so I can read 100 books before I try something, and I'll make the same mistakes I would have (maybe a couple fewer, but still most of the same) if I had never read.

Now, if I actually _try_ something and fail, and I can define why I fail, and do some light reading about why I failed, and try again - now there's where I learn.

That being said, I totally will.