I'm Brewing My Christmas Ale Right Now!!

Here is the recipe. What do ya'll think? I am only about 20 minutes into the boil, so I can make a few changes if anything looks out of balance.

Christmas Celebration Ale 2006 – 2.5 Gallons

4.75 lbs. Pale 2-Row
1 lb Crystal 80
.25 lbs Cara-Pils
.5 lbs. Turbinado Sugar

.5 oz. Cascade (60)
.5 oz. Cascade (30)

Spices added at end of boil:
3/8 teaspoons Cinnamon
1/8 teaspoons Ginger
1/8 teaspoons Nutmeg
.25 oz. Sweet Orange Peel

Yeast: Windsor Strain

[edit: I was out of the Windsor yeast, so I used the Nottingham instead]

.... Well, any changes to the origional recipe from earlier post? Looks interesting and may give it a go this weekend. I have only partial mashed up to now, but should not have too much frouble due to the half batch.

o2

Hmm...missed it the first time but it does look tasty!

Thanks, guys. Nope, I did not make any changes except the yeast strain. I was a little heavy handed with the cinnamon, however.

The wort tasted great. I'll update the thread when I rack it to secondary - I am thinking about adding a cinnamon stick.

BTW, note that the recipe is 2.5 gals.

the good thing about cinnamon is that it mellows out with extended aging, especially of the cold variety. I made a winter warmer, and it tasted too cinnamon-y when racking to secondary---but I've been lagering for several weeks, and the cinnamon is barely showing.

Evan! said:

the good thing about cinnamon is that it mellows out with extended aging, especially of the cold variety. I made a winter warmer, and it tasted too cinnamon-y when racking to secondary---but I've been lagering for several weeks, and the cinnamon is barely showing.

Click to expand...

So, if it is just right at racking, I may want to add a cinnamon stick . . . to get it a little over-spiced if I am going to wait for Christmas to drink it.

Yeah, if you want the spice to really be showing, then go a touch heavy at first, and it will certainly mellow out, especially with extended aging. However, given that you just just recently brewed it, Christmas won't exactly be "extended aging", at least, in the terms I'm thinking about. My Warmer's OG was 1.095, and it had a ton of ginger in it. It doesn't look like yours is as high as mine was, so I'd back off a little on the spices if I were you. They take awhile to mellow out, and they may still be out of whack come xmas.

Would you recommend this for a beginner? I can follow directions well and can get all the ingredients, I'm just now familiar with the mashing part. If you don't recommend this for a beginner, is there another recipe you could recommend to me for the holidays. Thank you.

I don't think that there is anything too complicated here. I just measured out some spices and dumped them into the boil with about 10 minutes to go. Simple as that!

I actually plan on aging this stuff. I will probably have one or two this Christmas, but my plan is to have a selection of well-aged specialty beers (spiced/barleywine/etc.) around for the holidays. This is just the first year I've started with it.

Will the spices hold up until next Christmas? Or should I dose it hard in secondary if that is my goal?

Hey I made your recipe, but I modified it to be more "swill drinker" friendly:

Christmas Light – 2.5 Gallons

3 lbs. Pale 2-Row
.25 lbs Cara-Pils
.5 lbs. Turbinado Sugar

.5 oz. Cascade (45)
.5 oz. Cascade (15)

Spices added at end of boil:
3/8 teaspoons Cinnamon
1/8 teaspoons Ginger
1/8 teaspoons Nutmeg
.25 oz. Sweet Orange Peel (I guessed on this by just adding a whole orange zest)

Yeast: Nottingham

I racked to secondary last night and could only taste the orange. I poured off a little to taste and mess with, but I couldn't get the right amount of cinnamon. Maybe it's the ginger and nutmeg I want. I don't know.

I'm interested to see what you do, since you're two weeks ahead of me...

Thanks,
Matt

sonvolt said:

I don't think that there is anything too complicated here. I just measured out some spices and dumped them into the boil with about 10 minutes to go. Simple as that!

I actually plan on aging this stuff. I will probably have one or two this Christmas, but my plan is to have a selection of well-aged specialty beers (spiced/barleywine/etc.) around for the holidays. This is just the first year I've started with it.

Will the spices hold up until next Christmas? Or should I dose it hard in secondary if that is my goal?

Click to expand...

I brewed my christmas porter back in the beginning of November. At first I thought the spices were going to be to much. Now that it has aged a couple of weeks at room temp (with CO2:cross: ) and has been in the fridge for a couple more.....HMMMMMMM this is getting tasty. I used 1/2 Tbs of sweet orange peel, bitter orange peel, corriander, nutmeg, and pumping spice. All my spices were added 10 minutes before flame out.