Spruce Brew!

Hey guys I am going to do a brew special for family that loves going up to our cabin in Redfeather Colorado. I decided to do a Red Ale and Call it "Redfeather Red Ale". Since our cabin is in the beautiful mountain scenery I also think it will be a great touch to replace the flavor hops with fresh spruce tree buds.

I picked up the ingredients and am planning on picking the spruce tomorrow. I have a few questions. Should I boil the spruce like the flavoring hops? (My local HBS and The Complete Joy of Homebrewing agree on this method to impart more of the flavor. Or should I put them in the secondary? Or both?

Here is the recipe:

Extract:
8 lbs. Light Malt Extract

Grains:
1lb. Crystal Malt 80L
1/2 lb. Crystal Malt 120L

Hops:
1&1/2 Centennial- 60 minutes
Replace 1oz of Cascade hops with the fresh spruce!

Yeast:
White Labs California Ale Yeast (Liquid)

Let me know what you think guys!

I would do it in the boil and taste it going into the primary and after primary. If you think it needs more after primary put some in the secondary. I'm interested in trying this out as well, so please report back on your findings.

Good luck!

Will do man! I am pretty excited to see how it turns out. Most recipes I have seen with spruce are darker beers but I think the lighter body of the red may be good to let the spruce shine through a little more. Thanks for the help!

Redfeather Lakes! I am heading out there next month for a little fly fishing in Poudre Canyon. May be way too much water though. Might have to lake fish instead. My son lives in Ft Collins near Old Town. One of my very favorite places. Can't wait to get a buffalo burger and hang out at the Mish!

I put 11 ounces of spruce tips in an IPA with columbus bittering hops and a mix of amarillo and cascade in the flavor and aroma stages.

I just cracked open the fermenter to add some centennial dry hops and BAM! I got hit with some powerful aroma. I can't wait to try this out!

I hope your brew does well.

WhiskeySix said:

Redfeather Lakes! I am heading out there next month for a little fly fishing in Poudre Canyon. May be way too much water though. Might have to lake fish instead. My son lives in Ft Collins near Old Town. One of my very favorite places. Can't wait to get a buffalo burger and hang out at the Mish!

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Ah yea man Redfeather has some great fishing! You should be able to find some rivers with some great bends where the water slows and those big trout just wait! Hope you have a good time!

alexdagrate said:

I put 11 ounces of spruce tips in an IPA with columbus bittering hops and a mix of amarillo and cascade in the flavor and aroma stages.

I just cracked open the fermenter to add some centennial dry hops and BAM! I got hit with some powerful aroma. I can't wait to try this out!

I hope your brew does well.

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Oooh man that sounds like a damn good beer. Definitely let me know how that turns out! Thanks!

I did mine with Blue Spruce Tips at 60, 20 & Dry Sprucing for 7 days with NO HOPS. It's bottle conditioning now, we will see how it turns out!

wyzazz said:

I did mine with Blue Spruce Tips at 60, 20 & Dry Sprucing for 7 days with NO HOPS. It's bottle conditioning now, we will see how it turns out!

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That sounds very interesting! Let me know how it turns out!

8lbs of LME, that'll be a hell of a beer . There's a few good posts around on spruce beer, and I found this one helpful https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f12/spruce-tips-popping-do-i-dare-60942/.

I made the basic spruce beer from "The Complete Joy of Homebrewing" over the winter, and couldn't get ahold of spruce tips so I used spruce extract from my lhbs. If your beer isn't sprucy enough, spruce extract might be an option but add to taste by very small amounts. The blue spruce in my yard just started to grow some tips, so I think I'll brew this again using real spruce tips now...

Just cracked my test bottle open, there's a little lack of carbonation but it'll be there in a few days. It smells great, lots of Piney/Woodsey aroma, and tastes just the same. It's an amber colored beer about 14SRM. I used WLP041 Pacific Ale and it gives this beer a light malty backbone, that brings the Spruce Flavor out nicely. I'll definitely make this again!

wyzazz, would you mind sharing out your recipe so we can compare to the one that was posted at the start of the thread?

These are my brew notes for the batch I made with spruce extract:

7lbs dark LME (60 min)
2oz Northern Brewer (60 min)
1oz Norther Brewer (15 min)
1lb honey (0 min)
1pkg safale us-05
2.5 tsps of spruce extract (keg\bottle)
->Directions called for 1tsp\gallon, but that would have been way too much

OG: 1.052 @ 78F
FG: 1.014 @ 68F

Here's what I'm planning on brewing up this weekend with fresh spruce tips:

1.5lbs Crystal 80L (Steeping)
5lbs DME (60 min)
2oz willamette (60 min)
2oz spruce tips (60 min)
2oz spruce tips (30 min)
1oz spruce tips (15 min)
1oz spruce tips (0 min)
2lbs honey (0 min)
1pkg Nottingham

"The Complete Joy of Homebrewing" has 4oz of tips for 60 minutes, so I was thinking about kicking it up a bit with 6oz across the boil. Any thoughts?

Here's the one I used, if you want to go AG then substitute the DME for 10lbs of 2-row.

SpruceBrau

Boil Volume: 6.55 gal Boil Time: 60 min

6 lbs DME Pilsen Light (Briess)
2 lbs Caramel Malt - 60L (Briess) (60.0 SRM)
5.00 oz Spruce Tips (Secondary 7.0 days) Misc
5.00 oz Spruce Tips (Boil 5.0 min) Misc
5.00 oz Spruce Tips (Boil 60.0 min) Misc

White Labs #WLP041

Measured Original Gravity: 1.060 SG
Measured Final Gravity: 1.015 SG
Estimated Color: 14.1 SRM
Actual Alcohol by Volume: 5.87 %

wyzazz said:

Here's the one I used, if you want to go AG then substitute the DME for 10lbs of 2-row.

SpruceBrau

Boil Volume: 6.55 gal Boil Time: 60 min

6 lbs DME Pilsen Light (Briess)
2 lbs Caramel Malt - 60L (Briess) (60.0 SRM)
5.00 oz Spruce Tips (Secondary 7.0 days) Misc
5.00 oz Spruce Tips (Boil 5.0 min) Misc
5.00 oz Spruce Tips (Boil 60.0 min) Misc

White Labs #WLP041

Measured Original Gravity: 1.060 SG
Measured Final Gravity: 1.015 SG
Estimated Color: 14.1 SRM
Actual Alcohol by Volume: 5.87 %

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With no hops how is the balance? Do the spruce tips lend enough flavor?

Chrisdon said:

With no hops how is the balance? Do the spruce tips lend enough flavor?

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The spruce tips lend a TON of flavor & aroma, you can smell them as soon as you pop open a bottle!

Wowity wow wow wow. Just pulled a sample from the primary after a week and the beer has a very nice spruce finish- not piney at all and it reminds me of the finish on Alaskan's Winter Spruce. I changed the recipe a bit from what I originally posted by using two spruce additions:

1.5lbs Crystal 80L (Steeping)
3lbs DME (60 min)
1oz willamette (60 min)
5oz new spruce growth (60 min)
3oz new spruce growth (20 min)
1oz willamette (20 min)
2lbs DME (0 min)
1lb honey (0 min)
8oz washed Pacman yeast slurry

OG 1.052 @ 78F
FG 1.011 @ 68F

I'm going to go out today and see if I can conjure up another 1lb of spruce tips to store in the freezer. Last week l was able to find a few trees with really young tips that had a nice flavor- very soft and almost neon yellow, and hopefully I can find a few more .