Quick Question Before I Start

Spyk'd posted this recipe that I'm getting ready to brew and I realized that I have a question. Actually, I have everything sitting downstairs ready to go


Ok, for better or worse, here's my Holiday Spiced Ale for all the world to see:

Extract:
6 lbs. Light DME

Specialty Grains:
1 lbs. CaraPils
1 lbs. Special "B"
1 lbs. Crystal Malt (80 Lov)

Additional Flavorings:
1 oz. Ginger root (not Mary Ann...please, although...)
.25 oz. Cinnamon Stick
.25 oz. Nutmeg
.10 Sweet Gale (she's sooo nice!)

Hops:
.5 oz. Wilamette @ 60 mins.
1 oz. Saaz @ 30 mins.
.5 oz. Wilamette @ 15 mins.

Yeast:
WY#1028 London Ale

Clarifier:
.83 oz.Irish Moss @ 15 mins.

There you go, for all you stuckers. Hope you give it plenty of time to mellow. Enjoy!


When do I add the "Additional Flavorings" category????

Do you put them in after you add the DME?

Thanks.

I do not know what the poster of the recipe intended but my GUESS would be to add it to the secondary. If you add flavoring/spices earlier, it would seem that the flavor would get scrubbed out by fermentation.

my .02

Thanks MrSaLTy.

Does anyone else have any ideas?

My grain is steeping right now......I guess I should have read the recipe more than 5 minutes before I started brewing.

I throw all the spices in the last 15 mins of my boil. This way you don't have to worry about sanitation and the oils are developed a little better. Make sure you repost when you sample going into secondary or bottles. Let us know how you like it!

Everything I have read indicates adding the spices in the last 15-20min of the boil too. You get a better extraction that way.

That's what I ended up doing, after receiving a PM from Spyk'd. Everything smelled wonderful after the spices were added. :rockin: I strained the wort when I transferred it to the primary and I must say, it was really thick.

It took some coaxing to get it through the strainer and I lost a little of the wort in the process, maybe about 8oz or so. I diluted everything up to 5.5g and ended up with an OG of 1.054 @ 72 degrees. Does that seem low, or is it just me?

Anyway, I'm looking forward to trying it, but I have to confess that I'm not much for spicy holiday beers. I'll let the taste testing up to my wife, since that seems to be about all she drinks.

That gravity seems about right. If you plug your recipe into the recipator (google that word if you don't have the link) it yields an OG of 1.056. So correct for your temperature and maybe your steeping efficiency was tad below 40% and there you have it (or your small loss of wort). Sounds like everything is going just fine.

I have a spigot and a bazooka screen in my brew pot, so things like clogging strainers are a thing of the past for me. Just open the valve and let it drain into the primary. I highly recommend it!


As far as the thickness and smell? Yeah, that beer is good enough to eat!