Spruce Tips are Popping...Do I Dare???

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Wow! I remember this thread!!! :D

When you first started "daring" I thought it was going to be a bad bet! Now I'm looking at this thread and thinking.... Do I Dare?..... :mug:

My palate has changed so much in the past year!
 
It was a good beer. I recall that I think I should have gone with an extra 50% of the spruce and maybe done a higher, shorter mash to get the combination of a maltier toned pale with the tingle of the spruce.

Spruce is definitely a nice addition for some complexity.
 
Brewed up the following this week:

hopville . "Spruce Tip IPA" American IPA Recipe

I used a total of 5 oz of fresh spruce tips that I had frozen the night before. Missed the OG by 3 points for 1.060.

I tried the initial wort from the gravity sample. Sweet as I would expect, with a slightly different flavor, but I don't know if I could pick it out as being spruce. It'll be interesting to see what happens when it finishes.
 
Reminds me that I need to get off my lazy butt and harvest some spruce tips this year.
 
It was a good beer. I recall that I think I should have gone with an extra 50% of the spruce and maybe done a higher, shorter mash to get the combination of a maltier toned pale with the tingle of the spruce.

Spruce is definitely a nice addition for some complexity.

How much did you end up using? I saw the pile of "Spruce tips 15 min WTF", but didn't catch a final weight. Did you end up using the whole 4 oz? (in a 10-gallon batch, right?)
 
How much did you end up using? I saw the pile of "Spruce tips 15 min WTF", but didn't catch a final weight. Did you end up using the whole 4 oz? (in a 10-gallon batch, right?)

I think it ended up being about 5-6 ounces....but that is a 2-cup measuring glass...loosely packed, if that helps.
 
BierMuncher,
are you doing the recipe again this year and do you plan changes on the recipe, mostly about spruce tips quantity and/or addition schedule?
 
This has reminded me to pick some spruce, and to see if I can get my hands on that tree I found in the UP. The aroma from the needles was amazing! I should try to find some spruce beer and see what it tastes like, and make some and compare.
 
BierMuncher,
are you doing the recipe again this year and do you plan changes on the recipe, mostly about spruce tips quantity and/or addition schedule?

IF I were to do this recipe again, I would do two things:

1) Mash at a higher temp for a shorter time to get a fuller malt profile.
B) Add about 20% more of the fresh spruce tips.

This is a really good beer, but a stronger malt presence would compliment the spruce tips nicely.
 
I see the blue spruce trees are sprouting their new growth right now. I think im going to brew an IPA/APA with a bunch of spruce added to the mash. I have read that a "grocery bag" full of spruce tips is about right. I would like a LOT of pine/spruce aroma to come threw. Couple guys have told me to not add them to the boil, but I would think a late addition would be ok.
 
I see the blue spruce trees are sprouting their new growth right now. I think im going to brew an IPA/APA with a bunch of spruce added to the mash. I have read that a "grocery bag" full of spruce tips is about right. I would like a LOT of pine/spruce aroma to come threw. Couple guys have told me to not add them to the boil, but I would think a late addition would be ok.

From my limited experience using spruce tips, I wouldn't expect to get much in terms of recognizable piney flavor or aroma. It is much more citrusy/fruity than piney. It's good, just not piney.
 
Interesting. Ive had Shorts Imperial Spruce pilsner, and that stuff was like drinking a christmas tree!
 
Im doing an IPA, but im wondering if i should use "piney" hops like simcoe in the boil to accent the spruce, or use something else and try and let all the piney/fruitiness come from the actual spruce tips. Doesnt appear that many people have tried this, so i may just have to wing it.
 
One last valiant effort to get some feedback on this before brewday. Recipe I whipped up. Depending on how the spruce turns out, this could be a very piney IPA, or a very fruity one. The amarillo DH should help on the citrisy side.

"Just the tips' Spruce IPA

11 lbs. Golden Promise base malt
1 lb. Munich 10L
4 oz. Medium Crystal 50-60L
1/2 "Grocery Bag" Spruce tips

1oz Chinook @ 60
1 cup Spruce tips @60

1/2 cup Spruce tips @30
1oz Amarillo @ 15
1/2 cup Spruce tips@5
1oz Simcoe @ 0

2oz Amarillo DH
 
wish I could help out, but my experience is limited...I think it is a good experiment. Let us know how it turns out.

BTW be sure to chew on some of the tips to see what kind of flavor they have - this might influence your schedule/amounts.
 
wish I could help out, but my experience is limited...I think it is a good experiment. Let us know how it turns out.

BTW be sure to chew on some of the tips to see what kind of flavor they have - this might influence your schedule/amounts.

I picked a few new growth tips and boiled them in a cup of water to see what they would do. Their was essentially NO aroma or flavor to them. I even chewed on a few of the raw needles from the tip, same thing. On the other hand, the old growth needles were bursting with aroma and tasted piney(weird!), and slighty bitter. Those seem to be what a guy would go with to brew. Maybe its just the trees i tried, but I don't see how the new growth tips would impart ANY flavor into my beer. Super, super bland.
 
any thoughts on sap? my grandparents have a row of pine trees that are always bleeding sap thanks to a woodpecker. i'm lookin for a good apa or possibly red recipe to add the pine flavor and aroma to. it seems like spruce tips won't get the brew piney enough.
 
I made a really lite summer lawnmower beer last week. While cutting grass yesteday and going by my spuce tree, started wondering about adding some dry to one of my fermentors.

This beer will only be about 3.4% abv with a very light hop schedule.
I'm thinking of either soaking a cupfull of tips in vodka and adding to the primary or making a tea and adding.

Suggestions?????????

Bull
 
Dry hop with them! I just dry hopped my Spruce Budd Ale and will be bottling next weekend, I'll let everyone know what it tastes like but is smells amazing!
 
Mentor huh, that's not too far away. I'm in the sticks, Atwater/Randolph, if you're out my way you let me know too!
 
Don't they have a big swapmeet in Randolph each year? If so when is it? i think I went to it about 15 or 20 years ago.
Bull
 
It's at the fairgrounds about 5mins down the road, it happened a few weeks ago if I remember correctly.
 
I just took a sample for a gravity reading and have to say, for a beer with NO HOPS whatsoever I'm impressed! It tastes like a spruce branch smells when burnt over a campfire, minus the smoke. I like it, very crisp and clean, malty but with a crisp bitterness added from the spruce. 5oz at 60 mins, 5oz at 5mins, 5oz dry hopped. This will be an every year brew for sure!
 
I just took a sample for a gravity reading and have to say, for a beer with NO HOPS whatsoever I'm impressed! It tastes like a spruce branch smells when burnt over a campfire, minus the smoke. I like it, very crisp and clean, malty but with a crisp bitterness added from the spruce. 5oz at 60 mins, 5oz at 5mins, 5oz dry hopped. This will be an every year brew for sure!

That was with fresh spruce growth right?
 
Yep, Colorado Blue Spruce. The buds were 1.5" to 2.5" long when I picked them, I just kept popping one off every few days and eating it until they tasted "sprucy" enough.
 
Yep, Colorado Blue Spruce... ...I just kept popping one off every few days and eating it until they tasted "sprucy" enough.

Yeah, well I've picked up some but I was starting to doubt they could contribute to any interesting taste. They hardly taste piny, a very light greenish flavor... either it's a matter of growth timing or spruce specie...
 
I brewed my Spruce IPA last weekend. I kept picking the tips to see what kind of flavor then had. It was so slight that I said screw it, and cut down a few whole branches and took a scissors and pruned two pint cups full of needles, mostly old growth, as those had a ton of aroma and flavor, while the new growth just tasted like grass. I have no idea the exact amount, but i put 1/2 of one cup in a 60min, the other half at flame out. I also put one whole cup in w/ the mash. No idea if it will contirubte anything to the beer, or if i will ever really be able to tell as i used Simcoe and other "piney" hops. My gut tells me I should have used WAY for spruce for it to come threw. I tasted a gravity sample the other day, its piney of course, but from the hops or the actual pine, ill never know.
 
I brewed my Spruce IPA last weekend. I kept picking the tips to see what kind of flavor then had. It was so slight that I said screw it, and cut down a few whole branches and took a scissors and pruned two pint cups full of needles, mostly old growth, as those had a ton of aroma and flavor, while the new growth just tasted like grass. I have no idea the exact amount, but i put 1/2 of one cup in a 60min, the other half at flame out. I also put one whole cup in w/ the mash. No idea if it will contirubte anything to the beer, or if i will ever really be able to tell as i used Simcoe and other "piney" hops. My gut tells me I should have used WAY for spruce for it to come threw. I tasted a gravity sample the other day, its piney of course, but from the hops or the actual pine, ill never know.

I have been told that the growth after it gets "solid" and is no longer a new bud will contribute a turpentine-like taste. Just what I've heard though.
 
I had "heard" this as well. Only way to know for sure is to try it. Shorts Imperial Spruce used ONLY old growth spruce needles, as they picked the spruce in mid-summer and that stuff was top notch.
 
I've seen some folks use whole branches in the mash, who knows so many "myths" in the brewing world!
 
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