Winter Brew

For our second batch, we took a Belgian recipe and added some spices to it...curious how this one is going to turn out. Really hoping for a 'Winter' type feel from this one. Not quite sure how long we'll go in the secondary, after racking it.

Recipe:

3 lbs of Traditional Dark DME (LD Carlson Co brand) (half at 60 minutes, half at 20 minutes)
3.3 lbs Amber LME (Briess brand) (half at 60 minutes, half at 20 minutes)
1 oz Saaz hops (45 minutes)
1 oz Hallertau Tradition hops (20 minutes)
1 oz Hallertau Tradition hops (10 minutes)
1 lb orange blossom honey (10 minutes)
1 lb dark candy sugar (15 minutes)
1 lb crushed grain (Belgian blend) - 20% Crystal, 20% Belgian Aromatic, 30% Munich 20, 30% Special B
1 vial White Labs Trappist Ale
Spice mixture (2 oz fresh ginger, zest of 2 large oranges, tsp Ground Cinamon, tsp ground nutmeg, 1.5 tsp organic mulling spices (cinnamon, orange peel, allspice, ginger), sprig of rosemary) (5 minutes)

Some pictures at our blog!

We racked this last night...fermented down to the range we were shooting for. Surprisingly, the 'winter' spice wasn't very prominent. We opted to steep some additional spices in the secondary, to see if things got a little more seasonal. What it did have, however, was a bitter bite to it. Could just be green, or maybe the orange zest?