Winter Seasonal Beer Holly (Christmas Ale)

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Pyg said:
I am going to give this another shot.
the version I made last year had a few differences than the Original post.
I had used 2 oz cascade @ 60 & .5 saaz @ 5 min
I cut the abv to 6% ( i don't have the equip to handle 13#)
I also used 1 oz of can-ginger-orange.
(of course I f-ed up and used 1 oz ginger powder instead of root)

SO, Some questions.
how much of a difference does making a spice tea vs adding spices at end of boil make?

wil this brew suffer if I cut the 2 row from 13# to 10#?
(I may have to do brew in a bag in 1 kettle and steep all other special grains in a separate smaller kettle)

Does 1 tbs of orange peel-ginger & cinnamon add a prominent spice flavor?
I was thinking of adding 1 oz a piece as per my original recipe, but this time adding a vanilla bean!

I hope to brew this by end of Sept!
Click to expand...

If you added the spices with 15 minutes left in the boil I think you're going to boil off a lot of the aromatics that make this beer so special. And if you toss them in at flameout I'm not sure you're going to get the same utilization of them.

The spice tea is nice because you are able to get lasting flavor and aroma from your spices. I have made this four years in a row, always using the tea method, and it is always my "customers'" favorite beer of the year. YMMV
 
BrewCityBaller said:
If you added the spices with 15 minutes left in the boil I think you're going to boil off a lot of the aromatics that make this beer so special. And if you toss them in at flameout I'm not sure you're going to get the same utilization of them.



The spice tea is nice because you are able to get lasting flavor and aroma from your spices. I have made this four years in a row, always using the tea method, and it is always my "customers'" favorite beer of the year. YMMV
Click to expand...


I will take your word for it,
I will follow the recipe as written.
I will fight that evil inner voice to "add more spice, more hops,more, more,more!!!"

But a serious question:
Since I won't be able to get my hands in "bagged whole hops" for brew day,
Do I use the same amount in pellets?
Thanks for info
 
Pyg said:
SO, Some questions.
how much of a difference does making a spice tea vs adding spices at end of boil make?
Click to expand...

There's a bunch of posts on this recipe talking about how good the spice tea is -- I would do it. Especially since the spices are tuned to be used with a spice tea, not in the boil. From what I've read, the spices are just right.
 
Pyg said:
I will take your word for it,
I will follow the recipe as written.
I will fight that evil inner voice to "add more spice, more hops,more, more,more!!!"

But a serious question:
Since I won't be able to get my hands in "bagged whole hops" for brew day,
Do I use the same amount in pellets?
Thanks for info
Click to expand...

You want the same number of IBU as the recipe. Pellets typically have better utilization (transfer more IBUs) than whole hops, so you'll probably want slightly less by weight. I usually plug the recipe into bewersfriend and tune the hop additions to match the recipe's required IBUs. You can set either whole or pellet hops as one of the options there.
 
Yes make the tea! I had this on tap for about 6 months. The flavor lasted for about 5 months. Even when the flavors started to fall out, it was still really good. This is a solid beer and I would follow the recipe as close as possible.
 
Brewed this weekend and ended up getting a little better efficiency than planned. Fermenting away at about 66 right now. Probably won't keg until late October. I don't have a French press for the tea. Has anyone used another method? I have an aero press but it's not that large. I apologize if this has been addressed in prior posts. I haven't sifted through the entire thread.
 
Pyg said:
Got all the ingredients.
However 1 question:
"1 cinnamon stick"
Is that a big stick, small stick?View attachment 371268
Click to expand...

Ha! good question. I made the tea and kegged this yesterday - used a 'medium diameter' sized stick about the length of one in your bag there, and broke it into pieces. Let it sit in the keg for several hours before adding gelatin for fining...hoping the gelatin addition doesn't counteract the tea.
 
Brewed this morning.
Only changes were
8# 2 row
3 # dme
SG of 1.084

Tried to keep ibu about 40
1-oz 60
.25 oz @ 30
.25 oz at 15
.5 oz @ 5
 
I also brewed this morning! Four years in a row now. Didn't quite get the book off I expected so it came in a little low at 1.072 OG. Should bring it to around 8% ABV. Maybe this year I can drink more than one without feelin it...
 
Just brewed it this weekend. Did BIAB and adjusted the 2-row (added 2lbs) to hit 1.078. I used WLP007 because I wanted the English flavors and it is supposed to be pretty alcohol tolerant. Usually not a fan of "brown" beers, but the raving reviews pushed me to try it.

I was going to add the spice tea to the secondary as I keg and will have pumpkin beer on tap till November. That is acceptable, right?
 
OK, so this one is a winner! After a week in the keg, the flavors haven't fully melded, but it's still pretty great. I used powdered ginger (forgot to go buy fresh), boiled the tea in an Erlenmeyer, and just poured it through a sanitized strainer (versus the french press). The ginger is a bit overpowering right now, hoping that fades back some going in to the holidays.
 
Is this a recommended 3 week primary?
Or done when it is done?
 
Pyg said:
Is this a recommended 3 week primary?
Or done when it is done?
Click to expand...

Since it's a pretty high OG I usually give mine three weeks, even bringing the temp up a few degrees the last week. I want to make sure it's finished and everything is cleaned up. US-05 is a quick worker, though, and you could probably get away with sooner. This is probably even more true the longer you bottle condition.
 
SG was 1.084
FG is 1.022
ABV of 8.14%
Gravity is after 2.5 weeks and has not moved in days.

Sound about right?
 
This Christmas batch sounds delicious! I would like to know what you would think about getting a kit and modifying it to a Christmas Ale. What would you need to do?
 
Pyg said:
SG was 1.084
FG is 1.022
ABV of 8.14%
Gravity is after 2.5 weeks and has not moved in days.

Sound about right?
Click to expand...

US-05 is a workhorse, especially if you pitched 2 sachets. I would guess it's done.

charlieisshakingme said:
This Christmas batch sounds delicious! I would like to know what you would think about getting a kit and modifying it to a Christmas Ale. What would you need to do?
Click to expand...

You could find a brown ale kit and then add the spices to it at bottling, but I'm not sure you'd get the same effect. If you went that route you might consider easing up on the roasted malts, depending on the recipe.
 
Brewed this three weeks ago and am getting ready cold crash and add the tea. The question I have is about aging it for a few months. Should I keg it and age it under CO2 in my keezer or age it in a carboy in the basement and keg around xmas time?
 
Garmoni said:
Brewed this three weeks ago and am getting ready cold crash and add the tea. The question I have is about aging it for a few months. Should I keg it and age it under CO2 in my keezer or age it in a carboy in the basement and keg around xmas time?
Click to expand...

I would personally age it under CO2. If it's aging in bottle then it's aging under pressurized CO2, so I would replicate that process. The only thing I'm not sure of is if aging it cold will have any effect on the flavors.
 
For all you bottlers, what level do you carb to?
Brewers friend calculator indicates spice beer should be at 2.2.
 
I would go with 2.2. I haven't made this recipe but sounds like that would be ideal, don't want it to "flat" like a porter or stout or to the level of an IPA.
 
Complete brain fart while making the tea.
I know in brewing that we mostly do everything by weight.
So is the tbsp actually a tablespoon worth or the weight equivalent of a tbsp (1/2 oz)
When I measured 1 tbsp it came out to be 1/4 of an oz in weight
.View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1476657903.231723.jpg
???

UPDATE.....
SWMBO talked me into following the recipe as written.
I chopped up everything and used a tbsp.
There all in a bowl
View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1476660551.123392.jpg
 
Pyg said:
Complete brain fart while making the tea.
I know in brewing that we mostly do everything by weight.
So is the tbsp actually a tablespoon worth or the weight equivalent of a tbsp (1/2 oz)
When I measured 1 tbsp it came out to be 1/4 of an oz in weight
.View attachment 373754
???

UPDATE.....
SWMBO talked me into following the recipe as written.
I chopped up everything and used a tbsp.
There all in a bowl
View attachment 373765
Click to expand...

DEFINITELY don't do 1/2 oz ginger. The ginger can get over powering in a hurry. Last year I used a tbsp and a half and it turned into a ginger bomb. It wasn't great. You have a keeper, she steered you right!

I bottled last night and I used 1/2 tbsp ginger, but I grate mine.

Did the spice tea smell amazing?
 
BrewCityBaller said:
DEFINITELY don't do 1/2 oz ginger. The ginger can get over powering in a hurry. Last year I used a tbsp and a half and it turned into a ginger bomb. It wasn't great. You have a keeper, she steered you right!



I bottled last night and I used 1/2 tbsp ginger, but I grate mine.



Did the spice tea smell amazing?
Click to expand...


I cut up the ginger as small as possible. And use 1 tbsp.
The tea smelled like ginger/orange with a hint of vanilla-cinnamon.
I tasted what would not fit in the bottle and there was a Definite honey flavor.
I will give this plenty of time to age.

Last year I made a "ginger bomb".
The recipe I used called for 1 oz of cinnamon-orange peel-ginger.
I accidentally used 1 oz of ginger powder and it over powered everything.

This stuff should be very drinkable on a cold day, even with a touch more ginger. Especially at 8.1%
View attachment ImageUploadedByHome Brew1476666921.579859.jpg
 
I did a quick search for yeast in the thread and it doesn't appear that there's ever been a clear answer given. I assume most are using a clean fermenting year, American Ale or S-05.

Any thoughts on using WLP090 or a Belgian strain, I'm thinking WLP545 as it's more or less become a house strain for me.
 
Hi everyone, maybe it's laziness, or maybe I don't want to boil off any of my precious beer, but has anyone made the tea using a brown ale or honey brown ale instead of using some of the fermented wort? I am thinking about doing this so I don't have to worry about potential infection. Plus then I have another pint of the good stuff to drink at the end.
 
CurrySomeFlavor said:
Hi everyone, maybe it's laziness, or maybe I don't want to boil off any of my precious beer, but has anyone made the tea using a brown ale or honey brown ale instead of using some of the fermented wort? I am thinking about doing this so I don't have to worry about potential infection. Plus then I have another pint of the good stuff to drink at the end.
Click to expand...

When you draw a quart of the beer to make the spice tea you are going to add it back into the bottling bucket, so there is zero volume loss. You are only boiling for a minute so I doubt much, if any, is lost to boil off. The only effect you will have is losing a little bit of alcohol. But even if you boil off all of the alcohol in the quart of beer (and I'm not convinced you will) you would only reduce your alcohol content by 0.4% in a 5-gallon batch. Even less so if your batch is bigger. You also definitely want to boil the spices and let them sit hot for 15 minutes. This draws out the flavor.

bolus14 said:
I did a quick search for yeast in the thread and it doesn't appear that there's ever been a clear answer given. I assume most are using a clean fermenting year, American Ale or S-05.

Any thoughts on using WLP090 or a Belgian strain, I'm thinking WLP545 as it's more or less become a house strain for me.
Click to expand...

Original recipe calls for US-05 and that's what I always use. The yeast character really takes a back seat to the spices and hops on this one, so I prefer something as neutral as possible. WLP090 would probably be great, but I personally wouldn't use a Belgian strain. I don't think a clove or banana character would play nice with the others.

Edit: Just saw that White Labs recommends WLP545 for Christmas beers. Very interesting. I wonder if that would be for unspiced beers. My personal opinion still stands, but it could make for a fun experiment.
 
I have never gotten banana or clove from 545, one of the big reasons I like it. I get more dark fruit and spicy phenols, not clove like spice though, maybe slight cinnamon...

I may just split that batch and see which i like more.
 
BrewCityBaller said:
When you draw a quart of the beer to make the spice tea you are going to add it back into the bottling bucket, so there is zero volume loss. You are only boiling for a minute so a doubt much, if any, is lost to boil off. The only effect you will have is losing a little bit of alcohol. But even if you boil off all of the alcohol in the quart of beer (and I'm not convinced you will) you would only reduce your alcohol content by 0.4% in a 5-gallon batch. Even less so if your batch is bigger. You also definitely want to boil the spices and let them sit hot for 15 minutes. This draws out the flavor.


I was planning on boiling the beer I bought, but I don't think that was clear in my original post. My beer will be in a carboy which will mean I would have to draw off a quart with a wine thief. I am worried about adding micro-organisms if I have to draw repeated with the thief. Do you think there will be any difficulty in flavours from the tea coming through if I use a different beer to boil as the base of the tea?
Click to expand...
 
CurrySomeFlavor said:
BrewCityBaller said:
When you draw a quart of the beer to make the spice tea you are going to add it back into the bottling bucket, so there is zero volume loss. You are only boiling for a minute so a doubt much, if any, is lost to boil off. The only effect you will have is losing a little bit of alcohol. But even if you boil off all of the alcohol in the quart of beer (and I'm not convinced you will) you would only reduce your alcohol content by 0.4% in a 5-gallon batch. Even less so if your batch is bigger. You also definitely want to boil the spices and let them sit hot for 15 minutes. This draws out the flavor.
Click to expand...


I was planning on boiling the beer I bought, but I don't think that was clear in my original post. My beer will be in a carboy which will mean I would have to draw off a quart with a wine thief. I am worried about adding micro-organisms if I have to draw repeated with the thief. Do you think there will be any difficulty in flavours from the tea coming through if I use a different beer to boil as the base of the tea?
Click to expand...

Ahhh I understand what you're saying. I was confused because your process is a lot different than mine. When I am transferring from fermentation to either my bottling bucket or a keg I just grab the quart of beer then. No need for a thief. Just another thought: at 8% ABV I would think there aren't too many microorganisms that could get in there and flourish enough to cause issues.

As for off flavors, I can't be sure. You would want to match the purchased beer as closely as possible, but even then you're still blending two beers. My gut says it's probably fine, but you won't really have any way of comparing or knowing.
 
I bought all my grains today, gonna brew tomorrow and hope this is ready by Christmas. The owner of my lhbs made a couple suggestions as far as tweaks so I figured I would post and see what those who have brewed this before think about them.

He suggested that I wait and add the honey a few days after the fermentation starts instead of at flame out, I think to preserve some of the aromatics and to help prevent a stuck fermentation.

He also suggested adding the spices to a few ounces of bourbon now, and then adding that to taste at bottling. Any thoughts on this vs the spice tea?
 
Mueltrain54 said:
I bought all my grains today, gonna brew tomorrow and hope this is ready by Christmas. The owner of my lhbs made a couple suggestions as far as tweaks so I figured I would post and see what those who have brewed this before think about them.

He suggested that I wait and add the honey a few days after the fermentation starts instead of at flame out, I think to preserve some of the aromatics and to help prevent a stuck fermentation.

He also suggested adding the spices to a few ounces of bourbon now, and then adding that to taste at bottling. Any thoughts on this vs the spice tea?
Click to expand...

The honey technique is a mainstay in Belgian beers that use candi sugar. After a day or two of fermentation you add in the candi sugar. The general consensus is that yeast eat simple sugars first (like what is in candi sugar and honey), so if you add the simple sugars at the boil they will be consumed first. There is a thought that the yeast can tire themselves out eating all the simple sugar and then not have enough energy to eat the complex grain sugars. Like getting full on hotdogs before you go to a steak dinner. If you have a proper pitching rate I don't think there are a lot of downsides to this, and little risk of a stuck fermentation. I think you'll be okay though. I have made this 4 years in a row, adding honey to the boil, and I have always reached my desired FG.

Adding the spices to hard alcohol is also a totally valid technique. The biggest downside to this is that your going to get bourbon flavors in your beer as well! If that's okay with you then go for it. If you wanted to avoid this you could use vodka instead. A decent quality vodka wouldn't add any flavor to the beer in low amounts. Either way you'll be fine.
 
Brewed a 10 gallon batch of this today, hit my OG dead on, I'm excited for this one. Gonna add the honey midway into fermentation. I'm conflicted on which technique to use for the spices though. I'm certainly not against a little bourbon flavor, but I don't want to deviate too much from the tried and true recipe. If I go with the spice tea for a 10 gallon batch would I just double everything?
 
Mueltrain54 said:
Brewed a 10 gallon batch of this today, hit my OG dead on, I'm excited for this one. Gonna add the honey midway into fermentation. I'm conflicted on which technique to use for the spices though. I'm certainly not against a little bourbon flavor, but I don't want to deviate too much from the tried and true recipe. If I go with the spice tea for a 10 gallon batch would I just double everything?
Click to expand...

Did you hit your OG numbers excluding the honey? Hopefully you already factored that in.

You're probably okay to double the spices, but I'd like to offer a word of caution on the ginger. Last year's batch I ended up with 6.5 gallons instead of 5, so I upped the ginger accordingly from 1 Tbs to 1.33 Tbs. I use freshly grated ginger. This was not a good move. It turned my beer into a ginger bomb and that was the first and last thing you tasted. Really disappointing. So this year I actually halved the ginger to 0.5 Tbs. All I'm saying is the ginger can be finicky.
 
BrewCityBaller said:
The honey technique is a mainstay in Belgian beers that use candi sugar. After a day or two of fermentation you add in the candi sugar. The general consensus is that yeast eat simple sugars first (like what is in candi sugar and honey), so if you add the simple sugars at the boil they will be consumed first. There is a thought that the yeast can tire themselves out eating all the simple sugar and then not have enough energy to eat the complex grain sugars. Like getting full on hotdogs before you go to a steak dinner. If you have a proper pitching rate I don't think there are a lot of downsides to this, and little risk of a stuck fermentation. I think you'll be okay though. I have made this 4 years in a row, adding honey to the boil, and I have always reached my desired FG.

Adding the spices to hard alcohol is also a totally valid technique. The biggest downside to this is that your going to get bourbon flavors in your beer as well! If that's okay with you then go for it. If you wanted to avoid this you could use vodka instead. A decent quality vodka wouldn't add any flavor to the beer in low amounts. Either way you'll be fine.
Click to expand...


So just to add to this, its not a general consensus that they eat simple sugars first, its just something known about saccharomyces. They will eat the Glucose, then Fructose first then onto the rest. After eating the simple sugars the yeast don't get tired, as they would be in a full swing of their cycle and at that point would have probably finished their reproduction phase. Switching over to maltose or other harder sugars is seamless in most cases(I say in most cases as not all yeast will eat all types of sugars and some have issues with others). The only reason they would stop feeding is due to a issue with oxygenation, under pitching, to low of a pH or they have reached an environment that is beyond their alcohol tolerance.
 
BrewCityBaller said:
Did you hit your OG numbers excluding the honey? Hopefully you already factored that in.

You're probably okay to double the spices, but I'd like to offer a word of caution on the ginger. Last year's batch I ended up with 6.5 gallons instead of 5, so I upped the ginger accordingly from 1 Tbs to 1.33 Tbs. I use freshly grated ginger. This was not a good move. It turned my beer into a ginger bomb and that was the first and last thing you tasted. Really disappointing. So this year I actually halved the ginger to 0.5 Tbs. All I'm saying is the ginger can be finicky.
Click to expand...

Yes I hit my expected OG exclusive of the honey. Thanks for the caution on the ginger, it's definitely the spice I'm most worried about. Out of curiosity did you taste the spice tea prior to bottling? I was thinking about making a test batch of the spice tea with water and adjusting the amounts of spices based on the taste.
 
jamaral141989 said:
So just to add to this, its not a general consensus that they eat simple sugars first, its just something known about saccharomyces. They will eat the Glucose, then Fructose first then onto the rest. After eating the simple sugars the yeast don't get tired, as they would be in a full swing of their cycle and at that point would have probably finished their reproduction phase. Switching over to maltose or other harder sugars is seamless in most cases(I say in most cases as not all yeast will eat all types of sugars and some have issues with others). The only reason they would stop feeding is due to a issue with oxygenation, under pitching, to low of a pH or they have reached an environment that is beyond their alcohol tolerance.
Click to expand...

Thanks for the amplification! I didn't know the science behind it and I didn't have a source, so I softened it with the general consensus :D Thank you for the explanation.

So with that being said, on this scale and in this case, would you expect any difference between adding the honey at flameout vs. a few days into primary?

Mueltrain54 said:
Yes I hit my expected OG exclusive of the honey. Thanks for the caution on the ginger, it's definitely the spice I'm most worried about. Out of curiosity did you taste the spice tea prior to bottling? I was thinking about making a test batch of the spice tea with water and adjusting the amounts of spices based on the taste.
Click to expand...

I did not taste my tea this year. That never even crossed my mind actually! Next year I'll have to give it a go, but this time it just went straight into the bottling bucket. Making a tea with water might not be a bad idea. If you end up doing that let us know how it goes.
 
I guess it really depends who you ask. A mead maker would tell you to never heat honey up due to loss of flavor and other chemicals naturally in honey. I'd say as long as you are cooling the wort directly after flame out and not letting it sit in 180 F or above for more than a few minutes that you should be fine. That being said I'm sure at that temperature Something changes with in the honey but it shouldnt be significant enough. Adding the honey during fermentation should be fine but I would make sure that the honey you're using Isn't completely raw. Being a sugar source honey is likely to have multiple strains of yeast/bacteria in it especially when raw.

So if it were me, if it were raw I would throw it in at flame out if it were not raw honey you should be OK putting it in primary fermentation as at that point most other bacteria will be outcompeted by the yeast that you pitched.
 

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