Brewer's Best Holiday Ale Recipe

Okay, I'll admit it....I'm a newbie. This is my 2nd brew and the recipe is very different from the American Ale I made before. I'm trying to get something close to RJ Rocker's First Snow Ale.

The recipe came with the Specialty Grains, LME, DME, corn sugar, spice packet (I added 1 tsp of ground cloves), hops, and yeast. I followed the recipe EXACTLY until I got to the Flavoring Hops boil and realized that I still had not used the DME and the sugar. I read through the recipe again 3X and nowhere did it say to add these! So, I added them in the last 5 minutes of the boil. Am I screwed??

the sugar was probably your priming sugar.( how much was it?) You are fine anyway. The hops will come thru just a tad stronger, but you probably won't notice a difference. Either way it is easy to make a mistake, but hard to not end up with beer at the end. I love this hobby.:rockin:

The 1 lb. bag of corn sugar had a label that read "reserve some sugar for bottling - refer to recipe". That's nice because the recipe didn't refer to the sugar AT ALL! Aaaargh! I could only assume that meant that I was supposed to put some sugar in during the boil, right? I remembered that I had 5oz of sugar for bottling the last batch, so I threw 11 oz. of the corn sugar and the DME in the pot with 5 minutes to go.

well that sux on the recipe, but all in all I think you will be just fine. When you add the sugar at the end like you get more AA value( bittering) out of the hops, but other than that there won't be much change. RDWHAHB, I bet in a few more weeks you will still end up with a tasty brew.

I just brewed this one last week. The corn sugar is all supposed to go in. The kit should also have come with priming sugar in a separate bag so you don't need to save any of the corn sugar. Your hop utilization will be different than what was intended but you still made beer. Let it run its course and drink it.

I just brewed this same recipe last week and I had the same problem. This is probably my 6th brewing adventure and I've learned that you usually add all of the malt and corn surgar in at the same point, so i just added the DME and corn sugar in along with the LME. I dont know if it will effect your beer at all. In a previous batch, i missed the corn sugar and asked someone at the home brew store, and they said as long as i got the corn sugar in at some point in the boil, i'd be fine.
You might have a very malty taste to it, but at least the sugars will be in there for the yeast to eat. Good luck! You should post aftwerwards on the taste, i am curious to know how it comes out.

According to the recipe, you were to ignore the label on the corn sugar and add the full 1lb at the beginning of the boil. You did not do this, you added it with 5 minutes left. This is no problem at all, you got it it in. Many recipes have you adding in the DME and other dry stuff later in the boil (with 20 minutes left), not quite that late, but RELAX, everything is OK. Now, you will need 5 oz of priming corn sugar for bottling day in 2 weeks. Do you have this? If you don't, well you can use regular cane sugar. I'm sure others can chime in on how much cane sugar is equal to 5 oz corn sugar. Don't worry one bit, your beer is going to be great.

http://www.brewersbestkits.com/pdf/1049_Holiday_Ale.pdf

And whether you put in 11 oz or 16 oz corn sugar with 5 minutes left to boil is quit irrelevant, the yeast does not know the difference, 5 oz of corn sugar is not enough to make any difference to them.