Evergreens (spruce, fir, pine, cedar etc)

[unclebrazzie]

Yo peepz,

what with all the talk about spruce beers, I started a bit of research by refreshing what little of my botanical knowledge still remains.

Turns out the spruce is your typical christmas tree.
The pine is the one us backward Belgians refer to in the song about the christmas tree when, in fact, it is not.
And the fir is, well, something else again.

Confusing, even without linguistics getting in the way.

I've come to a point now where I can sort of dependably distinguish one from the other, but I'm wondering: can any of these conifers be used in brewing or is it just spruce?
Broadening the question: are there any conifers I should definitely avoid when it comes to brewing due to either unpleasant flavours or, Saint Arnoldus preserve us all, toxicity?

I know yews (Taxus) are toxic.

I also seem to recall Cigar City (and many Japanse sake breweries to boot) use cedar wood to flavour their brews.

I'm asking so that my quest for a piney-beer-actually-containing-piney-treeparts be not limited to just spruce tips, which are harder to come by than I'd like.

 

[myerstyson]

When I went through a survival school course years ago, they mentioned that you can make tea out of pine needles, but that you didn't want to drink too much. Sadly, I cannot remember why or what "bad" would happen to you. Sorry.

 

[sandyeggoxj]

Pine needle tea is very resinous and while it is high in vitamin-c it gets quickly overwhelming. My understanding is that this also applies to fir trees (abies). Spruce is the best of the cold-weathrr conifers but even then only the young tips are worth brewing with. There are some varieties of juniper thst can also lend a good flavor to pale and ipa as well as the darker porter type beers.

 

[Sir-Brews-Alot]

Funny thing is everybody talks about using spruce tips, but the tips, have very little actual "pine" flavor to them. They are actually very mild and almost citrusy. Try one for your self. If you are looking to get an actual pine flavor into a beer, use the relatively new growth at the end of the boughs, but not the actual "tips" that sprout in the spring. Took me a while to figure out why my a Spruce IPA I was developing didn't taste piney at all, lol. Now I wait until November or so, snip a few ounces of the first 3" or so at the end of the branches and add those to my beer. Makes for a nice Christmas-time IPA.

 

[mb82]

I tried cedar in a beer once. Lets just say that was the only time I will ever make that mistake.

 

[Spartan1979]

I've been using dried juniper berries in my holiday beer, but I can't say I'm real happy about it's contribution. Maybe I'll have to try the ends of the boughs as suggested above. I've got three huge Austrian white pines in my backyard.

 

[unclebrazzie]

...the tips, have very little actual "pine" flavor to them....

Yup, that's what I heard. Interesting, in that they impart a desired flavour which isn't easily traceable to its contributing ingredient.

I'm interested to try some of the pine citrus flavour for myself, as well as exploring the more resinous piney flavours if possible. I've been contemplating a retsina-styled beer for some time now, and my guess is that I'd need the more woody, resinous parts of the tree for that instead of the fresh young buds.

I tried cedar in a beer once. Lets just say that was the only time I will ever make that mistake.

Awww come on, spill the beans already!

 

[mb82]

Awww come on, spill the beans already!

Easiest way to describe the flavor of the beer. Walk up to a cedar tree, turn head sideways and then take a bite out of the tree. Chew it up. Yep that's about what the beer tasted like. I admit I probably used too much cedar and it was not the new shoots I used but still.

 

[unclebrazzie]

Cool.

Now, of course, my interest is piqued and I just have to brew with cedar but you already saw that one coming didn't you?

 

[mb82]

Cool.

Now, of course, my interest is piqued and I just have to brew with cedar but you already saw that one coming didn't you?

Go for it. Learn from my mistake, you don't need a ton of cedar to get good cedar flavor and aroma.

 

[Spartan1979]

I might try soaking some new pine growth in Vodka and then add it to the beer. That way I can taste it first and only add as much as I want.

 

[Sir-Brews-Alot]

Go for it. Learn from my mistake, you don't need a ton of cedar to get good cedar flavor and aroma.

Same with using spruce bough tips. I went with 2 oz last time I brewed it, it was pretty noticeable in the final beer, even with all the "piney" hops I used. Some people that I shared it with liked it that pronounced, but for me personally I will probably shoot for 1 oz total next time I brew it.

 

[solbes]

I used white sprice tips that had leafed out 1-2 weeks prior from the buds (late May/early June in north central Mn). They were light green, very soft, and easily distinguishable from the darker green growth from previous seasons. I think this is the appropriate stage to gather them in.

I find them a little citrusy, but also contributing to a definite "sprucy" flavor. With the amounts I added I detect a slight resin component to the taste. Maybe went a bit overboard in my holiday winter warmer, but I still like it. I used 4 oz at 15 minutes from flameout and 3 oz at flameout. They were added to a hop bag and placed in the boil kettle. Next time I would probably cut that by half or even two thirds.

 

[Darwin18]

I brewed a spruce beer last weekend using spruce tips from Spruce On tap (http://spruceontap.com/aboutus.sc). It was my first spruce beer and was pretty cool to add something besides hops or spices to the boil.

 

[solbes]

I looked at the Spruce on Tap link provided above. The Riff Raff brewing commercial brew used 1.3 oz of Spruce Tips per gallon of beer (2.5 lbs per BBL). The link also mentioned trying 1-2 lbs per BBL, which is between 0.5-1 oz per gallon of beer.

So for a 5 gallon batch, this recommends between 2.5-5 oz. Going at the rate Riff Raff used, it would be 6.5 oz which is pretty close to what I used. Good validation that what I brewed is probably on the strong side, but cutting it by half may be just about right. It also recommended adding them late in the boil (less than 15 minutes), which is also what I did.

 

[ChiefIlliniwek]

I brewed a winter porter kit from Great Fermentations that added dried juniper berries to the boil. I finally started drinking them over the last week, and I'm honestly not sure how I feel about it, I think it could have used more.

 

[Sir-Brews-Alot]

Yeah, I should probably mention I used Blue Spruce tips, which were much more pungent than the White Spruce tips that I also picked. I crushed a bunch of needles, smelled them, tasted them, made a tea with them. I felt like I like the character of the Blue Spruce better so went with those, I suspect the White Spruce would have been just about right at 2 oz. in a 5g batch, whereas the Blue Spruce were a bit much, IMO.