Holiday Beer.... with spruce

[cowboymcd82]

Hey everyone. So, I'm pretty new to brewing, but I was thinking for my next beer, I'd make a Christmas pale ale. I plan to use a fairly basic pale ale recipe, sort of based on my last recipe; but I wanted to add some spices, and one thing I read about here that sounded interesting is spruce. I figured, why not?

I did search through the forums for information, and with that, put together what (I think) might be a good recipe; though, what I found wasn't always very specific, mostly "don't use too much." So, I wanted to run this by you experts to see what you thought of it:

---------------

Malts:
4lb Pale LME
2lb Amber LME
1/2lb Crystal 60L

Hops:
60 min -- 3/4oz Chinook pellets @ 11.5%AA
30 min -- 1/2oz Simcoe leaves @ 11.9%AA
15 min -- 1/4oz Simcoe leaves @ 11.9%AA

For yeast, I used Munton & Fison ale yeast for my pale ale before.... but I'm open to suggestions (I picked it because of a recipe, and because it's dry yeast...)

And finally, some spices..... vanilla, nutmeg, cinnamon. If I added 1/4 tsp or 1/2 tsp spruce extract, does that sound about right? Should I add less? Or maybe increase the malt amount (since this recipe comes out to 40 IBU as well as spruce, maybe that would balance it out? I sort of imagine the spruce flavor adding to the hoppiness). I do tend to like my pale ales a little more hoppy, though.

What do you think? Thanks in advance!

 

[wyzazz]

I've heard of bad experiences with Spruce Extract, but I do make an all Spruce beer with fresh Blue Spruce Tips in the Spring.

 

[cowboymcd82]

Yep, that'd be ideal, but since it's not spring, I can't really do that.... if this beer turns out decent, though, I think I'll make it again in the spring with real spruce and age it until next Christmas.

I read that you just want to be really careful adding it. I think I'm going to add just a very, very little bit to the very end of the boil. If it needs more after it's fermented, I'll add a little more then.... and again at bottling if necessary. Worst case scenario, I have beer, haha.

I just wanted to see what ya'll thought of this plan; if the hops, malts, and the amount of spruce I'm looking at seems balanced (I'm thinking around 1/6 tsp now)

Thanks

EDIT: I just thought of something. Any thoughts on "dry-sprucing" with tips harvested now? I understand that the reason you want new tips is because they give bad, rancid flavors to the beer, right? If you toss them in at the end of fermentation, much like dry-hopping a beer, wouldn't it just give it a piney aroma, and add very little to the flavor... and thus, not give it the bad flavors that mature tips would? Just a thought....