Loup
Well-Known Member
A while back, a friend asked me about making a beer using traditional root beer spices.
I picked out a recipe to base my beer recipe on, but I'm trying to figure out how to cut down on the spicing so it doesn't end up becoming so overpowering as to make the beer taste like crap.
I'm thinking, my best bet for doing this would be to cut the amount of spicing based on the amount of estimated residual sugar.
I've already figured out my malt bill, and according to beersmith, my OG will be 1.064 and est. final gravity will be 1.008.
The root beer recipe I found ends up with a gravity at about 1.055
55/8 = 6.875, so I could just divide my spicing amounts by that, but, FG is just gives you apparent attenuation, it doesn't give you the actual amount of residual sugar. Not to mention, I'm not using sucrose, per the original soda recipe, I'm planning on using DME, which has somewhere between 30-50% the relative sweetness of sucrose, and I'll be using a small amount hops (was thinking of aiming at roughly 7-8 IBUs) as well, which will offset the sweetness a bit as well.
I was originally thinking of just dividing my spicing amounts by 5, but the more I'm thinking about it, I'm starting to think, maybe I should divide my spices by something more like 10, or maybe even more.
I'm hoping someone out there might have have some insights or guidance with this.
I picked out a recipe to base my beer recipe on, but I'm trying to figure out how to cut down on the spicing so it doesn't end up becoming so overpowering as to make the beer taste like crap.
I'm thinking, my best bet for doing this would be to cut the amount of spicing based on the amount of estimated residual sugar.
I've already figured out my malt bill, and according to beersmith, my OG will be 1.064 and est. final gravity will be 1.008.
The root beer recipe I found ends up with a gravity at about 1.055
55/8 = 6.875, so I could just divide my spicing amounts by that, but, FG is just gives you apparent attenuation, it doesn't give you the actual amount of residual sugar. Not to mention, I'm not using sucrose, per the original soda recipe, I'm planning on using DME, which has somewhere between 30-50% the relative sweetness of sucrose, and I'll be using a small amount hops (was thinking of aiming at roughly 7-8 IBUs) as well, which will offset the sweetness a bit as well.
I was originally thinking of just dividing my spicing amounts by 5, but the more I'm thinking about it, I'm starting to think, maybe I should divide my spices by something more like 10, or maybe even more.
I'm hoping someone out there might have have some insights or guidance with this.
