Pumpkin Spice Stout - How much spices?

[jcbogantes]

Hello there,

For my 5G batch of a Stout I used the next amount of spices:
1/2 tsp cinnamon
1/2 tsp ginger
1/4 tsp nutmeg
1/8 tsp allspice
1/2 tsp cloves

Yesterday I racked it into a secondary and the green beer tasted pretty good with the cinnamon and nutmeg flavors being the most prominent I think.
I've seen recipes where you use about the same amount of spices the bottling day.

Should I just go ahead and bottle it like that? Or should I use more spices the bottling day?

Thanks in advance,

 

[inkman15]

I've brewed a couple of pumpkin ales in the past and while it's a personal preference of how much spice aroma/flavor you want in your beer, I've found that doing a "spice tea" at kegging/bottling greatly helps the final product. I've been going with this at packaging time:

o ½ tsp cinnamon
o ¼ tsp ginger
o 1/8 tsp allspice
o 1/8 tsp nutmeg

Just boil them in about a cup of water, cool, and then rack the beer on top of them in the bucket or keg.

 

[porterpounder]

You can also make the tea and add it to each bottle with a dropper or syringe to taste. Mixing in the bucket can sometimes lead to uneven distribution of flavors. You can also make and extract by dropping the spices in a small amount of neutral spirit and dosing it the same way.

 

[Roadie]

I understand your dilemma as I'm trying to tweak a pumpkin ale myself right now, though I keg so have a little more leeway than you do bottling. I made a spice tea using a small french press using the internet recipe for Cinnamon Plus. I started with a teaspoon of spice to around 8 oz. hot water (then pressed spices out) to 5 gallons of beer. I let that sit for several days and was unsatisfied so repeated the same thing and I'm still not getting the aromatics that I want so have another 1.5 tsp in the french press now but this time I only went with cinnamon/nutmeg/clove as to me those remind me of pumpkin pie the most. Note that this sounds like a lot of spice but again the spices themselves get pressed out so they are not added to the keg just the tea. I will probably be maxed out after this addition.

Based on my experience above my recommendation is to make absolute sure that the spice mix smells EXACTLY like what you're going for before adding and if using a french press to use more than you think you need as the spices won't be added to the beer and thus it will be much more dilute.

 

[bondra76]

I've heard no more than 2 teaspoons to a 5 gallon batch, but I just did that and I thought my beer turned out pretty bland.

I love everything pumpkin, and I will be scanning for great recipes in the future. I put my 2 tsps in with 15 min left in the boil. Next time I think I may experiment with adding some in the secondary as well.