Spicing Beer

[gtpro]

For my next brew I'm looking to do something with a little bit of a unique flavor to it. I'm a fan of pumpkin spice beer but I'm not opposed to a winter warmer either. I've been looking at as many of these recipes as I can find and I'm just confused as to the actual addition of the spices. The trend seems to be adding them towards the end of the boil, but do you guys usually add them directly to the wort or just steep them for the flavor?

 

[Conodor]

i did a pumpkin ale with no pumpkin,(all spices for flavors) Just kegged it the other day a light taste of the spices and you could taste the pumpkin.

Anyway, i added it at the end of the boil like you said. Just dumped it in with a few minutes left to the boil. turned off heat, turned on wort chiller.

 

[Zen_Brew]

There are a lot of variations, but the most popular way is add them directly to the boil in the last 5 minutes or so. Add them on the light side because if the spice flavor is too light you can always top the secondary up with a sanitized tea to bring the flavor up later. If you overdo the spice in the boil you are kinda stuck with it.

 

[scrambledegg81]

A different method I used in my first Xmas batch (thanks to a suggestion I received on here!) was to let it sit in the primary for about a week until the yeast is done off-gassing, boil the spices/fruit peel/etc. in a few oz. of water for about 10 minutes and then after the water is cooled, add it into the fermentor. Can't tell you how good this stuff smelled/tasted when I was bottling.