Brewing with ginger

[level-one]

I'm planning out a Christmas beer and drawing inspiration from a number of sources and looking for some advice how I can "Winter/Christmas" up a dunkel recipe. I have a dunkel recipe below that I've been wanting to try. A few years ago a local brewery had a Gingerbread Maibock that I thought was pretty good, so I was thinking of adding some things to the recipe below. I did a little research and found some recipes with ginger and cinnamon that give me some idea on amounts to add, but I'm not sure, and I'm honestly not a huge fan of cinnamon so also not sure if there's some other Christmas-y things I could substitute. Here's the base recipe I'm working with:

5.5 Gallon batch
Fermentables (10 lb 6.5 oz)
7 lb 12.5 oz - Munich I 5.8 °L (74.8%)
1 lb 10.8 oz - Munich II 6.8 °L (16.1%)
8.8 oz - Caramunich I 38.2 °L (5.3%)
3.2 oz - Carafa Special III 347.5 °L (1.9%)
3.2 oz - Melanoiden Malt 15.3 °L (1.9%)

Hops (1.09 oz)
60 min - 0.37 oz - Magnum - 12% (15 IBU)
15 min - 0.17 oz - Magnum - 12% (3 IBU)
5 min - 0.56 oz - Saaz - 3.75% (1 IBU)

Open to any feedback or advice, thanks!

 

[Beerstein]

I did a winter ale where i used 4 diced ginger root and 8g cinnamon for a 2.5G batch.

The ginger moderated a lot over 2-3 weeks. The cinnamon was hardly there.

HTH

 

[LexusChris]

Consider cloves, all-spice, cardamon and/or orange peel as other additions for a wintery ale...

 

[Blackdirt_cowboy]

I made a spiced dunkel wiezenbock for Christmas a few years ago. I’m not big on spiced beers, but this one turned out really good. I did a 5 gallon batch and added 1 tsp each of allspice, Star anise, and caraway, and 1/2 oz of orange peel to the boil. I also added 2 oz of candied ginger to the fermentor after fermentation was done.

 

[Gilbert Spinning Horse]

I don't know about spices, but I use 700g of finely diced ginger in a 20 litre batch. I boil it and toss it in the fermenter when I pitch the yeast.

 

[SmoothBrews]

Consider cloves, all-spice, cardamon and/or orange peel as other additions for a wintery ale...

Reminds me of mulled wine.

 

[SmoothBrews]

I don't know about spices, but I use 700g of finely diced ginger in a 20 litre batch. I boil it and toss it in the fermenter when I pitch the yeast.

I’m curious… Why did you decide to add it that way instead of just adding it right into the boil?

 

[Gilbert Spinning Horse]

I’m curious… Why did you decide to add it that way instead of just adding it right into the boil?

I do it that way so that it is in contact with the wort for longer, a bit like a dry hop. When I say I boil it, that is just bringing it to the boil to kill anything that might be on it.

 

[SmoothBrews]

Oo

I do it that way so that it is in contact with the wort for longer, a bit like a dry hop. When I say I boil it, that is just bringing it to the boil to kill anything that might be on it.

Oooh so you add it to the boil and them transfer it with the wort to the fermenter, rather than filtering it out… right? That makes more sense now. I thought you were boiling it in a separate pot of water. Lol