Nightwulf1974
Member
Hey all,
Quick question and opinions needed. I'm about to bottle my Christmas Ale in the next week. My sample when checking gravity had very little spice flavor/aroma left after a vigorous fermentation. I'd like to add those spice characters back during bottling. Initially, I added 1 oz. dried ginger and 2 cinnamon sticks with about 10 min left in boil.
I've spend a good deal of time reading on this subject and have decided to go with a tea prior to bottling using 1 (maybe 2) more cinnamon sticks, 1 vanilla bean (scraped and casing) and maybe 1/4 to 1/2 oz. dried bitter orange peel. I may add just the tiniest amount of dried Ginger (1 tsp TOPS), but there was also some added during the boil that I can not taste or really smell much at all during my 2 week old hydrometer sample.
My question is really on my method. Rather than add a tea and rack the beer atop of this at bottling, I would like to rather use a dropper and experiment with different levels of the spiced tea with each bottle. Any reason this wouldn't work? I figure this way I can ensure a consistent level of spicing and also experiment between bottles for more/less and see how they age. Yes, I know this is more work, but I would like to have some variety and just want opinions or to see who has done this and their results.
Thanks!
Nightwulf1974
Quick question and opinions needed. I'm about to bottle my Christmas Ale in the next week. My sample when checking gravity had very little spice flavor/aroma left after a vigorous fermentation. I'd like to add those spice characters back during bottling. Initially, I added 1 oz. dried ginger and 2 cinnamon sticks with about 10 min left in boil.
I've spend a good deal of time reading on this subject and have decided to go with a tea prior to bottling using 1 (maybe 2) more cinnamon sticks, 1 vanilla bean (scraped and casing) and maybe 1/4 to 1/2 oz. dried bitter orange peel. I may add just the tiniest amount of dried Ginger (1 tsp TOPS), but there was also some added during the boil that I can not taste or really smell much at all during my 2 week old hydrometer sample.
My question is really on my method. Rather than add a tea and rack the beer atop of this at bottling, I would like to rather use a dropper and experiment with different levels of the spiced tea with each bottle. Any reason this wouldn't work? I figure this way I can ensure a consistent level of spicing and also experiment between bottles for more/less and see how they age. Yes, I know this is more work, but I would like to have some variety and just want opinions or to see who has done this and their results.
Thanks!
Nightwulf1974
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