Christmas Ale recipe mod help

[Jason82]

So we started with ingredients for a regular malty ale. (Elm City Connecticut Ale clone from Clone Brews). Then decided that we want to make a Christmas Ale or winter warmer instead. We'd like to work with some of the excess supplies we already have, if possible. Need some feedback about whether or not to use additional specialty grains, and how to raise the abv some.

Here is the recipe and also our supplies

8.5 lb British 2 row malt (we have 9 lbs 2 row and .5lbs belgian pilsner malt left over from our last belgian brew)
6 oz US 80L crystal malt
2 oz US Munich Malt
1/2 oz roasted barley
(we have 8 oz each of these specialty grains)
1 oz Norther Brewer Hops for bittering @ 90
1 oz Willamette for flavor @ 15
1 oz East Kent Golding for aroma @ 1

We have White labs British Ale Yeast.
Left over we also have about 4 oz belgian aromatic and 8 oz candy sugar.

We plan on spicing with cinnamon, orange peel, and a few others I don't recall at the moment.

 

[Jason82]

Update. My brother has been working on the spice recipe. He is basing it off of the Southern Tier 2x Christmas.

Here is what we came up with so far:
1 lb figs
3 Cardamom seeds
1/2 oz fresh orange peel
2 cinnamon sticks
1 clove
1/4 tsp fresh ginger
1/4 tsp nutmeg

These will all be added during last 5 min of boil. I think the figs will provide extra fermentable sugar.

 

[Jason82]

Brewed this today. We increased the speciality malts to 8oz crystal (80l), 8oz munich, and kept the roasted barley at 1/2 oz. Our main problem came with the mash temperature. It ended up too low. (our last brew, we heated strike water to 176, and after stirring it in, the mash was at 163, we left the cooler open until the temp read 152, (10 minutes), and shut the cooler, 90 minutes later it had only lost 1-2 degrees). This time to avoid a mash that was too hot, we heated strike to 167, after stirring it in the mash was 151 (goal 150) and we shut the cooler. 90 minutes later we opened the cooler and it was 141. My thoughts are that since we did not have a preheated mash tun, the temps were still equalizing, and this mash probably sat at about 141-143 or so for most of the 90 minutes). I have read on here other posts with people being worried about mashing too low when they were only about 4 deg off, so Im a little worried about finishing 9 degrees below our goal temp. My understanding is that this can lead to a beer that is thinner and dryer, with more fermentable sugars. Would this also lead to a beer that was not malty enough to support the hops that were added? The wort coming out of the tun tasted very sweet. We also ran a fly sparge with water heated to 175 and this took about 35-40 mins.

With 5 minutes left in the boil, we added the spices and also 1 lb of figs that we had heated (caramelized?) in a fry pan with sugar and some wort. It smelled delicious in the boil, and I think we were conservative with our spice quantity and did not over spice.

I know. RDWHAHB.

 

[Jason82]

also OG was 1.050, which is exactly in line with what the recipe called for. (Although we added .5 lb 2 row, 2oz crystal, 6 oz munich, and 1lb figs to this recipe). I thought the figs might raise the OG. Perhaps they did make a contribution. We have been about .01 below gravity on our past brews.