Christmas Blond recipe ingredients thoughts?

[madbewer]

My next batch is going to be a Christmas beer. I do not have the 3+ months for the recipes I have seen. I am therefore looking to create my own beer based on a blond recipe. Please take a look and let me know if you see something way off base or may require more time to condition then I have. I will be doing this as a BIAB. My target is in the fermenter 2-3 wks and another 3-4 wks in bottle. I am looking to create a mildly spice beer with an ABV in the area of 6+ %.

Thanks for any help or suggestions

Fermentable Bill
Pale malt (2 row) – 9lb
Cara- pils/dextrin – 1lb
Caramel/Crystal malt- 1lb
Vienna malt – 1lb
Belgian Aromatic – ½ lb
Honey malt – ½ lb
Honey – ½ lb (up the ABV and flavor 10 min )
Allspice – 2 TBSp (10 min)

Hop Bill
Centennial 55min ½ oz
Centennial 35min ½ oz
Cascade 20min ½ oz
Cascade 5min ½ oz
Sorcachi Ace 0min ½ oz

Wyeast 3711
60 min boil at 150

 

[m00ps]

The grain bill looks pretty busy for a blond. Definitely too much crystal for the style.

1/2 lb of honey malt will have a larger impact on flavor than I think you are assuming. Add in the sweetness from the crystal and itll be pretty dang sweet

with the inclusion of the 3711, this is more of a saison than anything else. For saisons, I find its best to keep the grain bill simple and let the yeast do the talking. If you ferment pretty low, youll get mroe spiciness out of that yeast that may meld with your spice additions

 

[madbewer]

m00ps, thanks for the response.

I will cut way back on the crystal and honey malts. the goal is the creation of a spicey with a sweet back ground tasting beer for the holidays. I chose the 3711 over WLP300 because I thought it would go better with what I am trying to accomplish. I can go with either one because I have both harvest from previous brews

when you say petty low what range are you thinking?

Once again thanks for all of the suggestions and advice

 

[m00ps]

Anywhere in the 60s will be good. But you can use that yeast into the 90s. It gets more lemony as you go up though. So if you want spicy saison eaters try to keep the temp in check

 

[madbewer]

I will let you how it turns out.

Thanks!!

 

[Schmoltsbeer]

You could do this with may 2 or 3 grains, utilizing subtle spice additions, to end up with a great beer. Your grain bill is super crowded for a blonde IMO. You may reconsider hop selection too, those flavors may not go so well with allspice, I would imagine European hops being more appropriate here.

 

[madbewer]

Schmoltsbeer, thanks for the input. What hops in particular would you recommend and at what times.

 

[Schmoltsbeer]

If you want to keep the allspice, I would go with hallertauer, or maybe tettnanger, Willamette or fuggles might work too. Shoot for a good bittering addition(60 minutes) to
around 20-25 ibu's and one other addition around 10 minutes to give you a bu:gu of .50. I hope that helps and isn't too confusing

 

[madbewer]

Schmoltsbeer, thanks for the suggestion. I will be pulling it all together this weekend.

Once again thanks m00ps and schmoltsbeer for all the advice and suggestions. With your help I will have taken on another style and learned a few things in the process.

 

[Schmoltsbeer]

Good Luck, and enjoy! Don't forget to share your tales of how it went when it's done too!