Christmas Stout Question

[Tamir]

Hi,

Tomorrow I will be brewing a standard Irish Dry Stout.

I am brewing 12 Litre batches (for experimenting...) and now I am thinking about splitting this batch after fermentation is done, bottling the first half batch as is, and making a Christmas Stout out of the other one.

My question is - I know it most acceptable to boil the spices at the 10/5 last minutes of the boil, and since I'm not going to do that (for I want a half batch of a standard Irish Stout), and there is this way of soaking spices in Vodka, but it takes too long - how about boiling my spices in water for 10 minutes to sterilize them, and then adding the spices + the spiced water for secondary?

Did someone try this way? am I going to lose too many aromas/flavours?

 

[rlmiller10]

You don't need to soak the spices that long in vodka. You will be just fine soaking for a couple of days before you split the batches and then add the spices and vodka to the Christmas half. Alcohol is very good at extracting the spice flavors.

I just listened to a beersmith podcast earlier this week where John Palmer talked about doing that to adjust his spice on a pumpkin ale, he was doing it at bottling though.

 

[scottballz]

That will work just fine, just don't use a whole lot of water so you get a nice concentrated solution. add your spice solution into your secondary first then rack your beer on top. taste every week until you achieve the flavor you want.

 

[Tamir]

That will work just fine, just don't use a whole lot of water so you get a nice concentrated solution. add your spice solution into your secondary first then rack your beer on top. taste every week until you achieve the flavor you want.

Yeah, that's what I thought, but for some reason i have never saw someone do that, there is pretty much a consensus in soaking in spirit.

I kinda wonder why. Did someone found a lack of taste/aroma with using this method?

 

[CyberErik]

someone in another thread raised this point- there's alcohol in the beer at that point, if you do it at secondary, the alcohol in the beer should take care of the extraction, as well as ward off contamination. I would probably add the spices dry to secondary.

 

[BansheeRider]

someone in another thread raised this point- there's alcohol in the beer at that point, if you do it at secondary, the alcohol in the beer should take care of the extraction, as well as ward off contamination. I would probably add the spices dry to secondary.

This ^ No reason to soak the spices in vodka. Just dump them in secondary and be done with it.

 

[rlmiller10]

someone in another thread raised this point- there's alcohol in the beer at that point, if you do it at secondary, the alcohol in the beer should take care of the extraction, as well as ward off contamination. I would probably add the spices dry to secondary.

I think soaking them in spirit, or boiling to make a tea is a good precaution. Although I agree the chance of contamination/infection is small, the % alcohol in beer is not high enough to ward it off. If that were the case we could all skip the whole sanitizing the bottles thing.

 

[castillo556]

I think soaking them in spirit, or boiling to make a tea is a good precaution. Although I agree the chance of contamination/infection is small, the % alcohol in beer is not high enough to ward it off. If that were the case we could all skip the whole sanitizing the bottles thing.

I agree. It's an extra precaution that isn't really any work.

A high proof alcohol is going to extract the flavors alot better than an 4-8% ABV beer will.

Make a tincture with the spices.

 

[gregjohnston]

I've had success making a tea and adding it at bottling. This was actually to adjust for a distinct lack of spice in a recipe that called for an addition at flameout.

 

[m00ps]

Hi,

Tomorrow I will be brewing a standard Irish Dry Stout.

I am brewing 12 Litre batches (for experimenting...) and now I am thinking about splitting this batch after fermentation is done, bottling the first half batch as is, and making a Christmas Stout out of the other one.

My question is - I know it most acceptable to boil the spices at the 10/5 last minutes of the boil, and since I'm not going to do that (for I want a half batch of a standard Irish Stout), and there is this way of soaking spices in Vodka, but it takes too long - how about boiling my spices in water for 10 minutes to sterilize them, and then adding the spices + the spiced water for secondary?

Did someone try this way? am I going to lose too many aromas/flavours?

This is how I add a lot of stuff like vanilla beans, cinnamon sticks, and cacao nibs. I only boil for a min or so to not lose the flavors. I jsut do primary though. No secondary

 

[philipCT]

Making a tincture is a better technique for controlling the impact of a flavor than just dumping the spices themselves in at secondary.

For example, for a Star Anise Stout I have, the amount of Anise flavoring was going to be critical and it's a very pungent flavor. I wanted to make sure I didn't overdo it and ruin a whole batch.

So I made a tincture with Star Anise and Vodka. Then poured out four 6oz glasses of a good stout and added a different number of drops in each, stirred and tasted. Then I scaled up the correct number of drops from 6ozs to 5 gallons and added to secondary.

Hope this helps!

 

[Tamir]

Thanks a lot everyone, your responses came a bit late but for what it is worth, here's my update:

I decided I wanted my Christmas Stout slightly less dry than a regular Irish Dry, so I ended up steeping a portion of Crystal 90 in a little water, then boiling it for 15 minutes total, and boiling the spices for the last 10 minutes.

The smell was absolutely incredible. I added the whole thing to a secondary fermenter in a bag for easy straining afterwards. I took a small sample one day later, you can definitely tell it is spicy, but I'm not sure you can feel all the spices, so I intend to let it stand for a few more days.

Will 7 days with the whole spices+spices water will be too much in your opinion?

 

[m00ps]

It depends on how much spices you added and what the spices were. Cinnamon sticks, for instance, can sit for a while and your'll be ok. But something like star anise will get overpowering quickly. I'd take a taste sample on day 3 or 4 and see