Mulled/Spiced Beer

[gekkoda]

Name: Spiced beer all grain extract mix

Style: Mulled/spiced beer

Author: Tyler Ray . Kristin Pederson

Description: Kim Jong-un's desire. Don't tell him what's brewing lest you desire a war.

Batch Size: 18l

Bitterness: 72 IBU

Efficiency: 70%

OG: 1.077

FG: 1.018

Ingredients:


Malt
4.0kg Munich Malt
1.5kg Medium Spray Malt
1.0kg Weyerman Caramunich III
26g of Hallertauer (16.0%AA) at 60 minutes
52.0 g of Saaz (3.9%AA) at 15 minutes


Mash schedule:

Yeast:
WLP001

Spices I have at my disposal:
cinnamon
anise
black pepper
ginger
corriander
orange peel
lemon peel
rosemary
coriander
cocoa powder
fennel
cloves
mint
molasses
cardamom
vanilla
honey


I'm planning on doing this brew on Lunar New Year(Feb. 3, 2011). I'm looking for experienced spiced beer people to advise me on how to spice this beer. I have these ingredients but I'm undecided on exactly what or how much of each ingredient. Can I have suggestions and opinions please!

Much obliged,
Tyler

P.S. I live in South Korea

 

[Oldsock]

Certainly lots of places you could go with that long list of spices in an amber-ish beer. Honey, cinnamon, orange peel would make a nice holiday ale. Or if you wanted to go a bit different molasses, cocoa, black pepper sounds interesting to me. Classic mulling would be cinnamon, clove, and cardamom (adding some ginger/pepper/coriander/fennel tto that and you would be on the road to masala chai).

You might want to make a tea with the spices and add it to a sample of the beer to help you decide on which combination/level of character is right for the beer.

Hope that helps, welcome to the site.

 

[gekkoda]

It was suggested to me on another board that I do one of the following:

"1. Go heavy and dark....For the boil, maybe add molasses for more color and fermentables (depending on the amount available, I'd go with a kg of it, which should raise your SG to around 1.094 or so :twisted: ), perhaps about 110-120g of grated ginger (grated, 30 mins) to give it a bit of warmy bite, maybe either cinnamon, cardamom (30g or so, 15 mins) or some fennel (seeds? crushed, 30g for 10 mins). For fermentation, say about 120-150g of cocoa in the secondary or after fermentation slows down and/or two split vanilla beans. If you add the vanilla, though, I'd not use the cardamom blah blah blah.

2. Go spicy...pepper, ginger, coriander, orange and lemon peel. Ginger (grated, 100-120g for 30 mins), pepper (crushed/ground, 20g for 10 mins), coriander (cracked, 15-20g for 10 mins) in the boil, orange peel (fresh - zest, 60g for 10 mins; dried - 120g for 15 mins). For fermentation, maybe 30g of lemon zest."

Since it's already a pretty dark beer I'm leaning towards suggestion 1. I think I'll definitely make a spice tea first, that seams like a really helpful and logical thing to do.

And thanks for the welcome. I've lurked on here for answers now and again but that was my first post.

 

[Oldsock]

That sounds like too heavy on the molasses to me even if it was the "light" variety (if it is blackstrap I wouldn't go over .25 kg in 5 gallons). Same goes for the spices, I'd back way down to say no more than 10 g of each (you could go higher with the ginger if it is fresh). Test, taste, enjoy etc...

 

[gekkoda]

I think what I'll do is make and ferment the wort with out spices (I'll add molasses and possibly caramelized wort while boiling for added dark complexity). Then add the spices before bottling. I'll make a vodka(alcohol) extracted spice tea. Right now I'm thinking something like this:

Anise 1
Cinnamon .6
Vanilla extract .4
Black Pepper .65
Nutmeg .5
Fresh orange peels .some (could I orange juice?)

Going into my original mash bill will also be about .2kg molasses, and 1-2 cups of caramelized wort (is this enough? Too much?).

I'm also considering blackberry, prune, grape, or cherry juice or fruit. Should these go into the boiling wort or secondary?

 

[Oldsock]

I know the temptation is there to do all sorts of crazy things on one batch, but I'd suggest doing one or two twists and leaving it at that. You actually get more complexity by simplifying, with spices, molasses, fruit, caramelized wort etc... you are just going to end up with a muddled flavor.

The spice tea/tincture is a great idea since it allows you to tweak the flavor to taste, what are those units?

I made a mead with orange juice and for the first six months it tasted like my college apartment in the morning after my roommates stayed up drinking screwdrivers. The flavor eventually aged out, but I think there is a reason you don’t see fermented orange juice sold. The zest works great.