Priming question for Holiday spiced ale

[craigpollard]

Hey all, new to the forums. Currently have 5 gallons of Holiday spiced ale sitting in the secondary. This is my first real batch ever, based closely on Charlie's Holiday Cheer. The brew consisted of 7 lbs lme, 1 lb honey, 1/2 lb 60l caramel malt, 2 oz black malt, and some hops. Also some cinnamon, orange peel, and fresh ginger. Using saf-05 yeast. So, didn't hit my original gravity that I wanted, but instead of leaving it alone like I probably should have, I added 1.5 lbs corn sugar to secondary. So already having a ton of honey and corn sugar in the mix, was thinking about priming with maple syrup or molasses, what do ya guys think? And more importantly is this stuff going to be drinkable? Any thoughts would be appreciated.

 

[BrewerBear]

Real maple syrup or molasses would work fine so would honey.The beer will probably turn out ok. What do you have in line for your next brew?

 

[Zamial]

PLEASE look up the coorect amount of what fermentable to use. Honey is almost 100% fermentable while mollassas is not. Maple syrup is going to vary depending on it's gravity so I would not use it to prime.

I also have used honey to prime and from my experience it takes longer (as in months) to get to all the way fermented out.

My best advice is quite screwing with the beer. Prime it with corn sugar and bottle then try it. Let it age a good while too. I still have 12 ov my 1st batch of beer I ever made and open 1 every year. So set some aside!

 

[craigpollard]

Thanks Guys for your insight. Zam, it's going to take some control, but you're right I need to save some of my first batch. BB, looking into starting an Irish red ale next weekend, using Charlie's No Sham' Shamrock as a guide. Also would like to try a maibock and porter in due time, any suggestions? The red ale calls for 5 lbs amber ME, should I up that or some specialty grains due to my inefficiency the first go round?

 

[Zamial]

I would recommend you download Brew Target. It is free and will let you play with recipes to see how much of what you need. You can find it in the software section down below on the home page.

I do not understand how you can miss efficiency using extract... This should be VERY predictable. The steeping grains may add a slight amount of fermentables but those are normally not counted because they are for flavor.

If you want to brew up something big then do it and get it out of your system but be warned these beers are ALWAYS a PITA and seldom turn out well.