Samuel Adams Old Fezziwig

[ckelly999]

Hi All,

I want to make my Christmas beer this weekend so it's ready for the upcoming holidays; I'm going for the subject brew, it's one of my favorites.

I have a hop and grain bill finished, I used the information shown on the SA website and I think I have something that will get me close- dark, mahogany color, medium-high gravity and malty.

My problem is the adjuncts- ginger, orange, and cinnamon. I'm trying to determine how much of each, what form to use (i.e., fresh vs dried ginger, stick vs ground cinnamon, etc.), and when to add them. I've even gone as far as emailing Sam Adams for help/advice on this (no response, what a surprise).

I don't want to take the chance of ruining what would otherwise be a delicious batch of beer by overdoing it on the adjuncts; here's something I've been kicking around, please share if you have any opinions or alternate methods:

1- I plan on making separate "extract" versions of the ginger, orange zest, and cinnamon using 100 proof vodka and each adjunct.

2- I'll blend each adjunct extract until I get the mix I'm looking for.

3- Once I get the proper extract blend, I'll start adding it to the beer until I get the overall flavor/aroma I'm looking for.

4- Once that's done, I'll scale up to a 5-gallon batch and add the extract blend to the keg. I'm thinking it would likely be no more than a cup of the extract so it should only bump up the alcohol slightly.

So- what do you think? Thanks for any and all responses.

CK

 

[waltzbrewingco]

I also would like to brew this. An Old fezziwig clone is what I want. Might I ask what you have in your mash bill.

 

[ckelly999]

The Sam Adams website has an OG of 1.064 and an SRM of 38 using 2-row pale, Munich 10, and chocolate malt for Old Fezz; I got there with 8.5 lbs of the 2-row, 4 lbs of Munich and a pound of chocolate for a 5.5 gal batch. This gives me a 1.064 OG and an SRM of 28.5, which I think is plenty dark enough. Brew house efficiency is 75%.

Still looking for advice on the ginger, orange, and cinnamon- I don't want to ruin a nice beer like this by overdoing it on the spices...

 

[waltzbrewingco]

I brewed an extract version today. My OG was 1.065. Dark as hell! And on the spices I cut the ginger that was suggested in by half but I increased the cloves. Also only brewed the oranges for half as long as the spices

 

[ckelly999]

The SA website calls it "deep mahogany brown", I backed it off a little.

Please update when it's done and let me know how your spices worked out, thanks.

 

[waltzbrewingco]

For sure. I'm honestly worried itsbgonna be too dark. Definitely racking to a secondary for some clearing up. Ill post the recipe later too and we can compare

 

[waltzbrewingco]

Its a bubbling fool right now. Usually the aroma coming from the air lock is very malty and mildly hoppy. There is a strong hop aroma right now and very little spices. When I brewed a pumpkin Ale a month ago there was plenty of spice aroma in the escaping bubbles. Experience this?

 

[ckelly999]

UPDATE- I've decided to make this easy on myself, I'm brewing the beer without the adjuncts. I just bought some ginger, orange, and cinnamon extracts, I'll blend them to where I like the aroma (maybe do a taste experiment with a mildly hopped brown ale), and scale up to 5 gallons. I'm thinking I just need to buy a ml measuring vessel.

 

[ckelly999]

UPDATE- For those interested, I think I've pretty much nailed this; the beer is now fermented (6.5% abv, nice ruby color) and I've been experimenting with extracts for the orange, ginger, and cinnamon aromas and flavors. I got myself a 1 ml pipette and started dosing low-hopped 12-oz bottles of dark beer until I found a blend and a quantity I liked.

Here's what I came up with: for a 12-oz bottle of beer, my ideal blend is 0.15 ml orange extract, 0.22 ml ginger extract, and 0.3 ml cinnamon extract. All three extracts are WHITE STAR brand, I got them on the internet. Scaled up to a 5-gallon batch (actually 5.25), that's 1.27 oz of blended extracts in the same proportion which is 8.4 ml orange, 12.3 ml ginger, and 16.8 ml cinnamon. Def there but not overpowering.

I'm filtering and kegging the beer now and I'll add the extracts after that; this will be served on Thanksgiving, I'll update the final product then.

 

[waltzbrewingco]

Awesome timing, I'm bottling mine today. Mine turned out pretty dark, not that ruby/mahogany color I expected. The black patent malt and chocolate malt added to the color a lot. It's more of a deep stained walnut. Either way smells great. I'm going to take a gravity reading and post a picture in a bit.
Cheers!

 

[waltzbrewingco]

Ok so my OG was 1.064, my FG was 1.026. ABV calculator is saying that is about 5%. I was hoping for a much higher ABV obviously this didn't happen because the gravity didn't fall as much? Before I transferred to secondary there was zero airlock activity and kraussen and had fallen for almost two weeks. It was done fermenting, and there were no bubbles or anything happening, beer was settling. So I wonder why the final gravity was as high as it was. The question remains because the gravity didn't drop as much will this affect carbonation? I went with a 2.5 volume carbonation, I am using corn sugar, do you think that the yeast will come back to carbonated, are they the reason the final gravity was so high?

 

[waltzbrewingco]

Something I didn't consider, I took my gravity reading after I added the priming sugar, will that affect the final gravity enough to seem extremely off?

 

[ckelly999]

I'm assuming this is a 5-gallon batch; if your carbonation level is 2.5, that's about 4.4 oz of corn sugar you should have added. But- 4.4 oz of corn sugar added to a 5-gal batch would only have increased the gravity of the beer by 0.003; this would make your "true" final gravity 1.023 (assuming adequate mixing) for an ABV of 5.42%. Still a little low but better than what you had. Was this an all grain or an extract with steeped grains?

 

[waltzbrewingco]

Extract with steeping grains 5 gallon batch. Priming sugar calculator i used on northern brewers website says 4.75oz of corn sugar, or .6 cups. How did u get the 1.023 FG?

 

[ckelly999]

My brewing software (ProMash) gave me the 4.4 oz of corn sugar for the carbonation level; I took the 4.4 oz and diluted it in a 5-gallon "wort" and got 1.003 as my gravity. That's the gravity added to your finished beer by the sugar, so I just subtracted the 0.003 (gravity from the sugar) from your 1.026 (final gravity of the beer plus the sugar) to get 1.023 (gravity of the finished beer). Increasing the sugar from 4.4 to 4.75 oz doesn't impact the gravity of a 5-gallon batch so the gravity addition is still 0.003, my calcs still apply.

 

[waltzbrewingco]

Cool. I've been looking into some brewing software, how does ProMash rank with other stuff? I read a lot about Brew Smith.
Thanks for the reply, and in about two weeks I'll let you know how these bottles turned out.

 

[ckelly999]

I have ProMash on my computer (as far as I know they don't make an app) and I have BeerSmith 2 on my phone and tablet, plus there are tons of online gadgets/calculators/recipators. I prefer ProMash by a landslide, I've been using for over 15 years now.

 

[waltzbrewingco]

Thanks for the info, I want to start taking this more seriously this is my fourth batch, I've only been doing it a year though.

 

[ckelly999]

Enjoy, but remember- it's a slippery slope...

 

[waltzbrewingco]

So mine is carbonated and tastes great. But NOTHING like an Old Fezziwig. It's dark, way too much chocolate malt in this recipe. Tastes almost like a chocolate stout, but a little sweeter, honestly with my ABV was higher to push off some of the sweet. Even more hops to make it more bitter would be good. Don't get me wrong , it's a tasty beer. I'm pleased enough with it enough to share it with friends but I will be finding another recipe for an Old Fezziwig for next year.

 

[waltzbrewingco]

Check it

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