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Brewchez' Holiday Ale
Here it is. Its a little early to be thinking spiced Holiday beers but I brew this in early october, and let it rest in secondary until early december. You can bottle it then, but I keg it up and force carb, then fill bottles off the keg.
Brewchez' Spiced Burboned Oaked Holiday Amber
For 6.5 gallons final volume.
8 gallon run off, 90min boil.
Anticipated OG is 1060-1065
Mash efficiency is 75%
12lb American 2-row (or 7.5lb DME)
2lb crystal 40L
1lb crystal 60L
0.125lb crystal 120L
0.125lb chocolate malt
1.0oz Nugget (12%AA, pellets) 60-min
0.5oz Nugget (12%AA, pellets) 15-min
4.0oz American Oak Chips
8.0oz Burbon/Whiskey (see comments below)
1/4 tsp cinnamon-ground fresh
1/8 tsp nutmeg-ground fresh
Mash in at 154F, 90 minute mash.
Boil for 30min, then start with 1st hop addition.
Irish Moss at 20-min mark.
Yeast WLP002 (or WY1028)
Use two vials of yeast or pitch a hearty dose of yeast cake from a previous batch.
Primary ferment at 68F for two weeks.
During primary:
Steam Oak chips in water steamer on high heat, 5 minutes. Steam chips, do not submerge.
Place oak chips and burbon in a clean mason jar, cap immediately. Let sit in cool place during, primary ferment. Right before transfer to secondary strain the oak out, add spices to the burbon and shake well (This will sterilize the spices).
Rack beer to secondary, dump in oak burbon spice mix. Secondary for two months at 68-70F.
Notes on secondary and Burbon:
OK so I don't actually use burbon, I have found that Johnny Walker Red Label, is sort of smokey and hot, but when mixed with the beer it ages out to a smooth burnon like quality. But this is where the extended secondary comes in, it really helps move that HOT nasty red label to the back of the beer, but it keeps a just noticable supporting role. You can leave the OAK in during secodary if you want a stronger oak flavor, its an experiment I haven't done. When adding the burbon mix you can prime and bottle right away. Then bottle condition for two months and get the same effect. But there is something about bulk aging the entire 6 gallons together that just works for me.
If you try this beer, let me know what you think. Maybe I'll "brew log it" here when I do it.
I anticipate I'll brew this during the second week in october.
Thanks for posting this. I had been thinking about a holiday ale, and was having a hard time deciding if my recipe jsut had too many spices in it. I will definately put this on the list for October.
That sounds really good....then again, most of the receipes I see here look really good......I need more brew time...I will certainly try to get this done...maybe this and that Scotch Ale we were talking about in the other thread for the holidays....mmmm, I can taste it now......
looks tasty. is this something that you generated from you sick, twisted mind or did someone clue you in to this? :-)
since i'm lazy, i don't mash. do you think a variation with extract would work just as fine? although, that is a pretty hefty amount of crystal used.
Brewchez - what is your expected IBU for this recipe? I probably will do a 4gal boil, and top off to 6gal in for the primary.
djgbrewing wrote:
Thanks for posting this. I had been thinking about a holiday ale, and was having a hard time deciding if my recipe jsut had too many spices in it. I will definately put this on the list for October.
A note on spicing.
I have developed this beer over the past several years. When I first started with a holiday brew I had cinnamon, nutmeg, clove, all spice and bitter orange peel in there. As the beer aged (5months) in the bottle it started to taste like crest. Over time, and research, I began to get simple and stick with just enough of what I felt was the core "holiday" spice essence. The result is obviously just cinnamon and nutmeg.
djgbrewing wrote:
Brewchez - what is your expected IBU for this recipe? I probably will do a 4gal boil, and top off to 6gal in for the primary.
Anticipated IBUs for this beer is around 40, (calculated by Tinseth method).
I try to keep it low so the spices come out because their quantity is rather delicate I think.
But there needs to be enough IBU to balance against the crystals and the small caramelization during a full 90min boil. I boil pretty hard to go from 8 gallon run off to 6.5 gallons wort.
If you didn't want to do a full 90min, I think that 60min with 0.25lb of crystal 120 would be fine too.
Ok, I'm going to have to try this. I'll even offer to leave the oak in secondary, since I love whiskey. What are the guidelines for trimming back recipes for smaller setups though? I'll only be able to do about 5 gallons at this point.
I'm still an extract-with-specialty-grains brewer and don't have good a good setup for all grain.
-R
If you are asking how to do this with extract, just substitute the 12lb two row with 7.5 lbs DME.
If you are asking how to make this a 5 gallon recipe rather than 6.5, I would jump on the Recipitator website. http://hbd.org/recipator/
Enter the recipe with the extract instead of 2 row. There is a scaling calculator on the spreadsheet somewhere. You can use straight math to scale the malts and the water, but the hop additions are tricky especially if you aren't doing full wort boils. If you wanted to scale this to 5 gallons and do a concentrated boil (ie. boil 3 gallons and add it to 2 gallon cold water) I would leave the hops at 1 and 0.5 oz to counter the difference in utilization with the concentrated wort. (but a calculator would be more exact)
However, if you are doing full boils, dumping out 1 gallon of the wort would only be wasting a few bucks. Personally I wouldn't worry about it.
I've got to do concentrated, since I have neither the space nor equipment for a full-sized.
Anyhow, thanks!
-R
Noobs'R'Us wrote:
looks tasty. is this something that you generated from you sick, twisted mind or did someone clue you in to this? :-)
since i'm lazy, i don't mash. do you think a variation with extract would work just as fine? although, that is a pretty hefty amount of crystal used.
This recipe is something that has evolved with me since my first year of brewing. I have sort of modeled the final product towards Harpoons Winter Warmer. Then I started to play with the burbon to sanitize my spices without heat (loosing volitale oils in the process).
Theres a lot of crystal, but the bulk being crystal 40L isn't that bad. And its intentional to get a residual sweetness that balances against the spice. IMO. A really good ferment (that's why I use two vials yeast if don't have a cake to pitch on) still gives you a dry enough beer , despite the crystals.
My extract suggestion will work just fine as this recipe evolved from extract, into all-grain. I've only been brewing it all grain for the last two years. I would recommend crushing the grains, and steeping them without a bag in a separte pot in 1.5 gallons water at 140 degrees. Then get a collander with fine holes or laced with cheesecloth and strain them out into your brew pot. That way you'll get a maximum amount of flavor and color. Or just split all the grains into at least three bags so the grains are packed in to tighly. I recommend that for anyone who uses steeping bags for specialty grains.
Rubberchrist wrote:
I've got to do concentrated, since I have neither the space nor equipment for a full-sized.
Anyhow, thanks!
-R
You should be fine doing a concentrated boil. I would strain the grains like I recommended in a previous post. Add about 1/3 of the extract and start the boil, and do the hop additions. With 10 minutes left I would add the rest of the DME, return to boil and finish as you normally would.
Dump into a fermentor with top of water as cold as you can get it.
So I am recommending an "extract late" approach. This should help with the color and hop utilization.
based on how good brewchez's bitter recipe was and the fact that he obviously knows what he is doing, I think I'm gonna brew up this bad bow sometime this fall for the holidays!
You know something I have always wanted to do would be to brew this up without the spices and burbon. I guess it would be an Amber or something like that.
If I was to brew it up with out spices though I would increase the hops a bit and maybe use something with more citrus kick to it.
Anyhow, thanks for the vote of confidence BrewTown_Bill
I'll be firing up a version of it Friday the 31st. I'm pulling out the cinnamon and using a vanilla bean instead. I'll probably use Irish Ale yeast too, since I LOVE the smooth flavor that stuff has. Additionally, I offer my services as an "oak-chips-in-secondary" guinea pig 'cause oaky bourbon is almost as good as beer.
I'll post photos as I go!
-R
ps: What's the safest way to handle adding Vanilla Beans to a fermenter? I imagine a good soak in bourbon would do it, but any input will be appreciated.
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