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Molasses and Brown Sugar
Hello all,
I am starting to think about a recipe for a holiday brew I plan on making in June. I want to add a 'warmth' to the batch and am thinking about a couple of different things. Still not 100% sure on what direction I'm going to go, but I thought I would sample the collective wisdom on the site.
Currently, I'm thinking about going with spice such as nutmeg, ginger (light!), etc... to give it that nice holiday feel. I was thinking about adding either brown sugar or molasses to add some depth and warmth to it, but not sure when and/or how much to add. I am thinking of either adding with 10-15 minutes left in the boil, or possibly for priming. I don't know how much flavor would be transferred in priming as I'm assuming less would be used.
Does anyone have experience using these two? If so, what thoughts can you offer? I am working my way through the 'Lawndart' thread, good reading by the way, and am getting some good ideas from that, but just wanted to ask this as well.
Thanks for all the advice and assistance!!
What do you mean by warmth. To me the only thing warming in beer is alcohol.
Many of these sugar based adjuncts don't really offer much in flavor, IMO. The bulk of it gets fermented out.
To get any real discernable flavor from these things you need to use so much of it that you start to sacrifice the malt characters to compensate.
I prefer to focus on the flavors I get from specialty grains. Then use flavoring things like burbon, woods, chocolate or spices to create different aspects of the brew.
If you are going to brew some sort of Holiday thing in June, I would go for a big gravoty beer with plenty of amber to dark colored malt character. Shoot for a 10% or better ABV and let that thing age in a secondary (or bottles) until December.
For what its worth here is my recipe for a Holiday Ale with burbon and oak. Its at least a place to start thinking from. This beer does best with a couple months age on it, but it isn't really a big beer by design.
Holiday Ale
When I say warmth, I don't mean so much the feeling of the beer, but rather the feeling the beer gives you, if that makes sense. Something akin to coming in out of the cold to a house that smells like apple pie. Not sure that helps. One more stab: more of an emotional flavor warmth rather than a physical feeling warmth.
Thanks for linking to your recipe, looks like one tasty brew! I notice you barely use any spices in it. They still come through ok? Also, I remember reading someone's opinion of adding the spices during the boil and adding in secondary. They said that it seemed adding them during the boil made the flavor more a part of the beer rather than an addition to the beer. Have you tried boiling too? Any difference in your opinion?
Thanks for your thoughts. I know I'm not terribly clear on what I am trying to achieve, but its still pretty conceptual in my head.
IMO, when adding spices to the boil you need to use more because a lot of the aromatics are boiled off. Even when added for the final 2 minutes or at flameout. Hence, more is needed.
Spicing beers is a difficult thing because everyone perceives spicing levels differently. Most people I run into are beer lovers that brew. They brew something and want to start drinking it. My Holiday Ale recipe certainly has that "spices added" character when its young. But I tend to brew it in late september or october and let it mature for several months before I serve it in december and january. After it has aged it has a much more harmonized character between the spices and the malts, not a spice on top of beer flavor. I am more of a lover of brewing that drinks to appreciate. For me I don't have any issue with brewing and waiting for it to be just right. If I feel the need to drink something right now, I'll buy it.
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