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Suggestions for holiday beer
Hey,
First of all, I have to say this is a great website!!!
I'm new to brewing (my first batch is in secondary right now) and really enjoy this hobby.
I'm currently brewing Coopers Pilsener, which should be bottled the 5th or 6th of October, from the instructions I got from a LHBS (5 days primary, 10 days secondary, 14 days bottle conditioning).
After that, I plan on brewing some champagne style Cider for the holidays (straight to carboy for about 2 weeks, then bottled).
Ok, so that's the introduction.
Now, I was wanting to make a holiday beer (hehe, gonna have some nice holidays with hard cider and holiday beer), and I need a few suggestions. As I'm quite new, I still want to stick with an extract (Coopers preferably, LHBS has a lot of their stuff), and I was wondering what you guys would recommend between:
Coopers Irish Stout
Coopers Stout
or
Coopers Dark Ale
I would obviously add some spices, so I need some suggestions on that. I have some real vanilla extract from Mexico, I was thinking maybe some Nutmeg and Cloves (the typical Christmastime stuff).
I know it's all about experimenting, but I would really like some suggestions so I don't brew some really bad beer.
Also, would you recommend I use Dextrose (corn sugar) or something else like Belgian candy, etc.?
So, anyone have some suggestions for me.
Thanks, I really appreciate it and I love this website!
mrfocus
the jamil show on brewing network's most recent podcast was regarding spiced holiday beers. after listening to it i've decided to try my hand at one. the information is thorough and advice helpful. i believe the base for their beer was old ale. and all their recipes are presented in extract as well as all grain.
i would reccommend sterring clear of kits, and just knock up a base for your beer from malt extract (either liquid or dried), throw in the hops you want, and then add your spices. you can also choose the yeast you want to use to get desired levels of phenols and such.
use some dark malt extract, perhaps a cup of molasses, spice, and bingo!
If kit beers are what you are comfortable with, I think they can be a good place to start from for modification.
I would suggest you try to spice up that Coopers Dark Amber with 1tsp cinnamon and 1tsp nutmeg.
Or the vavilla in the Coopers base Stout sounds interesting.
There was a thread here awhile back with my Holiday Ale recipe in it. Search for Holiday Ale and it will pop up. Its written as all grain, but I think we included an extract version of it too.
Best of luck and keep the questions/comments/observations coming. Welcome to the board.
Krausenator:
http://www.cascadiabrew.com/unhopped_malt_extract.asp
Is that the kind of stuff you're talking about?
So I could take the Dark extract and customize that? How would I go about? Boil it for 90 minutes while adding hops, spices, etc.? Could I boil it in only 1 gallon and then add it to my fermenter with another 5 gallons?
Since I'm trying to make a spicy beer, I won't add hops as to keep the taste of the spices.
If there's a thread that I missed that explains the procedure (with hops instead of spices), could you please post it here.
By the way, my LHBS recommended that I grab the Cooper Kits, boil a gallon of water (without the kit in it) and add it to the fermenter, then add 3lbs of corn sugar, the kit and the water to the fermenter and ferment that. Next time, I should boil the kit (to transform complex sugars into simpler, fermentable sugars, right?) and then add it to the fermenter. I can add extra stuff at any time if I want during the boil?
BTW: Here is my LHBS website: http://www.atelier-biere-vin.com/pages/ … dients.htm
Thanks a lot folks, for helping me out.
mrfocus
You could add hops, without comprimising the "spice" flavour you're looking for....I've had beer without hops, it wasn't very good....in my mind, no hops, means not beer.....The Germans lived by Reinheitsgebot.
http://www.american.edu/TED/germbeer.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reinheitsgebot
http://realbeer.com/hops/aroma.html
focus- that malt extract is what i am referring to. i use DME, just prefer it, but it is the same thing. the dried malt extract (DME) has been completely dehydrated to a powder where as the liquid malt extract (LME, what you see in those cans) has just had some of the water boiled off to reduce volume for packaging.
as to removing hops from the brew altogether, that isn't necessary to keep the spice aroma or flavor. as long as the amount and alpha acid % of the hops is balanced by the malt, you will be fine. it is all about balancing your beer. if you want to concot up your own recipe (it is much easier than you can imagine), throw something together and ask the board if it looks balanced.
for instance, a basic recipe for a holiday ale might look something like:
5 lbs dark LME/DME
3 lbs light DME/LME
1 lb brown sugar or 1 cup molasses or maybe 1.5 lb honey (we are getting wild!)
ale yeast (perhaps WYeast london ale 1028?)
1.5 oz UK Fuggle or Tettnanger or even Centennial for boil
0.5 oz remainder of hops at 5 minutes remaining in boil
Your spices of choice
do a 3 gallon boil, when the water is 180 F, take it off the heat, dissolve the malt extract and sugar, put it back on the heat bring it to a boil, add the hops, start your 60 minute boil and keep it there (210 F) without boil over. at 5 minutes remaining, add the remainder of your hops.
if you want to use molasses or honey, add it at the last 5 minutes to preserve the aroma and flavors more. if you boil it for 60 minutes pretty much all of the honey aroma will boil off.
in regards to basic kit making, i guess you just follow the directions. but they never seem to make sense to me. if you have done any background reading on brewing, it isn't all that difficult. so when they try to trim down the directions to make it seem even easier, i think they complicate things. boil 2 gallons, add the kit, cool it, dump it in the fermenter, aerate it, add the yeast, wait.
the main thing to remember is that as long as you keep everything clean and sterile...do whatever you want! it is your beer! may not win a competition for "best holiday ale ever made in the world since time immemorial" but it wont taste bad and you will have made it from scratch.
you can't mess this up, focus.
forgot to mention the spices. you can add them pretty much whenever you want. some people do it at the beginning of the boil, the end, in the secondary.
in my own very humble opinion, if you add it to the boil you get more flavor, less aroma. add to the secondary, it is more aroma and "up front" flavor.
i don't know how to describe it, but if you boil the spices, the spice flavor becomes a part of the beer. if you add it to the secondary, the spice flavor is like a top note, a layer, of the beer. like beer stirred with a cinnamon stick...does that make sense to you?
so it depends on what you like and what characteristics you want in your beer.
Wow, thanks for the quick replies!!!
Ok, so good stuff to know about the spices. Still haven't decided what to do about that though (this beer will be brewed after some hard apple cider).
I will go to my LHBS and check out to be sure what kind of DME they have. I know they have Coopers, but they also have a few other brands. Does DME store well? Since these are normally sold in 3.3lbs packages, I would probably grab like 2 dark (6.6lbs, 1.6 leftover) and 1 light (3.3lbs, 0.3 leftover) from what you've suggested.
So DME contains most of the sugars that will be transformed into alcohol (ethanol)? If I want to make a stronger beer, example 8% ABV, what would I add? Corn sugar (dextrose), some more DME or ???
Also, the biggest pot I have at home to boil this in is about 1.5 gallons, so to make sure I don't have boil over, I would put a maximum of 1 gallon of water. I may be able to get my hands on a bigger one though, but in the meanwhile will the 1gal be OK?
I've read a bit of one of the books online, talking about the break point (I can imagine this when the complex sugars really start to get converted to simpler ones thus there's a lot of bottles).
Thanks again,
I'm sure I will post back here soon,
mrfocus
You may need to get a bigger pot. If it tops at 1 1/2 gallons, and you add one gallon water, the displacement of adding 8lbs DME will send it right over the top, not to mention room for the boil itself.....
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