Adding spices

[doghouse gav]

Like the sound of adding some spices to a beet kit for my Xmas beer. Thought about some cinnamon sticks. I've read to boil them and add the flavoured water to the beer as you rack it ready to bottle. It never said how many I'd need? Any ideas for a 5 gallon bitter? Cheers

 

[RobWalker]

here's a relatively standard winter spice mix;

1/2 tsp Cinnamon (ground, dry)
1/2 tsp grated fresh Ginger
1/8 tsp Nutmeg (ground, dry)
1/8 tsp Allspice (ground, dry)

dry spices are quite easy because they'll just sink with the rest of the junk.

with your method, you'll want to boil up about 1/2 litre of water, add cinnamon sticks (I'd suggest overdoing it, probably boil like 4) for a good 20 minutes and then stir it in bit by bit at the secondary stage (bottling bucket works well) until it's at the level you want. cinnamon will very easily overpower your beer so go easy on it and have something to clean your palette inbetween tastings!

 

[graysalchemy]

I have done it with 1" cinamon one clove and 3 cardomen pods crushed per gallon. I put them in thse secondry fermentor after sitting them in some boiling water for a few minutes. Keep tasting it each day to see how the flavour is progessing then take it of the spice or if you put the spice in a muslin bag take them out.

Word of warning don't over do it as they can be over powering :sick: :sick: .

 

[Wendy1971]

ever thought of adding cloves too