Hoppy Christmas

[SiWHU]

Another BIAB brew day yesterday. Christmas Ale - Greg Hughes recipe, page 151 - ish

No photos, I'm afraid.


Grain Bill:
Maris Otter 4.4 Kg
Biscuit Malt 500g
Caramunich I 350g
Crystal Malt 300g
Torrified Wheat 100g
Carafa Special I 100g

Hops:
Challenger 18g@start
Styrian Goldings 26g @15min
Styrian Goldings 26g @flame out

Other:
Irish Moss 5g @ 15 min
Star Anise 10g @ 10 min
Cinnamon Sticks 2 @ 10 min
Ground Nutmeg 1stp @ 10 min
Light Candi Crystals 500g @ 5 min

makes 23 litres. 6.8% abv 25 IBU 30.7 EBC

Yeast Safe Ale US-05



Ordered most of this from HBC. Very good delivery here and used the new hop filter.

Realised it will take 12 weeks to condition, so thought I'd better get started.

Got 15 litres heated to 70 degrees and mashed for 90 minutes. Wrapped in sleep bag, in the garage, mash was pretty constant at 65 degrees (so only 2 degrees less than recipe)

Rigged up a rope pulley in the garage rafters for holding the grain bag. Made such a difference for draining and subsequent sparging.

Sparged with 7 litres @ 80 degrees. Squeezed the bejeezus out of it as my efficiency has been on the low side (rubber gloves are good for this)

Added this to the wort and boiled for 1 hour - started to foam up really early, but hot break didn't properly occur for about another 30 mins.

Nice and dark wort - almost a porter colour.

lost a few litres in mash and boil so topped up to 23 litres.

Hop filter made a big difference in transferring to FV.

OG was supposed to be 1063. I got 1066 so quite happy with that. Will hopefully get down to 1012 with the US-05.

Good Krausen in the FV this morning. Looks almost white in contrast to the dark liquor.

Checked SG tonight (from tap) and was already down to 1045. Tasted sample from jar and it tastes like a Christmas cake mix.

Updates to follow...

(hopefully I'll remember to take photos)

 

[Covrich]

Hmm Sounds interesting looked at the recipe in the book myself just now, like you say takes a while to condition this..

Edit I should say I may consider trying something like that but I would scale it down, not sure I could drink 40 odd pints of that :lol:

 

[SiWHU]

Interesting is definitely the word here. I wanted to make something Christmassy, but not as sickly as Young's Christmas Pudding Ale - don't get me wrong, I like this but can only drink one or two pints.

When I put this in the FV it smelled and tasted like a spice factory, so I was a little bit worried (i like my curries, so spice really doesn't norally bother me, but this one did), but it seems to have have calmed down a lot as it has started to ferment, so hopefully I'll get something half decent out of this

Edit: Agree on scaling it down, but Christmas is aimed to be ready for party time, so I don't expect to be drinking it all myself thank god!

 

[Favershambrewer]

Sounds amazing. You seem to really be on top of this brewing malarkey. Being an Orient fan I would make a weaker, somewhat rubbish version...

 

[SiWHU]

Sounds amazing. You seem to really be on top of this brewing malarkey. Being an Orient fan I would make a weaker, somewhat rubbish version...

Cheers Mate. It's fermenting really well. I came home this evening and the lid of the FV was bowed right out (I don;t have an airlockon this FV which explains why). I'll let you know how it turns out in about 3 months when I give it some QC.

In keeping with the analogy - Seeing as I saw Kevin Nolan is now training with your mob, maybe I'll send you some of my expensive but out of date hops to try

 

[Favershambrewer]

Hehe any gifts gratefully received. Maybe I can squeeze a little bit more life out of them...

 

[SiWHU]

Sooooo.....

After a week and a half in the FV I had another check. SG down to 1008 which gives an ABV of around 7.6%.

Its still fermenting, so I'll leave it for a few days yet, but latest sample tastes like cough medicine. Those who sampled the sample jar liked it (except me). It really is like a beer version of mulled wine, but too forward on the spices.

Has anyone else made this, or something similar? If so, can I expect it to mellow out in the 3 months conditioning? If not, any advice to make it taste better in the end?

 

[SnowMark]

I made this last september with a view to Xmas drinking.
Not sure what to tell you really - it wasn't a brew I'll be repeating. For me, it always tasted like cough medicine or liquorice sticks. Other people who tried it didn't mind it but nobody went crazy about it. Some watered it down with various mixers to make it more drinkable.

I've still got a few bottles kicking around - if I'm feeling brave I'll try one tomorrow and update you :

 

[SiWHU]

I made this last september with a view to Xmas drinking.
Not sure what to tell you really - it wasn't a brew I'll be repeating. For me, it always tasted like cough medicine or liquorice sticks. Other people who tried it didn't mind it but nobody went crazy about it. Some watered it down with various mixers to make it more drinkable.

I've still got a few bottles kicking around - if I'm feeling brave I'll try one tomorrow and update you :

Cheers @SnowMark. We live and learn I guess.

My wife loves it, but I was hoping for something approaching Youngs Christmas Pudding Ale. I'm wondering if Adding some Orange or lemon peel and/or some raisins would make it more palatable?

I suppose it tastes like an ale equivalent of mulled wine, but it really doesn't look like something I'll be drinking en masse:sick:

 

[dad_of_jon]

Sooooo.....

After a week and a half in the FV I had another check. SG down to 1008 which gives an ABV of around 7.6%.

Its still fermenting, so I'll leave it for a few days yet, but latest sample tastes like cough medicine. Those who sampled the sample jar liked it (except me). It really is like a beer version of mulled wine, but too forward on the spices.

Has anyone else made this, or something similar? If so, can I expect it to mellow out in the 3 months conditioning? If not, any advice to make it taste better in the end?

7.6% - sounds like my cup of tea! - My night talk was bottled on the 22/08 and has 1/2 a finger of head but going to be fine for xmas :-D

 

[SiWHU]

After a week in the cold, I decided to give this a bit of QC. I bottled into a couple of 330ml bottles for this purpose. The beer is dark and sweet and the spices are really pronounced. I was relieved to note that it was not as medicinal as I previously noted, but definitely had the mulled spice taste over a strong sweet dark ale.

The Missus loved it, so it can't be that bad. If only I could get the thought out of my head that I was drinking Galloway's cough medicine

 

[Jeff Brewjubbly]

I brewed a christmas ale last year that I found almost undrinkable. I have brewed 11.8% IPA's that taste smooth and easily go down, but this 9% xmas brew tasted really alcoholic and thin. I noticed my next door neighbour loved it so he ended up drinking pretty much all 9 litres.

This year I have brewed one with just orange and cinammon (no nutmeg) and my tasting has been a delight. I think nutmeg was my big problem last time.