Holiday Cheer
It’s the holiday season again, and like always I intended to brew this beer several weeks ago, but was prevented from doing so by all the combined forces of the universe. Brett must not have his way, EVER!!! It’s a cosmic law.
Well, with Tracy being sick today and me being in a vehicle with the kiddo’s after dropping Angelique off to school, nothing was preventing be from heading to Steinbarts. Did I tell you I love Steinbarts?
Holiday Cheer Beer Ingredients
So I picked up my 7lbs of light malt extract syrup, my cheapo Safale SA-05 yeast, 1/2 lb of 60L crystal malt, and 2 oz of black patent malt. Some may ask why I use light malt extract syrup when the recipe calls for dry light malt extract. Well, the answer is because it’s cheaper. So there!
Holiday Cheer Beer Ingredients
I added the grains to 1.5 gallons of water and held it at 145 degrees for 30 minutes. I had some help making the beer also.
Greggory adding grains
Greggory stirring the grains
The beautiful wort
Once the grains were strained I added my 7lbs of malt extract and my bittering hops. I almost forgot to add the honey, but I remembered after only a few minutes of boil. After 60 minutes (which should have been 50 minutes) I added the cinnamon, ginger, and orange peel. With 2 minutes left of the final 10 minutes of boil I added my 1/2oz of Saaz. I then strained everything out and poured it into my fermenter and topped it off to what I thought was 5 gallons of water, but given I picked the bucket I haven’t marked yet, I had to guesstimate.
Some differences happened this year with the batch, some intentional and mostly unintentional. I ran out of Cascade hops, so instead of 2oz of Cascades for my bittering hops, I used 1/2oz Cascade and 1oz Centennial. I was going to use my normal freshly grated ginger, but I forgot to get some at the store. I had some ground ginger in a spice bottle, so I used that. I thought it might be stronger than the freshly ground stuff, so I only added 1/2oz of it. Usually the orange peel is a bit overwhelming, so I planned on only adding 3 tsp of dried orange peel (I added 4 last year), but I ran out and only was able to add 2 tsp.
Holiday cheer in the fermenter
I put the beer outside to cool off sooner, as I plan on pitching yeast this evening. Can’t wait till this is done and drinkable, as I have some of last years Holiday Cheer to compare with it.
Note: Pitched the yeast tonight. Initial gravity came out to 1.060, same as last years batch. Must be doing something right.
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