Continue reading]]>

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.

Continue reading]]>

Holiday Cheer

It’s that time of year again!  Time to make some good holiday beer!  I wanted to start this one sooner, but given I didn’t have any money until recently I couldn’t exactly buy my supplies.

For this years batch I did a few things different.  First, I used the actual Saaz finishing hops, as opposed to the Hallertauer I used last year.  Second, I didn’t add the honey and 1/2 of the liquid malt extract until 15 minutes left in the boil.  Third, I used dried orange peel that I bought in the seasoning section of the store.

The problem with the orange peel from the store is I had no idea how much to add.  I did some Googling, and found that 1 Tbsp is equivalent to one medium size orange.  So, I went with that, adding 4 Tbsp of dried orange peels at the end where the recipe called for it.

This morning I took the initial gravity, 1.060, and pitched the yeast.  Took an initial taste, and whamo!  Bitter, just as I would expect, with tons of backend sweetness.  Oooh, going to be a good holiday season!

Continue reading]]> Last night I brewed my first seasonal beer using Papazian’s recipe for something he calls “Holiday Cheer.”  It uses 7lbs of light malt extract, 1/2lb of crystal malt, 2oz of black malt, 1lb of honey, orange peels, fresh ground ginger root, and cinnamon.  It also uses Cascade and Saaz hops, but since I don’t have any Saaz I substituted Hallertauer instead.

After mashing the small amount of grains and boiling the wort, I added the malt extract and the honey and the Cascades.  It was amazing to see how such a small amount o black malt can add so much color.  The smell of the honey and the malt were quite noticeable.  After the 60 minute boil I added the cinnamon, ginger root, and orange peels, and let them boil for 15 minutes.  2 minutes before the end of the boil I added the Hallertauers.

I aerated and pitched the yeast this morning, after taking the initial gravity, which came out to 1.052.  So, this beer has the potential to be over 6% alcohol.  My guess is that it will turn out to around 5.5%.  Not too shabby.  Definitely enough to warm you over the holidays.

My thanks to Robert for pitching in for this one.  I’ll definitely make it worth your while!

Batch 19 is ready to brew as well, which is a Beamish stout clone.  Oooohhhh, I absolutely love Beamish, so I’m really looking forward to that one.