Christmas brew ideas

[AJ_Rowley]

Hey guys looking at getting a Xmas brew started but I've never made one before. Does anyone have any interesting recipes they wouldn't mind sharing. Looking for something a bit different with uses of spices.

Was thinking a big stout with nutmeg cinnamon and orange and vanilla, but like I said I'm not sure what way to go.

I only make 5l batches so anything that doesn't work out I won't be sitting on a huge amount.

AJ

[Leann ull]

Do a base beer with dark malts
Then make up a vodka cocktail with orange cinnamon nutmeg, stew a few days
Add with syringe at various levels to find your sweet spot.

[AJ_Rowley]

Right had an idea, dark saisons ~9% with figs orange subject and some port soaked oak chips. Not sure of malts just yet. Thoughts?

[Bubbles]

A grain bill for a dubbel will get you in the right ballpark for a dark saison.

Try googling "biere du noel" or check out the mad fermentationist blog for similar recipes.

[AJ_Rowley]

The mad Fermentationist is where I got the idea. His annual dark saisons have always intrigued me.

[Bubbles]

Me too, though I've yet to do one myself. He uses a lot of wacky ingredients in them, black cardamom for instance. Can't imagine that tasting nice in beer.. 

[delzep]

Whats a dark saison?

[AJ_Rowley]

Whats a dark saison?

Dark malty base, with saison yeast. From what I've read though because if the high attenuation of saison yeasts doing a separate steep of the darker grains helps to avoid the acrid/bitter flavours that would be accentuated with the yeast.

[AJ_Rowley]

Recipe idea:

Aiming for ~9% ABV

Pilsner malt 30%
Vienna malt 30%
Munich 30%
Aromatic 3%
Special B 3%
Carafa III 4% (cold steeped)

May add some sugar(brown) or try my hand at homemade Candi syrup.

Magnum 10-15 IBU only 1 addition, as I want yeast malt and other additions to come through.

WLP 566 saison II

Add some figs, sweet orange peel.
Also add some port soaked oak chips (medium toast)

Any adjustments or recommendations?

[marzen scorsese]

I have a vanilla bourbon stout recipe that looks interesting but takes 16 weeks before it's ready nevertheless I'm brewing it as soon as I can make room it really sounds good if anybody wants it I'll post it here later it's from a book I got last Christmas and only started there a couple weeks ago

[marzen scorsese]

Vanilla bourbon stout from home brew beer by Greg Hughes
O.G 1070
F.G 1017
Total liquor 34 litres
Makes 23 litres
Ready in 16 weeks
Est. Abv 7.8%
Bitterness 30.2 IBU
Colour 58.6 EBC

MASH
Liquor 17.5 Litres
Time 1hr
Temp 65c

SPARGE
Liquor 17.5 litres

GRAIN BILL
Pale malt 4.8kg
Vienna malt 1.1kg
Brown malt 500g
Chocolate malt 350g
Crystal malt 200g

BOIL
Liquor 27 litres
Time 1hr 15mins

HOPS
Northern brewer 35g at the start of the boil
Challenger 16g 10 mins

OTHER
Protofloc 1tsp 15 mins

FERMENTATION
Temp 20c
Conditioning 15 weeks at 12c

YEAST
Wyeast 1028 London ale

OTHER
Vanilla pods x 2 dry hop after 4 days for a week
Bourbon 400ml just before bottling

That's it I know it's probably too late but if anyone brews this I'd love to hear back I'm definitely doing this soon

I'd probably soak the pods in the bourbon after cold crashing the stout for a few days then raising it back up then add them in the secondary for a week or two.

Also make sure the vanilla is fresh it should be almost sticky and not dry. You might have to use the ol internet to source the right stuff, from what I've read it's important

[Acott]

I brewed a Great Lakes Christmas Ale clone on the Bank Holiday Monday.

Heres the original recipe, I couldn't get all the malts so I made some changes which are in brackets.
I got this from HomebrewTalk and forgot that the US gallon is smaller than the imperial gallon, so I really missed the numbers.
You'd have to throw this in to beersmith to get the correct OG.

Batch Size (Gallons): 5
Original Gravity: 1.075 (I got 1.057, pissed I missed this as I wanted a real winter warmer)
Final Gravity: 1.018
IBU: 30
Boiling Time (Minutes): 60
Color: 11.6

4.540kg   Pale Malt (2 Row) 73.64 %
453g       Caramel/Crystal Malt - 45L 7.36 % (I used Caramunich Type 2)
453g       Wheat Malt 7.36 %
115g       Special Roast 1.84 % (I used Melanoidin Malt)
36g         Roasted Barley 0.59 %

Cascade (60 min) 27 IBU
Hallertauer (10 min) 3 IBU


2 Cinnamon Sticks (boil 60.0 min) Misc
28g Ginger Root (boil 60.0 min) Misc
567g Honey (Flame out) Sugar 9.20 %

1 Pkgs London Ale (Wyeast Labs #1028) Yeast-Ale (I used Notty)

The boil really smelled amazing!

Really vigorous fermentation the last week and I lost about 2 liters to blow off, I'll keg it next week and let it sit for a month before bottling.

[auralabuse]

Liking the sponge over thermometer probe, nice idea

[PCBrewer]

Thinking of brewing a milk stout next weekend for Christmas, based on a  left hand milk stout clone recipe.

For something different I am considering splitting the batch and adding some blackcurrents I have in the freezer to the secondary of half of it.

Any suggestions as to the best way to do it, or how much blackcurrants I would need to add a subtle flavour?

I am brewing  23l batch.

Is the best bet to split it after primary into two different secondary batches and add the blackcurrants to one then?

Any suggestions welcome