It's that time of year again, time to brew a Christmas beer. Last year I was a little behind and ended up bottling on Dec 21. Not really in time to enjoy for Christmas (that and a recipe mistake made it undrinkable until about April/May). So this year I am doing it on time and will be enjoying a bottle on Christmas day. This is a complete rewrite of the St. Nick's Nog I brewed last year. I wanted a med-light brown with some spice. Everything was going great and with 10 minutes left in the boil I add 1# of honey, 2 cinnamon sticks, and 3 cloves. I thought those spices would be about right for a 5 gallon batch. I was wrong. When I tasted it on bottling day there was barely any cinnamon flavor and way too much clove. I smashed up another cinnamon stick and added to my priming sugar as I heated it on the stove. I bottled and set them aside hoping that all would work out. Three weeks later I opened the first bottle. There was a great cinnamon smell and it was pretty murky, but I assumed I had gotten some sediment while pouring. The flavor floored me. All I could taste was clove and it penetrated every taste bud. After only a few sips my mouth was beginning to numb and I was pouring it into the sink. I decided to just hold on to it and see where it went. Months later the cloves faded out and now (10 months later) it is a pretty nice beer. So I scraped that recipe entirely and went with the following.
The beer. Again, you can find the recipe at the bottom of this post. I simplified my grist and decided to let the beer do its own thing instead of forcing flavors into it. There is a handful of chocolate malt giving me my color and hopefully some nice chocolate flavors. I am adding some dark molasses near the end of the boil. Looking for a really deep caramel flavor and some sweetness too. I went dark to try to leave some unfermentables in the wort. One cinnamon stick will also be added to the end of the boil. After a 2 week primary, I will rack to a secondary fermenter and add another cinnamon stick to age for 1 week.
The process. This week went much smoother than the last. I mashed in fairly high at 155F to leave it sweeter. Some of the molasses will ferment and dry this out so I compensated with a high mash temperature. Held a steady mash temp unlike last week and proceeded to the sparge. Last week I hit my preboil gravity, but was short on my OG. I assumed I had just not boiled off as much as I had told my software that I would so I dropped that down this week. I sparged to 1.25gal and started the boil. A small bittering addition at 60 will help balance the sweetness. With ten minutes left in the boil I added my 2oz of Full Flavor molasses and one stick of cinnamon. After cooling I took a gravity reading and overshot my estimates by about 17 points. I then realized I was also a quart short. I added some water to get me back to the 1 gallon mark and measured my gravity again. After topping it up my gravity was dead on. I have to figure out my boil off rate and get that nailed in.
So overall, I fixed my mash problems and found a boil off rate issue. Next week that will be fixed and we will see what pops up then.
Until next week, cheers.
-Mike
Recipe: http://www.brewtoad.com/recipes/st-nicks-nog
The beer. Again, you can find the recipe at the bottom of this post. I simplified my grist and decided to let the beer do its own thing instead of forcing flavors into it. There is a handful of chocolate malt giving me my color and hopefully some nice chocolate flavors. I am adding some dark molasses near the end of the boil. Looking for a really deep caramel flavor and some sweetness too. I went dark to try to leave some unfermentables in the wort. One cinnamon stick will also be added to the end of the boil. After a 2 week primary, I will rack to a secondary fermenter and add another cinnamon stick to age for 1 week.
The process. This week went much smoother than the last. I mashed in fairly high at 155F to leave it sweeter. Some of the molasses will ferment and dry this out so I compensated with a high mash temperature. Held a steady mash temp unlike last week and proceeded to the sparge. Last week I hit my preboil gravity, but was short on my OG. I assumed I had just not boiled off as much as I had told my software that I would so I dropped that down this week. I sparged to 1.25gal and started the boil. A small bittering addition at 60 will help balance the sweetness. With ten minutes left in the boil I added my 2oz of Full Flavor molasses and one stick of cinnamon. After cooling I took a gravity reading and overshot my estimates by about 17 points. I then realized I was also a quart short. I added some water to get me back to the 1 gallon mark and measured my gravity again. After topping it up my gravity was dead on. I have to figure out my boil off rate and get that nailed in.
So overall, I fixed my mash problems and found a boil off rate issue. Next week that will be fixed and we will see what pops up then.
Until next week, cheers.
-Mike
Recipe: http://www.brewtoad.com/recipes/st-nicks-nog
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