Adjuncts

[bullfrog]

Morning all,

Got a quick question about adding adjuncts. The missus has decided that she's going to try making an experimental brew with vanilla bean, cloves, star of anise, nutmeg and cinnamon (she downloaded a brewing iPhone application for me, but has been playing with it herself) and I've no idea what the best way of adding those extras would be.

I was thinking about adding them to the boil at 10 minutes in a hop-sock, and leaving them in the brew when transferring to fermenter. Is that the way one goes about it, or is there a better method?

[drsmurto]

I've used cloves, nutmeg and cinnamon in ginger beers and cider before.

Boil them up for 10+ mins (i did 1 hour).

Everything other than the vanilla bean comes as a dried whole spice - don't use powders or crush them. Split the vanilla bean open. Put them all in a piece of muslin cloth and tie it up and throw it into the boil.

These sort of spices are used in US styled christmas beers.

[bullfrog]

Cheers Doc. Would you then keep them in the hop-sock for the whole fermentation, or remove them at the end of the boil?

[drsmurto]

Remove them after the boil

[bullfrog]

Too easy, Doc.

Give it a couple of months and I'll let you know how this one goes. Not sure if this is something that I'm going to like, but SWMBO took herself to the LHBS and the grocery store on Saturday and got everything she needs, now she's really excited to make this Frankenbeer.

[SuperBroo]

Hi Bullfrog,

which iphone program you using ?

Theres one called ibrewmaster, which is real nice, I've been mucking around using that and beersmith,

also brewmath is pretty cool for quick calculation checks

Brewpal is ok, but sometimes the timer doesnt work i think if you turn it off the wrong way or something like that.


cheers,
Chris

[bullfrog]

Haven't the foggiest, Grog. It's on the missus' iPhone -- I use an HTC because I'm still on contract, but will update to an iPhone when that's run out. I'll ask her when I get home, but it definitely has 'Brew' in the title, if that helps at all?

[Lachy]

I don't know about the star anise, but vanilla, cloves, nutmeg and cinnamon would be awesome in a dark ale.

[bullfrog]

Yeah, it's going to be an amber-to-brown ale, from my guess. She's got 3kg amber malt and 200g of 120L Crystal in the recipe, so it will be coming out darkish. I'm half tempted to get her to throw in maybe 200-300g of roasted barley as well, as I reckon that would go nicely with it.

...but then, I'm currently drinking my most recent stout and enjoying that immensely, so maybe I'm just trying to incorporate some of that flavour into her beer. I know that I'm the one that's going to be drinking all of this anyways, as the only beer she drinks is some of my more citrusy APA's, so I think it'd be fair for me to modify the recipe, right?

[earle]

I wonder if the roast barley would overpower your spice additions. It might be a bit of a trick to add the right amount.

[bullfrog]

Yeah, that's a good point. Maybe I could experiment with maybe 100g. I wouldn't imagine that that would impart too much flavour that it would overpower the spice additions.