For the holiday season roughly starting around thanksgiving and through New Years one must have an ale of distinct warmth. How does one obtain warmth in an ale? Well, there is that warm feeling while drinking a beverage with alcohol content caused primarily by the constriction of peripheral vessels which shunt blood back to the core of the body. On a spicier note, one could add things like nutmeg, cinnamon, allspice, clove, orange, and of course hops. Bottom line, a full beer with intrinsic spiciness. Below is a partial-mash extract recipe and is very simple, really.
Grains - special or not
1# 40L Crystal Malt
0.5# Wheat Malt
1# Vienna Malt
1# Carapils Malt
1# Two row American Pale Malt
Liquid Malt Extract
6.6# Munton and Fison pale malt extract
Hops
0.5oz Cascade for boil - 2.5 HBU
0.5 oz Willamette -for flavor last 15 min boil - 2.5 HBU
0.5 oz Willamette - aroma 5 minute steep
1/4 tsp. Irish Moss - last 15 minutes of boil
Spice Mixture
1 tsp. cloves, 5 sticks-3" long cinnamon, 1 tsp. nutmeg, rinds from 2 tangerines (limited white stuff), 2 tsp. allspice, and 1 cup of honey (aprox. 3/4#).
Spices need to be simmered in the honey for 45 minutes and added to the wort during the steep of the aroma hops. Tip--when you've finished the partial mash and are adding the hops and malt extract this is a good time to turn on the heat to start the simmer. You will find the time to get to a good simmer is about 15 minutes leaving you 45 minutes until the end of your wort boil.
Wyeast #1968 Special London - incredibly high attenuating and floculant. Further, I've cultivated this yeast and it is very resilient to long storage times.
Partial Mash Instructions (some of my own ideas and some from Papazian, NCJHB p. 228, also see the grains section of my webpage)
First of all you may want to check out the section on my webpage about extract to mash conversion. It is important to note the use of wheat malt to aid in enzyme converson of starches. Next, all the grains mentioned above should be placed in cheese cloth or muslin bags. Why you ask? Simple, no sparge just remove the bags ringing them out as they are removed. I got away with using two cheese cloth bags. By the way, your grains are crushed right?
Heat 2.5 quarts of water to 130 degrees F (58 C). Add any gypsum if you are using it. Add the grains and mix the around making sure the grains in the bags are fully exposed to the water. The temperature should fall to about 115-120 degrees F (46-49 C). Add some heat and hold the temperature at 120-122 degrees for 30 min, stirring the grains (swishing would be a better term) every 5 mniutes.
Raise the temperaturer of the mash to 130 degrees F (58 C) and add 1.5 quarts of boiling water. This will raise the temperature to about 150 degrees F (65 C). Hold at 149-152 degrees F (65-67 C) for 10 minutes "swishing" the grains occasionally. Add more heat after those 10 minutes to 158 degrees F (70 C) and hold for 20 minutes. Converison should be complete. Remove your bags squeeze-sparging to get all the sweet wort from them.
After this is the normal brewing procedure so turn up the heat and let's get boiling!
Bring sweet wort to boil adding malt extract and boiling hops. Add flavor hops and irish moss in last 15 minutes of boil. Turn off heat, add flavor hops, and spice mix letting steep 5 minutes. Cool wort rapidly after 5 minutes below 78�F.
O.G. 1.070
F.G. ?
