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Post by Scott H on Dec 3, 2013 2:06:58 GMT -5
Ginger Snap Cookie Beer by Brandi MartinNotes from the brewer:The Ginger Snap Cookie Beer toasts traditional holiday flavors with a bit of alcoholic warmth during a cold winter night. I would describe it as the liquid cookie for the cold frosty mug. The Fairytale cookie beer smells exactly how you would image a ginger snap beer should: sweet, savory, warm, spicy and traditional. The clear cameral color compliments the aroma. Zesty fresh ginger balanced with the sweet molasses and classic cinnamon and nutmeg spices; undertones of vanilla keep the spicy ginger from overpowering the brew. This is not a beer for the bitter lovers. It is sweet. It is more like dessert you sneak before dinner. A chocolaty appetizer would be a nice pairing. I had issues as a new brewer with the carbonation. Hopefully by the time you crack it, there will be bubbles. If it doesn’t carbonate, you can use it to make a holiday bread or pancakes Much like traditional ale, the specialty spices compliment the earthiness of the hops. Pour the robust brew in to a cold pint and usher in the holiday beer spirit. CHEERS! Recipe:Batch Size: 5.25 gal Style: Christmas/Winter Specialty Spice Beer (21B) Boil Size: 6.72 gal Style Guide: BJCP 2008 Color: 29.2 SRM Equipment: 10gal Blichmann - 10 Gal Cooler Bitterness: 39.5 IBUs Boil Time: 60 min Est OG: 1.097 (23.0° P) Mash Profile: Single Infusion, Full Body, Batch Sparge Est FG: 1.014 SG (3.6° P) Fermentation: Ale, Two Stage ABV: 11.1% Taste Rating: 30.0 Ingredients10 lbs Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 1 4 lbs Rye Malt (4.7 SRM) Grain 2 1 lbs Cara-Pils/Dextrine (2.0 SRM) Grain 3 1 lbs Caramel/Crystal Malt - 40L (40.0 SRM) Grain 4 1 lbs Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L (60.0 SRM) Grain 5 1 lbs Caramel/Crystal Malt - 80L (80.0 SRM) Grain 6 1 lbs Caramel/Crystal Malt -120L (120.0 SRM) Grain 7 1 lbs Black Strap Molasses (80.0 SRM) Grain 8 1 lbs Milk Sugar (Lactose) (0.0 SRM) Grain 9 1.0 oz Warrior [15.0%] - Boil 60 min Hops 10 6.00 oz Ginger Root (Boil 10 min) Misc 11 0.50 oz Pumpkin Pie Spice (Boil 10 min) Misc 12 1 pkgs American Ale II (Wyeast Labs #1272) Yeast 13 4.00 oz Vanilla Extract (Bottling 5 min) Misc 14
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Post by Scott H on Dec 3, 2013 7:57:20 GMT -5
By the way Heiko and Brandi, I apologize for putting a gingerbread stout and ginger snap cookie beer right next to each other in the calendar. I was numbering them and afterwards, when I sorted them out, realized that I put two extremely similar beers back to back. Purely coincidental!
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Post by Brandi on Dec 3, 2013 9:14:07 GMT -5
Scott, I was wondering how random that was...in any case no no matter the the order, this calendar has be so much fun. Thanks you for putting this together. Everyone has given great feedback so far. I am certain no one will he too hard on us super sweet back to back gingers. (And my under carbonated beer.)
Cheers!
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Post by Allen H on Dec 3, 2013 10:11:18 GMT -5
I'd like it if you were to walk us through your process with this one. It was very sweet, lactose?, and malty. I got the ginger snap character but it was only in the center of the flavor. Nothing in the beginning or the end. Completely Uncarbonated, like you feared, but I did have sediment in the bottle.
Just trying to find out where in the process that might have happened. High gravity? How long and what temp was fermentation? Possibly not enough yeast to support it and carbonation I think... I don't know, though. Just throwing out sine guesses. How long had it been in the bottle? Did you chill your priming solution or is it possible it killed the yeast off?
Interesting concept to have. Would have been awesome if it completely worked out.
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Post by Brandi on Dec 3, 2013 11:13:21 GMT -5
We under pitched the yeast and tried to compensate for it after we realized it was not enough. It has been in the bottle for about 2 months. The most common advice is to give it time. I hope by next advent calendar it may be carbonated. It is the high gravity and the large amount of sugar in the beer. We were thinking about adding tablets but that would not get rid of the sugar. We are thinking about adding a drop of clean yeast to the rest of the batch I have at home. It was ambitious for an amateur brewer, having only made 6 beers. The ginger snap cookie was the 3rd of our resume ironically. Go big or go bad and we ended up in the middle of big and bad. All the rest of our beers are great especially based on our lack of experience. I thought about turning a different beer but thought this beer was my current dream bee and would be great for feedback. I has a complex flavor but a wide range if improvement. .
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Post by Allen H on Dec 3, 2013 11:34:33 GMT -5
Gotcha, kind of late but but another pitch of yeast, a large pitch might have cleaned it up and fermented out the rest of the beer. I don't feel time is going to get this beer where you want it. I don't know what your final gravity was or anything, so maybe it was done, but just a thought. I think trying to add much yeast now would be a bad idea unless you transferred the beer out of the bottles into a bucket or something...
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Post by Allen H on Dec 3, 2013 13:11:16 GMT -5
Also, I'd simplify your recipe looking back. 5lbs of very similar crystal when adding them all together. I'm not sure what flavors you were specifically looking for but but that just becomes very muddled, typically. Last month's... I think it was last month's, issue of BYO has a great article on crystal and caramel malts. Zymurgy did a lesser involved article a while back, too. Blending a couple works great but adding every one available typically has the reverse effects. Don't worry though, I did stuff like that many years ago when I started brewing lol
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Post by Brandi on Dec 3, 2013 14:16:20 GMT -5
This was my adventurous experimental beer. It wouldn't be bad if it were carbonated. Growing pains. Thanks for the advice. Up side is low carbonates beer=no beer bombs!
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Post by Scott H on Dec 3, 2013 16:44:58 GMT -5
Wow Brandi, you weren't kidding when you said this was an ambitious beer. Unfortunately, like you and Allen mentioned, I had no carbonation in my bottle. Scott M and I tried this one together. I could definitely taste the molasses and I really liked the dark desert-i-ness of this beer (I just make up terms as I go). We were very surprised to see that this beer fermented all the way down to 1.014 since it still had a lot of sweetness to it. I've never brewed with molasses before, but maybe that was what I was tasting. The roasted grains and ginger flavor were all there fighting for attention... it's an assertive beer for sure.
I think you've got a really good beer here, Brandi, I think it just needed more viable yeast to make the carbonation happen. I really hope that you brew this again, though (and drop off a sample too, hint hint). From 1.097 though, that's a lot of work for a single package of liquid yeast. Next batch, I would use 3 liquid yeast packages (with a starter) for a beer this big, or 2 packages of dry yeast.
Spoiler Alert (well not really) We also discovered something amazing that I wanted to share. The brewer of tomorrow's beer wrote to me to let me know that his beer is overcarbonated (volcano action), which I'll mention in tomorrow's post. Scott and I had to sample a day ahead anyway because we weren't going to be able to have the day 4 beer on day 4, so we popped it open to take notes. It was at that moment that the lightbulb went on... without giving away tomorrow's beer, I will tell you that if you save some of today's beer and add some of tomorrow's beer to it, it is a glorious union of homebrewing deliciousness. Day 3 is the chocolate to day 4's peanut butter. Just putting that out there.
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Post by Brandi on Dec 3, 2013 17:31:36 GMT -5
Master mixologist Scott! We figured out the yeast issue way to late. I still thought it was advent worthy, especially for the insight on the beer making process. I am glad I am not the only one with beer-making problems in this big brew world. Maybe we can come up with a name for the #3-#4 mix!
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Post by carboywonder on Dec 3, 2013 18:20:08 GMT -5
Brandi,
I too had an uncarbonated bottle. However, I quite enjoyed the flavors you were able to acheive. A bit of carbonation would balance out the perceived sweetness perfectly.
With big beers, starters are a must, and a good way to save money. Also consider utilizing the yeast cake from a prior brew.
Brian Q
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Post by klinger on Dec 3, 2013 18:35:58 GMT -5
Hi Brandi,
The recipe Scott listed says Estimated OG was 1.097 & estimated FG was 1.014. Were these the actual OG & FG or estimates from BeerSmith or another piece of software? Just curious. I'm looking forward to tasting your beer later this evening.
Mark
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Renee
Contributor
Posts: 5
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Post by Renee on Dec 3, 2013 19:04:46 GMT -5
Hi Brandi, I enjoyed the combination of spices in this beer, though it was much too sweet for me. I agree with the people above, it would definitely improve with more viable yeast. It's always fun to try experimental beers, and I will be setting a bit aside to mix with some of beer #4 tomorrow Renee
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Post by Brandi on Dec 3, 2013 19:29:12 GMT -5
Beersmith 1.090 to 1.026
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Post by spidermonk on Dec 3, 2013 19:49:00 GMT -5
Sorry mine was flat and too sweet to. You guys with your ginger beers are quite the risk takers, takes a lot of nerve to try and pull one of these off especially with that much ginger and lactose . I wonder if it fully fermented? That's 20lbs of malt for a 5 gallon batch and if it was under pitched I bet it stalled out. That would add more sweetness and make carbonation nigh impossible.
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