spice and beer

[Dmp]

What's the base beer? Maybe this is obvious , but I'd recommend splitting the vanilla bean before soaking.

I'm also anal (yes I typed that) enough to put a measured amount of the scotch mixture into a pint of beer to see how it tastes before I dump the whole lot in.

should i just use a random beer? thats a good call.....

I'm still working on figuring that out...

I'm thinking I'll just use what I have around....

A base of 6.6 LME
1 lb of Amber ME

steep some caramel grains....

1oz of this hop, its earthy flavored, it has a 15.8 AA

and a third generation American Ale Yeast from Wyeast (I think strand 1 that has the clean, not fruity taste to it.)

....I am aiming i think for around a 1.05-1.06, I'm not really too particular. My main concern is not over bearing or under bearing the beer with spice...

...With that said, I like my beers to have a bold flavor tho.

[brewinhard]

After my last pumpkin spice beer I now realize the best technique for me when adding spices. IMO, if a beer is so-called "spiced", then the spice should defintely be noticeable and not just a hint in the background. With that being said, a pumpkin spice beer should be way spicier than a X-mas spice beer which should showcase more malts. I add the spices to the last 1 min. or so to the boil. After fermentation slows considerably, but is still going just a tiny bit, I add back some more spices steeped in just boiled water (but not boiling anymore) for a few minutes. Then add them back to the primary. Let the beer sit on the spices and yeast for the remainder of the original two week primary and then package. Cheers!

[Billy Klubb]

I just brewed up a stout (is there anything darker than stout? hahaha!) for my 2nd bourbon stout. I soak oak chips in 6oz of Bullit bourbon with a full split & scraped vanilla bean. split & scrape that bean, son!

[Dmp]

Oh that's a awesome idea too...Soaking the oak chips in bourbon. Was the oak flavor apparent? I'm assuming this technique works alot more effectively and efficiently than letting the chips sit in a 2ndary for a couple of weeks... Ya I scraped the bean open and its soaking in a malted whiskey scotch blend...Yum!

[Billy Klubb]

Oh that's a awesome idea too...Soaking the oak chips in bourbon. Was the oak flavor apparent? I'm assuming this technique works alot more effectively and efficiently than letting the chips sit in a 2ndary for a couple of weeks... Ya I scraped the bean open and its soaking in a malted whiskey scotch blend...Yum!

I add the oak in a secondary. it may seem redundant, but the bourbon isn't too noticeable at bottling until I add it to the bucket. but the oak is very noticeable for a while.