A buddy of mine and I have each brewed a spiced beer. We plan to split the batches so that we each get half of each batch. I brewed a Happy Holiday Ale, which was a kit from Midwest Supplies. This was my first use of a pre-packaged kit. The whole process is pretty easy since you are spared having to go to the shop, measure the ingredients, crush the grain etc. But of course you probably pay a slightly higher price for the ingredients and you have to pay the potentially large ($15+) shipping charge. In this case however I had a discount code that essentially reduced the price of the items I bought by a greater amount than the shipping charge.
In any case, the recipe and directions are available in .PDF from Midwest. The instructions were a bit vague and did not specify the exact strike water volume or temp to use. I ended up at an initial mash temp of 142F and had to add some boiling water to bring the mash to 152F, still a little under. Ug. I don't like the extra stress that causes on brew day and I hope the beer finishes with the appropriate sweetness.
Brewed 10/16/15
Got OG of 1.062. On the low end but OK. Volume into carboy was 5.3 gallons or so.
It was smelling really nice after the addition of cinnamon, nutmeg and ginger to the boil.
For this one I pitched S-04 slurry left over from my previous brown porter. I didn't make a starter but just pitched the slurry directly from the Mason jar to the wort. The beer fermented at around 68F ambient air, and fermentation seemed to pick up very fast after pitching - like within a few hours.
11/17/15 - Racked to secondary. Beer tasted OK but not great. Gravity was 1.010. Plan to bottle in early December.
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