Christmas Ale 2017

Great Lakes Christmas Ale Clone

Grain Bill / Fermentables

  • 10 lbs 2-Row Pale Malt
  • 1 lb Caramel/Crystal 40L (45L if you can find it)
  • 1 lb Wheat Malt
  • 0.25 lb Special Roast
  • 0.08 lb Roasted Barley
  • 1.25 lbs Honey

Hops

  • 1.25 oz Cascade (6.3 AA)
  • 1 oz Hallertau (3.75 AA)

Extras

  • 2 Cinnamon Sticks
  • 1 oz Ginger Root (Peeled & Cubed)

Yeast

  • Wyeast 1028 London Ale

Details

  • 6 Gallon Yield
  • OG 1.066
  • FG 1.021
  • ABV 5.91%
  • IBU 29.94
  • Carbonation @ 2.5  Volumes
  • SRM 10.80 

Prior to Brew Day

Prepare an 800ml starter, which should produce more than the 295 billion cells required.

Brew Day

Heat 4 gallons of water to 165°.

Gently dough in grains until all grain is covered by water.

Mash grains at 154° for 90 minutes.

Remove “grain bag“, rinse and allow grains to drain.

Bring wort to a boil, add Cascade hops, cinnamon sticks and ginger root and continue boil for 50 minutes.

Add Hallertau hops and continue boil for 10 minutes.

Add 1.25 lbs honey at flame out.

Reduce wort temperature to 68° and take OG reading.

Sufficiently aerate and transfer to primary fermenter and pitch yeast starter.

Allow beer 3~4 weeks in the primary to adequately ferment and cleanup any diacetyl produced during fermentation.

Boil 2 cups of water, cool to 160 and add 1/2 tsp gelatin allow to cool for ~20 minutes and add to primary for 1 week or until clear.

Transfer to keg and hide it in a corner until Christmas.

Notes:

  • 2017-09-24, Brew Day
    • Adjusted mash pH to 5.0 using  tsp citric acid.  It wasn’t needed and I would not do this again.
  • This recipe is adapted from http://www.homebrewtalk.com/showthread.php?t=218147
  • Forgot to add the honey at flame out and had to bring a small amount of wort to 170, add the honey and re-cool.
  • 16 hours and a 1″ krausen, with abnormally large bubbles, has formed.
  • 6 days and the airlock is nearly dry from a very active fermentation and still bubbling every few minutes.
  • 2 weeks and the airlock is still showing activity when I open the door to the fermentation chamber.
  • 5 weeks, kegged and bottled. Still tastes a bit sugary. :/
  • 7 weeks, this is great beer. The priming sugar has been fully consumed and the result is a lightly carbonated and delicious brew. The spices are evident, but not overpowering, like many of the commercial offerings available.
  • 2017-12-20 – Kegged version is equally as good as the bottled version. This is worth making again and again. 🙂