Great Lakes Christmas Ale Clone – Nottingham vs. Windsor
This an an effort to compare Danstar Nottingham and Windsor yeasts. The 2018 Christmas Ale using Nottingham yeast was a bit drier and missing the fruity yeast character from Wyeast 1028 London Ale. Windsor offers some of the same characteristics found in Wyeast 1028, but in a dry yeast.
Grain Bill / Fermentables
- 20 lbs 2-Row Pale Malt
- 2 lb Crystal 40L
- 2 lb Wheat Malt
- 1.5 lb Special Roast
- 0.16 lb Roasted Barley
- 2.5 lbs Honey
Hops
- 3 oz Cascade (6.3 AA)
- 2 oz Hallertau (3.75 AA)
Extras
- 6 Cinnamon Sticks
- 3 oz Ginger Root (Peeled & Cubed)
Yeast
- Danstar Nottingham
- Danstar Windsor
Other
- Whirlfloc Tablet
- 10.4 grams Citric Acid
Target Stats
- 11 Gallon Yield
- OG 1.074
- FG 1.018
- ABV 7.28%
- IBU 33.4
- SRM 12.68
Final Stats
- 10 Gallons
- OG 1.089
- FG 1.020 Nottingham & 1.030 Windsor
- ABV 9.06% Nottingham & 7.74% Windsor
- Efficiency 84%
Brew Day
Add citric acid and heat 13 gallons of water to 166°. (12 gallons of unfiltered Dover City water and 1 gallon distilled water.)
Gently dough in grains until all grain is covered by water.
Mash grains at 157° for 90 minutes.
Remove “grain bag“, rinse and allow grains to drain.
Bring wort to a boil, add 3 oz Cascade hops, cinnamon sticks and ginger root and continue boil for 50 minutes.
Add 2 oz Hallertau hops, whirlfloc and continue boil for 10 minutes.
Add 2.5 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 1~2 weeks in the primary to adequately ferment and cleanup any diacetyl produced during fermentation.
Bottle or keg and hide it in a corner until Christmas.
Notes:
- 2019-11-02, Brew Day
- Mashed for 1 hour.
- Pitched dry yeast into 73° wort.
- Fermentation chamber is the basement ~68°.
- 2 hours – Windsor is already bubbling. (No idea on the progress with Nottingham as the carboy lid cracked.)
- November 22nd – Kegged both batches and took final gravity readings.