Xmas Stout Brew Date 18/9 - Long Enough?

Hi all,

I am planning on brewing this on the 11th September for Christmas festivities, which for me and my friends starts around 10th December which coincidentally is a Saturday.

Ingredients
12 lbs. (5.4 kg) Canadian Pils malt
1.0 lb. (0.45 kg) Munich malt
0.50 lb. (0.45 kg) Carahell® malt (19 °L)
0.50 lb. (0.45 kg) CaraMunich® malt (30–40 °L)
1.0 oz. (28 g) black patent malt
1.0 lb. (0.45 kg) light dried malt extract
13 fl. oz. (384 mL) maple syrup
1.5 lbs. (0.68 kg) dried cherries
12 AAU US Northern Brewer hops (60 mins)
(1 oz./28 g of 12% alpha acids)
Wyeast 1084 (Irish ale) yeast
1 vanilla bean (split)
3 cinnamon sticks (3 inches, broken into pieces)

Step by Step
Strong Scotch ale base. Mash all grains at 152 °F (67 °C) for 60 min. Mash out at 168 °F (76 °C) for 10 min. Add dried malt extract and maple syrup at boil. Steep cherries in 2 qts. (2 L) of first wort runnings for 30 min. Strain out cherries and add this wort at end of boil. Ferment at 62–64 °F (17–18 °C). Dry spice in secondary for 2–3 weeks.

Will that give me enough time for the Stout to mature, it gives me 13 weeks in total. I was hoping to leave in the primary for 4 weeks, then dry spice straight into the primary - I am terrified of an infection (I have been no chilling in my fermenter but now I am going to start chilling as it has just been worrying me!) so am unsure of transferring to a secondary prior to bottling. That will then give me 7 weeks ish in the bottles.

Any advice greatly received, I understand Stouts can be a little feisty.

I've just yesterday bottled this exact beer (well, with a few modifications).

I used dried cranberries because they were easier to get, and I used Mangrove Jacks Workhorse yeast and tettnang hops because my local shop was out of northern brewer.

Not going to lie, it doesn't taste great yet. I'm hoping it'll improve in the bottles.

I think the downside to adding spices to the primary are that it'll likely get mixed up in the yeast bed and not infuse properly. But if you stick the vanilla pod and cinnamon stick in some vodka for a few days then much of the flavour will be extracted into the vodka.

One final thing, it's not actually a stout. It's a scotch ale, so it's dark brown, but not as dark as a stout.

sven945 said:

Not going to lie, it doesn't taste great yet. I'm hoping it'll improve in the bottles.

Click to expand...

How long did you give it in primary and secondary? Is yours for Xmas also?

I can't reach my note book from here, but I think it's been about a month in each. Mostly due to being busy more than anything. I'm aiming for Christmas, yeah. Once I label it I'll put it away for a few months. I'll try one at the start of November maybe.