Tweaking Festival kit for Xmas ale

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Llamumbas

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Hi. I'm new on here and new to brewing. I did my first one a couple of months back and it was great! Festival Razorback IPA. Went down a treat.
Anyway, I want to do a Christmas ale next and was gonna go for Muntons Winter Warmer but, having read a few reviews, decided against it.
Now I'm thinking I'll do the Festival Pilgrims Hope and add a few seasonal ingredients. Cinnamon, ginger, clove.....whatever.
Thing is, being new to this, I don't know whether this would work, how to do it or what quantities to use for the 40 pint Festival kit.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.
Cheers.
 
One of the first kits I did was the Brewferm Xmas Ale. All I did was boil some Christmas pudding dried fruit (skimming off the oil etc) stuck it in the FV and poured kit on top. I had one after a month, one 4 months down the line and got the rest for this Christmas (I made it November last year) so I'm hoping it'll be pretty special by then!
 
Try a coopers bitter or ale kit,part mash with some maris otter and crystal maybe and do a hop tea. When boiling the wort from the mash add some whole spices...cinnamon,star anise or how about some dried orange peel?
 
Cheers for the replies. I went ahead and bought the Pilgrims this afternoon so I'll probably give that a go.
Yeah I was thinking of chucking a load of raisins and sultanas etc in a bag. The orange peel is a good shout too. Just read elsewhere about that.
The thing is, as it's a kit, when do I add the ingredients and for how long?
It's also been suggested that I buy a similar beer off the shelf and experiment with that. Soaking different flavours for ten minutes or so. If nothing else, it should be good fun trying, haha.
 
Mix your beer and then chuck in the extras in the FV whilst fermenting. Then by the time it's fermented out the flavours inpart and then all sediment will have dropped by the time it is ready to rack off.

Edit: I did boil mine and skim the oil off first as I had cheap dried fruit and it is usually coated in oil to prevent it sticking in the bag
 
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Cheers Mark. Sounds like good advice. I'll do that n let you know how it goes.
Cheers.
 
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