Luckyeddie's AG#19 - Snappy's Christmas Special

[luckyeddie]

Well, it's a little over 4 months to the big day - no, not Christmas but the day my daughter Becca presents me with my first grandchild. We know it's going to be a boy, and Becca refers to the little brewer as a 'Uterine Parasite'. I, meanwhile, am a big Jo Brand fan, so to me the lad is currently known as 'Snappy'.

To mark the occasion, I threw this little devil together - and I promise you, I shall get properly rat-arsed on it when the little one is born - and so will dad, Matthew, because he's a big fan of Fat ******* Brewery.....

Maris Otter 4.0 kg
Wheat Malt 0.5 kg
Crystal 60L 0.3 kg
Choccy Malt 0,2 kg
Dark Candi 1.0 kg

Hop schedule

Citra 30g @ 90 mins
Hersbrucker 30g @ 45 minutes
Saaz 30g @ 20 mins

Other muck

Cinnamon sticks 25 g
Cloves 20g
Nutmeg 10g
Ground Root Ginger 75g

Yeasties
Chimay Bottle Culture

Started fermentation @22C - will let it run wild.

Collected 16 litres @ 1072

 

[Darcey]

Well, it's a little over 4 months to the big day - no, not Christmas but the day my daughter Becca presents me with my first grandchild. We know it's going to be a boy, and Becca refers to the little brewer as a 'Uterine Parasite'. I, meanwhile, am a big Jo Brand fan, so to me the lad is currently known as 'Snappy'.

To mark the occasion, I threw this little devil together - and I promise you, I shall get properly rat-arsed on it when the little one is born - and so will dad, Matthew, because he's a big fan of Fat ******* Brewery.....

Maris Otter 4.0 kg
Wheat Malt 0.5 kg
Crystal 60L 0.3 kg
Choccy Malt 0,2 kg
Dark Candi 1.0 kg

Hop schedule

Citra 30g @ 90 mins
Hersbrucker 30g @ 45 minutes
Saaz 30g @ 20 mins

Other muck

Cinnamon sticks 25 g
Cloves 20g
Nutmeg 10g
Ground Root Ginger 75g

Yeasties
Chimay Bottle Culture

Started fermentation @22C - will let it run wild.

Collected 16 litres @ 1072

looks good to me! I may have a go im looking for something interesting to sit until xmas / snappy time!

Maybe it should be called Snappy's Special Christmas! Maybe if i get an order in i'll be able to salute the 'snapper' here as well!

 

[luckyeddie]

Rocking and rolling now - a gloop a second.

Can't measure the temperature - I dropped the body of my electronic thermometer in a bowl of water and killed it.

 

[luckyeddie]

Primary fermentation has now finished - it bottomed out at 1006 which gives us, so far, 8.7% alcohol.

Now to give it some serious stick - I am in the process of making more candi syrup - another kilo of sugar which will be accompanied by a re-pitching (this time Westmalle yeast which can easily handle the strength). In theory, this will kick up the finishing strength to around 10.5%, which is around what I'm aiming for.

The beer will be bottled in around a month (just 5g of conditioning sugar per litre), then stored warm for a week and finally refrigerated for another month before being stored at cellar temperature. The intention is to have a few this Christmas, but to lay the remainder down and leave some for 18 years (for when Snappy will be legally old enough to take his Grandad down the pub and mop up my dribbles).

As for the taste - as Lister would say, "De smegging licious". The cinnamon is a little 'in your face' at the moment but the cloves, ginger and nutmeg are all there in varying degrees. It could do with being just a tiny bit sweeter (hence the decision to re-ferment) - but all in all, this is a beer to be proud of, and very warming indeed.

 

[graysalchemy]

Well done :thumb: I didn't brew beer at the time my boys were born however I did manage a gallon of port when my eldest was born. I have just brewed a barley wine which I may mature for 10 yrs so he can have some of that on his 18th and I will do another in a few years time for no.2.

 

[luckyeddie]

OK, it's bottling time for this tonight. The secondary fermentation has had 6 weeks with another kilo of dark, heavily caramelised candi sugar and Westmalle yeast. The final gravity is an utterly amazing 1002 - these Belgian bottle-culture yeasts would eat your fingers if you got them a little too close to the business end of the FV. The awesome punchiness of the cinnamon has subsided a little and it is no longer so overpowering - the second fermentation with a different yeast has improved the sweetness (I really went to town on the candi, keeping it at 130C for about an hour and a half) and there is a beautiful warming feel as it goes down.

Just 5g per litre sugar for bottling - it's only 8 weeks before Christmas (and the expected date for Snappy's birth) so it should be perfectly conditioned for then.

The little bugger better not arrive early - my daughter had a 'light bleed' early this morning and is now in hospital under observation. Mother and uterine parasite fine they say. I reckon he's eager to get his hands on his brew.

Ladies and gentlemen, I think I've brewed my best-ever beer - and I might have to change its name to 'Baby Magnet' if he pops out early.

 

[abeyptfc]

good luck with it man. sounds like a beast of a recipe and you head might hurt the next day, you must be getting excited for the wee barra coming! when's the wee fulla due?hope all is going well.

 

[gurtpint]

Looks like this one will go for the throat... then the speech central... then the balance organs... and that's when things start to get interesting. Good luck! And congrats for you soon to be grandparenting!

 

[luckyeddie]

Snappy (or Sethlad, if you ask my sister - she's a big Seth Johnson fan) is due round about Christmas day. I doubt he'll hang around that long though (no-one in our family has ever gone full-term and my daughter Becca has already had one spell in hospital after a 'show').

The bottle conditioning is going along slowly but steadily. I always put a litre of each brew in a clear plastic 1 litre bottle then squeeze all of the air out before putting the cap on - the bottle then looks as though it's full to the brim but it isn't really - the plastic is collapsed in on itself a little. This means that I can visually check how the conditioning is coming on - the first thing you will see is a bit of headspace which grows day by day. You can also see the beer cloud up a little as the yeasts reproduce. Next, the squeezied-in bits pop out and finally the walls of the bottle firm up.

Because this beer is so strong, the conditioning will take a month or more so I won't be tempted to have a swift swig. That's one of the great things about putting a litre in plastic - you can bang it in the fridge, bring the temperature right down, open it, pour a drop out, seal it, let it warm up again etc - and of course taste the bit you've poured out. It's also easy to check the clarity and the settling of the conditioning yeast - but of course if you keep opening it then your settled yeast isn't going to compact down very well.

 

[Darcey]

....I always put a litre of each brew in a clear plastic 1 litre bottle then squeeze all of the air out before putting the cap on - the bottle then looks as though it's full to the brim but it isn't really - the plastic is collapsed in on itself a little...

What a GREAT idea.. I am going to use this next time. Previously I have allways bottled one in a clear glass bottle to check whats going on but doing one in a PET bottle is a great idea.!