1996 Holiday Spiced Ale(#20)

What a mess. Smacked the Wyeast smackpack on 12/6/96 and on 12/7/96 boiled up 6 tablespoons of amber dry malt extract in 600ml water..cooled down and added yeasties from the smackpack. On 12/10/96 I added the grains to 2 gallons of Round Rock tap water and brought the temperature up to 140F. I let it steep for five minutes and then brought the temperature up to 156F. I let it steep for fifteen minutes and brought the temperature up to 180F. At this point, I sparged the grains into the wort pot and sparged another gallon of water at 156F through the grains. I brought the wort to a boil and added 2 oz. of Cascades hops(boiling). After fifty minutes, I added the ginger root, zested orange peels and slightly ground cinnamon and another oz. of Cascades hops(flavor). Fifty-eight minutes into the boil, I added an oz. of Saaz hops(aroma, oh those sweet Saaz hops). After an hour of boil, I began the ritual cooling of the wort with an immersion wort chiller. Once the wort was down to 90F, I strained it into a plastic bucket with chilled Ozarka spring water to bring the level up to 5 gallons and the temperature down to 67F. After thoroughly mixing the wort with the water and taking the inital gravity, I racked the wort into a 6.5 gallon glass carboy. After two days, the brew was bubbling merrily away and filling my pool room with a lovely aroma.

Update: Took some of this to a party last Friday night and it was very nice. It is a very crisp tasting beer with a nice dry finish and almost no aftertaste. High praise from all who tasted it.

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