Aug
24
2009
Brew Day #15 — Ginpel
Back in May, we talked about my experiment mixing gin with our Tripel, and how wonderfully wonderful it was. We were inspired to try brewing a tripel with juniper and rosemary, and that happened yesterday:
23 August 2009
Ginpel
Extract w/ grains
5 gallons, 60 minute boil, 30 minute steep5.0 lbs Pilsner Liquid Malt Extract (60 min)
4.0 lbs Pilsner Liquid Malt Extract (15 min)
2.0 lbs Demerara sugar (15 min)Specialty Grains:
1.0 lbs Crystal Malt 15L
1.0 lbs Carafoam Malt1.00 oz Sterling Hops [7.0% AA] (60 min)
2.00 oz Sterling Hops [7.0% AA] (5 min)1.00 oz Crushed coriander seed
1.00 oz Sweet orange peel
1.00 oz Juniper berries
0.50 oz Grains of paradise
0.50 oz Rosemary1 tablet Whirlfloc (20 min – clarifier)
White Labs Trappist Ale Yeast (WLP500)
4 oz corn sugar (bottling)
—
Create a yeast starter 2-3 days in advance.
Add 3 gallons of water to kettle. Bring to boil.
Steep grains at 155°F for 30 minutes.
Remove grains, turn off heat and add 5.0 lbs malt extract. Bring to a boil. Add bittering hops.
At 20 minutes, add Whirlfloc tablet.
At 15 minutes, turn off heat. Add remaining malt extract while stirring. Return to boil.
At 5 minutes, add remaining hops.
At end of boil, remove all hops. Chill wort to 75°F. Rack to fermenter and dilute to 5 gallons. Decant yeast starter and pitch yeast. Aerate thoroughly. Ferment at 70-75°F.
Rack fermented beer to secondary fermenter. Add coriander, orange peel, juniper berries, grains of paradise, and rosemary. Age for 1 – 2 weeks.
Rack to bottling bucket. Boil corn sugar with 1 c filtered water and add to beer. Mix well.
Bottle. Age for 2 – 3 weeks.
Definitely one of our odder recipes. I have a feeling the juniper and rosemary will end up being over-emphasized, but nothing ventured! *fingers crossed*
I’m curious about the outcome of your rosemary beer. I brewed one similar to a pale ale with perhaps about 30-40 fresh rosemary spines of a hearty bush I had, which I was afraid wasn’t enough in a 10 gallon batch. I shouldn’t have feared, since the rosemary nearly overran the hops! It was an interestingly refreshing beer with boldly spicy pine-like notes and a thick mouthfeel. I brewed it for a party and was able to ask a bunch of people what they thought. (Mind you, these folks were all beer nerds.) Everyone liked it, and that batch actually kicked first of the bunch. The people I asked couldn’t figure out what the “secret” ingredient was. The point being that it should taste great! If the rosemary isn’t prominent, find a bush somewhere and take it straight off the plant because the flavor is much more intense from those. I also boiled my spines for about 2-3 minutes right before I chilled the wort.
It came out great, actually! We also used fresh rosemary off of a plant. It’s definitely noticeable, but the biggest flavor profile is the juniper.
Hey – I’m currently working on a very light pale ale that I want to be a light gin and tonic like ale. I used Norther Brewer as the flavoring hops (I wanted that minty, pine-like flavor). I want to dry-juniper berry it (it’s in secondary) and was wondering if you boiled or did anything to sanitize your spices before adding? I may also consider rosemary since it sounds like others have had success with that as well. Thanks!
We didn’t bother to sanitize our spices (juniper, rosemary, etc.) because the beer had such a high ABV. I think it finished in the 9-10% range. Nothing bad tasting can live in that. :P
For a pale ale, though, I honestly don’t know. I’ve heard of people using sanitizer on their spices, but that idea doesn’t appeal to me in the slightest, personally. You could also try boiling your juniper berries for about five minutes to sanitize them, but that would almost certainly change their flavor and boil away some of the aroma. Perhaps make a tea of them in a French press?
A tea would be a great way to extract the spice flavor without altering it. I did that when we made the Oatmeal Chai Stout, Boris the Spider. Check out this post:
http://www.bathtubbrewery.com/2010/06/22/brewing-chai-tea-extract-part-ii-%E2%80%94-remembering-where-you-put-things/
You’ll see that I cold brewed the tea extract: this is CRUCIAL. Hotbrewing and then throwing into a room temperature liquid (that will later be chilled) can end up in a woody, stale flavor. Preserve the freshness of the juniper berries by maybe giving them a little cracking with a mortar and pestle (don’t grind them though) and then adding cold water and brewing for 12 hours before adding to the fermenter or bottling bucket.
[...] a year and 3 months ago, we brewed the Ginpel; a Frankenstein of a beer, inspired by Ray pouring a shot of Dogfishhead’s Jin into our [...]