Oktober
Active Member
Hey All,
About a month ago I decided I wanted to try spicing a brown ale with Chai just to see how it would come out (I was inspired by Gordon Strong's recipe in Radical Brewing). I ended up brewing a Brown Porter, split the batch, and spiced half of it at bottling with a strong Chai tea mixture I had made and chilled down (~6 teabags in about a quart of pre-boiled water).
Well, the lesson learned is don't use Chai Tea if I do it again. The tea leaves are giving too much of a astringent bitterness that makes the spiced version a little unplesant. Next time around, if there is one, I'd use Gordon Strong's Chai mixture (cadamom, ginger, vanilla, etc) instead of trying to use the pre-packaged tea.
Oh well, I'll chalk it up to a learning experience. The good news is the Brown Porter turned out awesome (modified version of the BCS recipe), so I have at least a half a batch of quality brew from all the effort.
Slainte!
-Okt
About a month ago I decided I wanted to try spicing a brown ale with Chai just to see how it would come out (I was inspired by Gordon Strong's recipe in Radical Brewing). I ended up brewing a Brown Porter, split the batch, and spiced half of it at bottling with a strong Chai tea mixture I had made and chilled down (~6 teabags in about a quart of pre-boiled water).
Well, the lesson learned is don't use Chai Tea if I do it again. The tea leaves are giving too much of a astringent bitterness that makes the spiced version a little unplesant. Next time around, if there is one, I'd use Gordon Strong's Chai mixture (cadamom, ginger, vanilla, etc) instead of trying to use the pre-packaged tea.
Oh well, I'll chalk it up to a learning experience. The good news is the Brown Porter turned out awesome (modified version of the BCS recipe), so I have at least a half a batch of quality brew from all the effort.
Slainte!
-Okt
