Looking for a winter style recipe

A Dark Mild would be where my head's at. You want an English yeast that's sluggish and doesn't want to drop the FG too low. Keep it thick and chewy. Add some seasonal spice at the last 5 min of the boil. 1/2 as much as you think you'll need. Then add more a week before finishing primary.
I'd skip secondary. If you think there's a reason to do one then you could. The spices shouldn't need too long in your beer though.

 

There are not a lot of Christmas/Holiday ales out there that don't have spice added.

I agree with @inchrisin - 5 minutes is plenty of boil time to impart flavors without overpowering the beer. For cinnamon you can just put sticks in. For nutmeg, I'd grate it over the pot. I'm not sure I'd want to add any ground spice mid-fermenting because unless you stir in, it'll probably just sit on top of the wort. Another thought is to add it to the priming sugar solution.

If you do go the spice route, spend a couple extra dollars and get better spices than you'd find in the grocery store. It'll come in handy for the holidays anyway.

 

A lot of supermarket pre-ground "cinnamon" has a lot fillers that you wouldn't want to drink (or eat). I use a local outfit www.thespicehouse.com for my cooking.

You can certainly make an English Mild - or if you wanted a little stronger an English Brown. As far as yeast is a concerned, I just used Mangrove M15 which is a very low attenuating English yeast and would give you a full sweet beer.WY1099 is recommended for Southern English Browns, and WY1728 for Holiday Beers might also work.

 

I order a lot of whole spices from Amazon. Most of my spice orders from Amazon have been through www.spicyworldofusa.com I have yet to be disapointed by them. Though I usually get whole, not pre-ground spices for the same reason mentioned above, and the flavor intensity seems to wean overtime with pre-ground spices.

 

Hello Granitebeard;

In my personal opinion I would definitely consider a "Winter Ale" a darker beer with a good body and a high ABV (always above 6%) with flavors ending in sweet yet toasty notes; so I guess you can say we are in the same page. There is obviously numerous ways to achieve this results by I will focus on your key question, the spices.

From my experience, working with cinnamon depends hugely on the quality of the ingredient itself, but if you are sure that it has a good quality, do not be afraid to just add it in secondary fermentation (sometimes I have even add it in a primary fermentation) and never had any kind of infection or fermentation problem, but I also agree that you should only take the risks that you feel comfortable with during your process.

Usually for nutmeg I just add it to the end of the boil, 20 -10 min depending on the profile I'm trying to achieve.

My advice is that you should also consider adding Vanilla Beans as it has a wonderful connection to winter drinks and really helps the sweet profile of the beer to stand out. I usually just add it to the secondary fermentation without any issue.

Remember, as long as you keep the entire process clean and use good quality ingredients you should have no troubles.

Good luck and Happy Brewing!!

 

I suggest a Festivus Ale. It's like a winter warmer but there are feats of strength, a silver pole involved, airing of grievances, and spices are optional.

 

British winter warmers tend to be brown bitters with added spices, from about 4% to 5.5%

I'd do something like

OG 1.055
IBU not very bitter so about 30 -traditional english and/or noble hops

MO base
5 to 10% med/dark crystal
5 to 10% dark invert
a bit of torrified wheat for head/mouthfeel
yeast your choice

Then whatever spices you desire, cinnamon,mixed spice, ginger etc

 

You have just inspired my next brew name.

 

I view it as percentage of the grain bill as a total. This way you can use the ratio's of ingredients to get the amount of beer you want. AKA no converting weird math from a 5 gallon recipie if you are doing a 12 gallon brew day.

This commonly is used with a brewing software. Like BeerSmith, etc.

It's totally an AG thing... BUT you could totally apply it to extract too.

Something similar happens with Hops. Using the IBU amounts per addition, or per bittering/dry hopping. (to accommodate variance in AA and other parameters from harvest to harvest, company to company)

This of course just how I have come to understand this organically. Never was "taught" it or read it somewhere.

 

You can use percentages in extract brewing. However for steeping grains its not just a weight percentage. If you are using 7lb of DME and 1lb of C60 grain, your grain isn't 1/8th of the fermentables. The actual conversion rate is much lower for steeping.