Winter Warmer

Cooler weather means more beer! Don and I were a little more ambitious this time and decided to make a high-gravity ale -- meaning one with a higher alcohol percentage, more flavor, and more intensity. We used about twice as much grain as we would have for a normal-gravity ale (about 20 pounds of American two-row malted barley!), twice as much yeast, and added lots of spices: ginger, fresh orange zest, cloves, cinnamon sticks, allspice, and nutmeg.

What all this "twice" business means is that the yeast has more sugar to eat, allowing more of the wort (the proto-beer) to be converted to alcohol. Extra grain also means more malty flavor, since we only used the normal amount of liquid (5 gallons). The beer is already in its secondary stage of fermentation, and will be ready for bottling next week. It'll be bottle-conditioned for about a month or more, making it drink-ready by Thanksgiving. 

I used up some of the spent grain (you typically strain out the grain and throw it away, using only the liquid for the beer) to make bread, grinding it up in my tiny food processor. After having been boiled for so long, the grain's starches have all been converted to sugar, making the grain sweet and chewy like oatmeal. The bread was dense and sweet, almost like a pumpernickel.