I’m brewing a winter warmer next week and am considering using star anise. Does anyone have any advice on how much to use, and when to add it? I’m brewing a 10 gallon batch and plan to use .25 oz., added with 10 min. left on the boil. The other spices I’m using will be cinnamon (3 sticks), ginger (1 oz.) and orange peel (.25 oz.), all added at the 10 minute mark.
I’m aiming for modest, but noticeable spice. Any suggestions?
I would add everything at 5 instead of 10 minutes remaining. All I know is star anise is super potent. Not sure about weight but I would think that 1/2 tsp of ground star anise would be more than enough. Someone else will have a better idea than I…
I would also bump up the orange peel to at least 1 oz for 10 g.
I used one whole star/5 gallons in a Porter and it was enough. Like cloves, a little goes a long way in beer.
Cool. Thanks. What about vanilla? I’m going to be adding some extract. Any ideas on proper amount and length of time? I’m thinking 1 1/2 oz. (1 shot) with the bean for a week.
vanilla is nice in that you can add it to taste. pull a sample, maybe 5 oz or so and experiment. How is 1 drop in 1 oz? 2 drops? etc. once you get where you want scale it up to the full batch and add it.
Put in the vanilla bean for a week, then taste the beer. If it has enough vanilla, rack it, if not let it sit for longer. After a couple of weeks I’d probably rack it anyway. If it doesn’t have enough vanilla, do what morticaixavier suggests, pulling a sample and doctoring it in a glass. However, when you have settled on an amount that worked in the glass, add 75% of that scaled up. You can always add more, but it is easy to overshoot when you do it this way so scale it back a bit.
I used two in 5 gallons. It was too much.