Fruitcake Holiday Ale - Part 2

In Part 1, I created a tincture for Fruitcake Holiday Ale. Now it's time to sample it along with the base beer.

The old ale base (SRM: 22.5)

The base is an old ale with some brown sugar and lactose added to make it finish a little sweet. It finished at 1.022, just off the scale of my FG hygrometer. The color is excellent, thought a little cloudy. I usually add Whirlfloc to my boil, but I forgot it this time. To speed things along, I carbonated a small amount of beer in an plastic bottle using a Carbonator Cap.

Tincture after macerating overnight.

Rakia (Bulgarian plum brandy

The tincture smells amazing and tastes even better. It was thick with ginger up front with plenty of citrus and raisin support. I couldn't really detect the clove or allspice, which isn't a bad thing but some earthiness might help later on. It manages to be both sweet and sour, but not in a Chinese take-out way. The fruit took up a fair amount of liquid, so I added 1oz of rakia (Bulgarian plum brandy). I gave it a stir then started adding liquid with a medicine dropper. Given how little it took to get Oktober Surprise flavored, I started small.

Adding the tincture

To check the progress, I alternated sips of the base beer and the tinctured sample.

10 drops in 12oz. Nothing.

20 drops. Not any better, but already past Oktober Surprise level.

30 drops. Long way to go at this rate.

It became apparent that I wasn't going to get nearly the same mileage out of fruit as I did out of spices. Before my palate got worn out, I went with a bigger dose: 10 drops in 1oz of base. That was about right. The fruit is noticeable, but not overwhelming or cloying. This dosing poses a problem though. At roughly 600 drops to the ounce (actually 591, but I'm an English Lit major so I round up), I would need 12oz of tincture to flavor a 5-gallon batch. I had only 4oz of liquid though.

First cut of tincture: 4oz

I broke out the fruit to triple the recipe. The ginger came up a half-ounce short, but given how ginger-forward it already was, this wasn't a problem. I played it safe on the clove and allspice (as you'll see in the recipe below) but I can readily add a bit more if needed. I no longer had an orange, but I did have a clementine, so I zested it with my Microplane grater. The little guy yielded a bit over one tablespoon. 

Clementine zest

I noticed that there was still some oils on the fruit, so I gave it a quick soak in 1.75oz of vanilla rum to get the rest of it. It was just enough to float it in my push-up measuring cup. 

Soaking the de-zested clementine

The second, scaled up recipe in words:

Fruitcake Ale tincture (yield: 12oz liquid)
pineapple rum	4oz
vanilla vodka	3oz
plum brandy	3oz
macadamia liqueur	3oz
clove	2
allspice	6 seeds
lemon zest	1T
orange zest	1T
clementine zest	1T
clementine	1, split
dried cherries	3oz
dried apricot	3oz
dried cranberries	3oz
golden raisins	3ox
candied ginger	3oz

And in photo:

Second iteration

That orange thing at the top is the clementine I zested. It might not add very much to this batch, but I'd throw it out otherwise.

Mrs and Mrs Claus were once again entrusted to safeguard the tincture overnight. 

In part 3, we'll sample it again and (hopefully) have some Fruitcake Ale on tap.