Home For the Holidays – part 2

I mentioned a while back that I had an American Pale Ale sitting in secondary on top of a few cinnamon sticks and that I wanted to do something to make it my Christmas Ale. Here's what I did:
I acquired 4 lbs of Wildflower Honey and heated it in ½ gallon of water for 15 minutes to pasteurize. I then added ½ gallon of cold water and put it in my 6 ½ gallon carboy and pitched champagne yeast. After a week I split two vanilla beans length-wise and dropped into the fermenter and transferred the Christmas Ale on top of the “mead”. It’s still sitting in there 3 weeks later, so if I bottle tonight, it won’t be carbonated by Christmas, so I guess we’ll need to change the name to Winter Warmer.

Merry Christmas!