[Taylor]

I'm looking to make an apple pie brown ale with bourbon infused apple pie spices (cinnamon, all-spice, cardamom, vanilla, etc.) in the secondary. Here's what I figured:

5 gallon batch
Grain bill:
8 lbs Maris otter
2 lbs Munich malt
1 lb Caramel 120L
8 oz Chocolate malt

Adjuncts:
8 oz Flaked oats
8 oz Lactose (flameout)
(Both for creaminess)

Hops:
East Kent Goldings (60 min and 10 min)

Yeast:
British ale

My issue is, when do I add the apple and how should I prepare the apples? I want to avoid a cider taste and implement more of a creamy brown ale with an apple pie background. I thought to add about 8 lbs of carmelized apples at the end of the boil. I think I want to avoid putting fruit in the secondary with the bourbon infused spices because I had a bad experience, but I figured that was another option.

Any suggestions? Any recipe suggestions?

[Nick]

So my personal opinion I think you have a few options here:

Apple has an intense taste, so if you're going to use them, I'd try possibly puree'ing them or slicing them and adding them in a mesh bag to the keg/secondary.  I think with some alcohol already present you may not need a hardcore sanitation.  If you want to play it safe, you could gently pasteurize them by heating to 150 or so.

My personal choice would be when you think of Apple pie, you're not really thinking of the apples, more than likely its the spices.  You may want to just try picking up some apple pie spice at the grocery store and adding that into the secondary or keg and see how that impacts the flavor on your beer.

I only suggest this because its the same with Pumpkin beers, people will complain that their pumpkin beer doesn't taste like 'pumpkin'.  Well have you ever tasted plain pumpkin?  People often associate 'pumpkin' with pumpkin pie.  So adding in those pumpkin pie spices have that effect.

Either way its homebrewing, give an option a try and see what happens.

[rsb5051]

Tried these apple pie spices from RawSpiceBar for latest brew- definitely recommend:
https://rawspicebar.com/products/apple-pie-spice