The Christmas Beer Roccocò
The Christmas Beer Roccocò
Every year, when the Christmas time is approaching, all the brewers around the world start to think about the special recipe to brew their own Xmas beer.
The Xmas beer falls under the Specialty beer category of the BJCP programme and it’s quite a free style because there are no specifications to strictly follow, the only thing we need to commit to is the usage of the spices.
For the Christmas 2021 I thought to prepare a beer to celebrate one of the sweets, in my opinion the best one, among all the Neapolitan Christmas Patisserie, the Roccocò.
The Roccocò, one of the stars in the huge Neapolitan Xmas Patisserie
The Roccocò is one of the common Christmas sweets that cannot be missed from a traditional Christmas dinner in Naples.
The oldest documented recipe is from 1320 and was a creation of the nuns of the Real Convento della Maddalena di Napoli.
The characteristics of a genuine Neapolitan Roccocò are the round shape, that reminds a donut, the hardness and special mix of spices that gives the unmistakable smell and taste, the Pisto.
The Pisto is a typical mix of spices used in different Neapolitan Christmas sweets. The traditional Pisto is a mix of cinnamon , pepper, stellar nice, coriander, nutmeg and cloves and the different proportions are distinguish the Roccocò created by different persons.
The Recipe
The main challenge was choosing the proper mix of spices to give the right aroma to my beer, that would taste and smell good like a Roccocò.
The usage of spices can be very dangerous in a beer, that’s why we all need to be very careful in the dosage and the moment of their usage, during the boil, in hop stand or in dry hopping. In my case I preferred to add the spices in hop stand and dry hopping. The reason of this choice is to give some spices flavor to the worth at the drink moment, not only on the smell.
I chose to start from the traditional Pisto proportions and adapt a bit for the amount of worth to bottle. Below in the recipe you can find the amount of spices used for this beer.
Vital Params
| OG | 1.055 |
| FG | 1.013 |
| ABV | 6.10% |
| IBU | 30 |
| Batch size (lt) | 23 |
Grain Bill
| Malt Name | EBC Color | Percentage |
|---|---|---|
| Maris Otter | 6 | 70 % |
| Weyermann Carahell | 25 | 10 % |
| Vienna | 7 | 10 % |
| Oat flakes | 4 | 10 % |
Mash Profile
| Step Name | Target Temp. (°C) | Duration (min) | Ramp (min) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Mash-In | 55 | 5 | |
| Protein Rest | 52 | 10 | 10 |
| Beta | 67 | 60 | 10 |
| Alpha | 72 | 15 | 10 |
| Mash-out | 78 |
Hopping Profile
| Name | A.A (%) | Usage | Duration (min) | Quantity (gr) | IBU |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Hallertau Magnum | 14 | Bitterness | 60 | 20 | 29 |
| Hallertauer Saphir | 3 | Hop Stand | 30 | 2 | |
| Stellar Anice | Hop Stand/Dry Hopping | 6.2 | |||
| Dried Orange Skin | Hop Stand/Dry Hopping | 18 | |||
| Cinnamon | Hop Stand/Dry Hopping | 18.6 | |||
| Pepper | Hop Stand/Dry Hopping | 6.8 | |||
| Nutmeg | Hop Stand/Dry Hopping | 9.3 | |||
| Cloves | Hop Stand/Dry Hopping | 6.2 | |||
| Coriander | Hop Stand/Dry Hopping | 6.2 | |||
| Cascade | Dry Hopping | 20 | |||
| Saphir | Dry Hopping | 30 |
Fermentation Profile
Yeast: Wyeast XL 1214
| Temperature (°C) | Duration (days) |
|---|---|
| 20 | 14 |
| 4 | 4 |