Hi,
I'm new to brewing. I just finished a 5 gallon batch of holiday ale that called for honey, molasses and golden syrup in the recipe. The beer turned out a bit high on the alcohol side and lacked body or sweetness. Do you think I should try cutting out the honey and syrup next time? I'm thinking of increasing the light DME to 6 lbs. and the crystal malt to 1 lb. I used a yeast starter as well so I'm also thinking that supercharged the beer's alcohol content with all the sugars. Next time I will try to achieve the recommended OG of 1.058. I was a little high at 1.067.
4.0 lbs. (1.8 kg) Muntons Light dried malt extract
1.0 lb. (0.45 kg) Crisp Maris Otter malt
0.75 lb. (0.34 kg) Scotmalt crystal malt (40 °L)
0.25 lb. (0.11 kg) Crisp chocolate malt
1.5 lbs. (0.68 kg) clover honey
½ can Lyle’s Golden Syrup
¼ cup Blackstrap molasses
6.1 AAU Goldings hops (60 mins) (1 oz./28 g of 6.1% alpha acids)
1.0 oz. (28 g) Fuggles hops (5 mins)
White Labs WLP002 (English Ale) yeast
Spices: 4 cinnamon sticks, 1 nutmeg seed, 1 vanilla bean, 7 allspice berries, 1.5 tsp. whole cloves, 8 coriander seeds, 2 nectarine peels