Spruce, Fir, Ponderosa - What's The Difference?

 There are a lot of questions about which product to use and what the outcome will be. Below is some basic guidance to different flavor characteristics and ways to extract the flavor you are looking for.

With our spruce, we mix the blue spruce and the engelmann spruce together. They basically have the same profile and the trees all grow together so we just mix them all together. They offer a soft pine flavor with hints of citrus and then it takes on a slight melon characteristic as it ages. With fir tips, you are looking at stronger pine and citrus flavors than the spruce. The spruce tips are the most mellow on the pine flavor, followed by fir tips, and then if you want straight up intense pine then the ponderosa needles can knock your socks off.

Regarding hot and cold steeping techniques, by adding heat you extract the flavors much quicker. When boiling them, we do not recommend boiling any of them longer than 15 minutes or you will start extracting some pretty gnarly tannins. A lot of people steep them by bringing water (or wort) to a boil, and then once there is a good rolling boil, cut the flame and add the product. Steep for around 20 minutes and you have what you are looking for. If you do a cold steep, it can take 3 days to 3 weeks to extract the flavor you are looking for. The cold steep does leave a little softer result, not quite as piney as the warm steep. The piney character will fade after a couple weeks with the spruce, not as much with the fir, and not at all with ponderosa.