Apricot Abbey Ale

After bottling my Here Be Dragons! series of winter warmers I moved back to a belgian beer, but again with some experimentation involved. In this brew I plan to rack to secondary (a first for me) on to apricot preserves. 

Adding jam/jelly/preserves is not a common way to make fruit beer, but in this case the apricot preserves were free and sound delicious to me. I plan to follow the instructions for making wine from jelly, namely boiling the jelly and adding pectic enzyme ahead of fermentation to break down the thick preserves. Only half the batch will be added to the 14 oz. of apricot preserves with the other half bottled straight.  The recipe is as follows.

6 lbs. Northern Brewer Gold LME

1 lb. Briess Pilsen DME

1 lb. Belgian Candi Sugar (the weight is approximate as this was just the remainder of candi sugar from my previous batch)

.4 oz. Nugget hops (60 minute bittering)

.1 oz. Nugget hops (15 minute flavoring)

.25 oz. Sweet Orange Peel (for a bit of citrus)

Wyeast Belgian Abbey II yeast (1 quart starter)

I forgot to add irish moss to this recipe so I expect it to be a bit less clear but should otherwise come out tasty.