Am curious to what peoples’ experiences have been using peppers in brewing. I’m thinking of doing something with chipotles and with Thai chills and would love to hear what people have tried.
I would advise against putting peppers directly in your boil, you have no way to gauge the heat. What I do is make a tincture. I chop up peppers, and add to a small jar of vodka. Let is sit for a few weeks. Then you can do some taste tests to gauge your heat. I used an eye dropper and added from 1 to 5 drops at bottling time to each bottle, and marked then accordingly. I still have that small jar of habanero juice years later, a little bit goes a long way.
I put mine in the secondary or the keg until i get the heat, flavor and aroma I want. I like poblanos for flavor and habaneros for heat. My base beer is usually a Belgian witbier.
+1
Poblanos are great for flavor and jalapenos or habaneros are nice for adjusting heat.
The aforementioned tincture idea is pretty interesting. What’s your process for sanitizing the peppers? Have you ever tried using roasted poblanos?
Do you find that this approach provides flavor too, or just heat?
I scorch the peppers, peel off the char, de-seed them and stick 'em in the toaster oven at 200 for 15 minutes to kill off any bugs, then add them to the secondary. Poblanos vary in intensity, so I add a half a hab per 5 gallons for heat to two or three poblanos.
Awesome info. Can’t wait to give this a shot.
I have had very good results from putting the peppers in the secondary. I use a combination of Anaheim and Serranos. Anaheim give the good chili aroma and flavor while the Serrano add the heat. I find 2 - 3 Anaheims and 1 1/2 - 2 Serranos per 5 gal batch is more than sufficient.
Good Luck!
Miguel, I used habanero so it was mostly heat. If I do try it again, I will use a more flavorful pepper with less capsaicin, such as a Anaheim or Fresno chili. Also I didn’t need to sanitize the peppers, the vodka does that.
I like dried peppers (anchos, chipotles) because you get a lot of flavor (plus a little smokiness) without a lot of heat.
Those are 2 the greatest peppers ever! Especially ancho, which are dried poblanos. It tastes like a spicy raisin.
Not much into beer with peppers, food on the other hand, they find their way into most of the dishes I cook. Poblanos, Jalapenos, Habaneros, Hot Lemons, wahtever I have that fits the flavor/heat profile I’m looking for. Peppers, onions and garlic are in just about everything except beer and ice cream.
I’ve used Chipotles directly in the boil several times in the past (been a few years though). While I agree with everybody that it is a little hard to predict, you can’t argue with the flavor. Use it like a late addition hop and you get a nice balance of heat, smoky aroma, and actual pepper flavor.
For my jalapeno IPA, I add 2 pounds fresh, slices, frozen jalapeno’s to the boil with 5 minutes left.
And by my empty keg at club night last Friday, I would say folks enjoyed it.
A TON of flavor depth to the dried chilies. I’m planning to brew an amber lager (Somewhere between Vienna and Oktoberfest) with ancho in the keg late this summer. Should be great with fall bbq’s.
I’ve also added ancho/chipotle to a kolsch keg with FANTASTIC results.