Hi all! My homebrew club is doing an Iron Brewer Competition and I have to brew a beer with Peppercorns and London Ale yeast. I have never used peppercorns before so any advice on when to use those in the boil and/or secondary would be great!
Here is the grain bill we all have to use:
10 lbs golden promise
1.5 lbs rye malt
1 lb munich malt
0.5 lb caramel 90L
Yeast: London Ale WLP013
Hops: Thinking of Warrior for bittering and a late additions of some citrus hops such as citra, mosaic, falconers flight or zythos.
I was thinking adding some peppercorn at the end of the boil (maybe 5 mins) and possibly some in the secondary. I don’t want anything too peppery and undrinkable… and i’m not sure how much to use.
There are two ways I would approach this - either put them in secondary or make a tincture and dose the keg. I can’t think of a beer I have made with spices in the boil that I thought was really good, even for just 5 minutes.
For secondary (or in the keg), put them in a bag (I would use about an ounce of whole peppercorns) and taste it daily until you like the flavor, then pull the bag out.
For a tincture, soak an ounce of peppercorns in six ounces of vodka for three days or so, then strain them out. Does that in the keg to taste.