My wife and I are expecting our first child in December and I’ve decided to brew a peach and habanero kölsch to celebrate the occasion. This is what I’ve planned out for this partial mash BIAB brew for 5 gallons in the bottle:
The peaches will add a lot of acidity and dryness to the finished beer. As such, I would strongly recommend that you mash higher at about 153-154 F for just 45 minutes.
Also, that’s way too much habanero. I would use only 1/4, or at most a 1/2 of one. That will be PLENTY.
For a name I might call it Whipper Snapper Peach Habanero Kolsch.
I plan to take samples and taste the beer frequently after I add the peppers in to make sure it doesn’t get too hot. I also planning to hang them in a bag for easy retrieval once it reaches the desired heat. I’m a big fan of Founder’s Mango Magnifico and am trying to get a similar heat in the beer.
Personally, I think the qty of peppers is fine, but I like spicy.
I would try to minimize the number of times you rack the beer. I understand why you are doing each, but I think you are opening yourself up to oxidation.
Instead of racking to tertiary, I’d add the peppers in the secondary in a bag. Then pull the peppers out when you hit your desired heat level. I don’t think there’s a need to rack to tertiary.
As far as a name goes, I’d suggest “Hot for Peaches”.
I’ve brewed a peach beer before… never again. It was a peach wheat beer. It didn’t turn out that good at all. In fact, it was pretty bad. I used 5 lbs of fresh then frozen peaches and a 3 lb can of Oregon Puree in a 5 gallon batch. I still didn’t get much peach flavor at all and the beer was just mudded.
Some people on the forum recommended using apricots instead of peaches. I wish I would have listened to that advice. I’m not sure if I’ll ever even try that.
hope it turns out for you.
Mango Magnifico is a flavorful 10% beer and the base can handle a lot of “stuff” added to it. I wouldn’t personally put something as strong as habanero with something as delicate as Kolsch, but perhaps it’ll be amazing.
I did a pineapple habanero wit this summer with good results. I added 1 deseeded, deveined, and diced habanero to the keg for about 3 days and it had the perfect amount of heat.
I’ve had bad luck using peaches as well. I also ended up with a very muddled fruit flavor. The problem with peaches and other low-acidity fruit is that once you ferment out the sugar there’s nothing to make the fruit flavor distinct.
I definitely would not waste the time or oxygen exposure to rack over to add peppers. When I brew with peppers I leave them in large strips and dump them in the fermentor. I rack out when I like the taste. No problems clogging the autosiphon because the pepper pieces are too large.
I also don’t want to be the bearer of bad tidings (of course), but if your wife is planning on nursing your baby, then you may want to reconsider using habaneros in your recipe. Spicy things can carry over into the milk given to the baby and can irritate their little bodies.
This has happened even with something as benign as garlicky spaghetti sauce with our children when they were babies. Just sayin…YMMV…
On the flipside, I have brewed several beer styles with fresh/frozen peaches/puree and have always enjoyed them. I have a 2 year old lambic with peaches that is dry as hell and still has a pretty big fruit nose and flavor to boot.
You probably don’t need pectic enzyme anyway and adding it to secondary will useless because it is denatured by alcohol. If you want to use it, mix it with your thawed peach/juices. Wait a day and rack over that.
I’d also just drop the peppers in when it’s done. Taste every day and bottle when you like it. Or even better transfer some to a growler and put peppers in there. Then you can try different blends.
“I’ll tell you what to do so as not to spoil it by overdoing. Hold the beer in one hand, and show a pepper to it with the other; that done” -Benjamin Franklin
