ajk170

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Since I'm pretty new to the world of homebrewing, my flavors might clash and not make much sense so try and bear with me!

I'm wanting to try to make a Pecan beer but all I've seen is a few threads but they seem to center around All Grain. I want to use the Brewhouse Red Ale Kit and modify it with Wyeast 1056 or 1728, pecans, corriander and re-boil some of the wort with un-roasted pecans as well as use a dry-hop procedure with DME used for priming. I'm wondering if anybody has used pecans in extract brewing before and has any pointers from thier experiances.

I saw some threads about roasting the pecans prior to adding them to the wort but I am wondering if that's even necessary- though I am worried about infection with nuts. Right now, I have regular baking nuts- about 16 oz though maybe 8 oz will be enough for 5 gallons. I was thinking about pecan extract as well, but I have been unsuccessful in finding any pecan extract.

How about a little corriander in the secondary as well? I'm trying to create an interesting winter ale- something for the latter part of winter. I plan to let it sit for a while in the primary and secondary.

I'm thinking the goal should be something with a malty character, pecan on the pallet and aroma with a bit of spice of somesort.

Thanks for any and all input!

Edcculus

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I'd go with a pecan extract at bottling. Using extract for nut flavors is the best and easiest way to actually get the flavour and avoid all of the fat from the nut.

Pecans and corriander might be a little strange. Black pepper might give you more of that "spice" you want. Thats pretty weird too...but strange enough that it might work.

or you could go a safer route and use clove, nutmeg, allspice and pecan extract.

ajk170

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I didn't think about nutmeg- I have read that clove can be tough for a noob since it can overpower everything very quickly if used too much and aged too long.

ajk170

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OK-so I put together the ingredients of my brewhouse kit with some modifications. Rather than roasting the pecans, I boiled 12oz for 40 minutes in ~ 3 quarts of water. I realized that it was getting pretty bitter at the 40 minute mark so I cut it off an siphoned the pecan water out and then boiled ~15oz light brown sugar in the pecan water. I cooled that down to ~70 and pitched that in with my yeast. I should say that the pecan water didn't taste bad and it did have a pecan flavor- my hope is that I won't loose it in the primary or secondary.

The yeast that I used was the Wyeast 3056 (Bavarian Ale type). I smacked the pack ~8 hours prior to pitching maybe let it get too warm although the pack swelled like a balloon.

Once I combined the Ph balancer, pecan water, 4 liters of mountain spring water, 15liters Red Ale wert and yeast it took about 15 hours before I saw active air lock activity. Though it should be noted that I use a 7.5 gallon fermentor- so a volcanic fermentation shouldn't be expected.

I think I did a good job on the sanitization part, other than a few incidents that maybe contact time with Star-San wasn't long enough- nothing that I hadn't done before.

Now I'm not sure what exactly I created - the smell out of the air lock doesn't smell like anything that I want to drink. So, I'm thinking of racking to a secondary in the next few days since I haven't seen anything bubble in the air lock. My hope is that I'll be able to salvalge it- I won't pass judgement yet on what I have - but I'll keep ya'll posted as to what I come up with!

Cheers!

ajk170

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Ok- so here's an update: (this is a little long)

I found pecan flavoring at a LHBS in Norfolk, VA - odd place but great people - seems to have been around forever- the pecan flavoring that I found is a 1oz with no perservatives from "Lorann Gourmet". So the wife did the math and figured that I needed to use 1/8 tspn to 1 2/3 cup of wort to determine if the rest should go into the remaining wort.

Well, this stuff is super potent - it even says so on the bottle. It's meant for making candy so a little goes along ways. Well, it IS potent- had I dumped that whole thing into the wort- it mould have serioulsy made some bad tasting beer. Good thing for the math- rather than waste any more wort to test- I just used an 1/8 tspn in the remaining wort and called it good.

Earlier today I took a gravity reading and the gravity was 1.011. It started at ~1.065. So this shoudl have a good ABV. But when I tasted the wort from the reading- it tasted GOOOOD. It had a soft nutty finish - but nothing that you could say " . . . Ah Ha! Pecans!" Just a smooth taste-

so now I'm hoping that the 1/8 tspn will kick it up a notch.

But the best part is that my techniques in making the beer are producing some great results! Despite not having boiled the wort - these Brewhouse Kits are excellent. No off tastes, no "twang" and so far all three that I have brewed (Honey Blonde Ale, Pilsner and Now Red Ale) have had sperate and distinct taste. Well worth the money! I can't wait to see how this finishes once conditioned in the bottles!

ajk170

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Now that I have this racked into the secondary and the S/S suds had all dissipated, I see that there is an oil slick that developed on the top. I assume that it's from the pecan-water that I added to the primary in the attempt to give this a pecan flavor. What I realize now is that an oil was extacted during that experiment. Since this oil won't break down, any thoughts on what it might do? I suspect it might affect the head retention in the final product- maybe even kill the head entirely- though I'm not sure what levels could actually do that.

This oil slick is thin, almost like the oil you sometimes see in coffee- so it's not thick at all. Because of that, I'm kinda thinking it'll be inconsequential to the final product.

Thanks for all the support!!

HippieCrack

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i don't think that will affect it much if at all.. tell us how it turns out though, sounds pretty interesting

ajk170

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Not much new to report, the oil-slick is still there and I took a "sniff test" to see what aroma might be present. I becaome concerend whenI saw the formation of "icebergs" last week and having read other posts about these things I thought I might have an infection. But turns out there was no infection so I presumed hese to be some sort of yeast colony with air bubbles attached. The smell was nothing more than wort.

I need to take a reading and sample the wort to see what flavors I'm working with but it's only been about 10 days since racking to the secondary so it's got a while to go.

I'm thinking if there is no strong pecan flavor to add more extract - any thoughts?

Pogo

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I'm thinking of trying one of these BrewHouse kits.

The American Premium Lager.

What temp was required for fermentation of your kits?

Did the requirements for Pilsner differ from the Ales?

Do you know if a Lager kit would require Lager fermentation temps?

Thanks,

Pogo

ajk170

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Pogo-
1) I haven't tried the Lager yet - not sure about that one
2) The temp is based on the yeast and I have only used various ale yeasts with my kits so far - I dont' have a lager set-up yet. Thus my temps hover around 65-68 degrees. I did kick my IPA up to 70 for a few hours to get it going though but now it's down to 68.
3) I used an ale yeast for my pils - it might not be a true pils as a result but again, with out the ability to get the temp down- I just couldn't do it. I will keep them cold while condidtioning though.
4) I suspect the American lager will require lager temps- probably due to the lager yeast. Of course you could use the San Fran style steam method to amake a version of a lager. But I would think you'd have to get another yeast that's better suited for that.