Cayenne-Chocolate Stout... YIKES!

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spage

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Location
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So, a local restaurant called the Surly Girl makes all kinds of Cayenne-Chocolate desserts and I find them delicious. I thought it would be great in a stout. Here's my 5 gallon recipe:

17# 2-Row
1# Wheat 2.2L
1# Roasted Non-Malted Barley 300L
1# Chocolate Malt 350L
1# Flaked Oats
Mash at 155 for 1hr
2oz Willamette (60 min)
1oz Cayenne Pepper (5 min)
8oz Cocoa (5 min)
1056 Yeast

Ended up at 9.1%, but OUCH!!! Way too much cayenne. I love hot foods, but this is hotter than a lot of the Thai food I love. Currently brewing another batch of chocolate stout to blend.

Has anyone used cayenne in their beers before? What quantity did you use? I was trying to make something that will be warming this winter. Unfortunately I just made 5 gallons of chocolate-blazin' sauce.
 
Winter warmers are usually just higher ABV beers... but you're taking it to the next level. I've never been a fan of hot spicy beers, but to each his own.
 
Yes, I do a Chocolate Mole Porter with a combination of my own chile powder (ancho, pasillo, dry chipotles, cayenne, mexican chocolate, cumin and cinnamon.) Finished with cayenne in the last 5 minutes of the boil...

It needed a lot of time to mellow the flavors, and to bring the heat down to a drinkable level (but as I have posted in the tap room, very recently...too many of them and it burns both coming in and going out...)

Type: All Grain
Date: 1/31/2009
Batch Size: 2.50 gal

Boil Size: 2.93 gal
Boil Time: 75 min

Ingredients

Amount Item Type % or IBU
4 lbs Pale Malt (2 Row) US (2.0 SRM) Grain 60.33 %
1 lbs Munich Malt - 10L (10.0 SRM) Grain 15.08 %
8.0 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt - 40L (40.0 SRM) Grain 7.54 %
8.0 oz Chocolate Malt (350.0 SRM) Grain 7.54 %
8.0 oz Oats, Flaked (1.0 SRM) Grain 7.54 %
0.50 oz Williamette [4.60 %] (60 min) Hops 14.4 IBU
0.25 oz Williamette [4.60 %] (30 min) Hops 5.5 IBU
0.50 oz Williamette [4.60 %] (2 min) Hops 1.2 IBU
0.50 cup Malto-Dextrine (Boil 5.0 min) Misc
2.1 oz Milk Sugar (Lactose) (0.0 SRM) Sugar 1.96 %
2.5 disks Abualita Mexican Hot cocco + 1 tsp my chili powder in Mash tun. 1/4 disk @ 40 and 1/4 disk + 1 tsp Cayene pepper @ 2 minutes.

abuelita_19oz_img.jpg
 
I actually did an Imperial Stout with Cayenne peppers. I used 6 dried cayenne peppers and it was spicy but not over the top. I also added about 12 whole cloves.
 
Revvy, once again you are the man.

How long did it take for the heat to die down?

Well at 8 months I thought it was drinkable enough to enter into a couple contests this summer....But like I drukkenly posted back in July,

Ok, you can take this to the memorial quotes page and post it for prostitution's or posteritie's sake...whatever...but if I ever mention wanting to put cayenne pepper in ANOTHER beer of mine, b1tch slap me please....remind me that I am over 40, and I ALREADY have issues with peeing, let alone peeing out a beer of mine that has cayenne pepper in it.....if my sex life weren't in the pisser anyway...and it having been over a year since "mr. happy" went spelunking in any caves....I would think I had visited one of those three dollar whores that the brothel token I use for coin tosses in vintage baseball from the 1800's would get me...with change coming back....

*owie*

It burns......

Having more that one still is perilous. Actually I have a friend, a woman in her 50's and wife of one of my buddys, who absolutely loves this beer....In fact I think I have on e bottle left...I should give it to her.
 
How long did it take for the heat to die down?

I can only speak to my experience but I made a chocolate chili porter that took several months for the flavors to really come together. It basically went from unbearable to really tasty over the last week of that several months.
 
I am planning on doing something similar, but I am going to just use the lower scoville peppers (pasillo and ancho) so I can get more pepper flavor, without going overboard on the heat.
 
I am planning on doing something similar, but I am going to just use the lower scoville peppers (pasillo and ancho) so I can get more pepper flavor, without going overboard on the heat.

You have two options with those, do a dry powder blend like I did for my chili powder, ground on a coffee or spice mill (if the chilies are dry already a little "dry roasting" in a pan on the stove is a nice trick.)

Or you can steep the dry peppers in hot water and make a tea, I do this alot when using those in cooking. But usually I steep them in chicken broth instead of water...but I don't think you want to use broth in your beer.

Next time I do the porter I am going to add much more abuelita chocolate to the recipe, both in the mash tun and in the boil.
 
You have two options with those, do a dry powder blend like I did for my chili powder, ground on a coffee or spice mill (if the chilies are dry already a little "dry roasting" in a pan on the stove is a nice trick.)

Or you can steep the dry peppers in hot water and make a tea, I do this alot when using those in cooking. But usually I steep them in chicken broth instead of water...but I don't think you want to use broth in your beer.

Next time I do the porter I am going to add much more abuelita chocolate to the recipe, both in the mash tun and in the boil.

Thanks for the tips, the tea sounds like a good plan from a control stand point, but I am just doing this to a 1 gallon portion, so I think I will probably just do a dry toast and toss them in secondary until it tastes "right." The alcohol in the beer should help to improve extraction of the capsaicin and other alcohol soluble compounds.

The best results I have had with chocolate is making a paste with cocoa powder and hot water to add to secondary. It seems to give the most rounded profile without having to deal with much foam killing fat.
 
Well at 8 months I thought it was drinkable enough to enter into a couple contests this summer....But like I drukkenly posted back in July,

Ok, you can take this to the memorial quotes page and post it for prostitution's or posteritie's sake...whatever...but if I ever mention wanting to put cayenne pepper in ANOTHER beer of mine, b1tch slap me please....remind me that I am over 40, and I ALREADY have issues with peeing, let alone peeing out a beer of mine that has cayenne pepper in it.....if my sex life weren't in the pisser anyway...and it having been over a year since "mr. happy" went spelunking in any caves....I would think I had visited one of those three dollar whores that the brothel token I use for coin tosses in vintage baseball from the 1800's would get me...with change coming back....

*owie*

It burns......


Having more that one still is perilous. Actually I have a friend, a woman in her 50's and wife of one of my buddys, who absolutely loves this beer....In fact I think I have on e bottle left...I should give it to her.

That makes me laugh, I woke up early this morning, stumbled to the bathroom, didn't bother to turn on the lights, and wow… I have never had No. 1 burn like that before, I thought I would have to make an appointment, I flipped on the lights just to make sure there was no blood or anything. Then I remembered the Sriracha Chicken Burrito... Sriracha delicious stuff but always burns the next day just never for No. 1 before. Has me wondering how No. 2 will be this morning :D

I love spicy food though, and ever since my trip to Playa Del Carmen, I found I love Mayan Cuisine, especially the spiced chocolate flavors. So naturally I love this idea, I make some of my own chili powder from a variety of peppers, so Revvy your recipe sounds pretty good. Only spiced beer I “remember” having I didn’t care for, I could drink it, it just tasted like they had secondaried with Jalapeño’s in a regular lager beer. It was tasteless and medium-hot, which equates to boring and not refreshing. I will have to add this to the queue.
 
I love spicy food though, and ever since my trip to Playa Del Carmen, I found I love Mayan Cuisine, especially the spiced chocolate flavors. So naturally I love this idea, I make some of my own chili powder from a variety of peppers, so Revvy your recipe sounds pretty good. Only spiced beer I “remember” having I didn’t care for, I could drink it, it just tasted like they had secondaried with Jalapeño’s in a regular lager beer. It was tasteless and medium-hot, which equates to boring and not refreshing. I will have to add this to the queue.

Thanks!

One of the microbreweries in town has a Jalapeno ale. It is like a cream ale, and is really hot. But I think it has no character beyond "Hot" compared to all of the possible flavors you get with different peppers, roasted or otherwise.

I'm going to keep tweaking the recipe. I'll do another batch this winter. Like I said, more chocolate...maybe more cinnamon and I think I will lose the lactose.

I'm waiting for judging sheets of the 9month old beer, I entered it in two contests this summer.
 
I just made a Jalapeno Chocolate Stout this past week and so far tastes pretty good. It's going to be about 6.2% ABV and I used 2 jalapenos and a poblano (which I roasted first) and then added all 3 sliced coarsely at the last 10 mins of the boil.

Chocolate was a mix of cocoa powder, nestle quick, and godiva hot chocolate mix (don't ask me why), for a total of 8 oz. The flavor doesn't stand out as much as I'd like, but it is only a week old, and done with the primary fermentation. I added one vanilla bean when I racked to secondary.

The grain bill was:
8.00 lb of UK Pale Ale Malt
2.00 lb of US Vienna Malt
1.00 lb of US Flaked Barley
0.75 lb of UK Chocolate Malt
0.75 lb of US Caramel 120L Malt
0.50 lb of UK Roasted Barley

The heat from the peppers is very subtle, just a tingle in the back of the throat, a hint of flavor, then the choc takes over. We'll see how this one ages and I am looking forward to tasting the final product. This is my first "out of the ordinary" beer.
 
I'm new here, but I just wanted to subscribe to this thread, which seems to have several great recipes for spicy beers. This site is so great: in addition to these recipes, I've come across a recipe for a Habanero Capsicumel that I can't wait to try.

My wife thought I was crazy when I said I wanted to make spicy beers, but I'm glad to see there is a whole community of guys who do the same. (I've yet to brew anything, though, so I'll have to start with the extract recipes).

Thanks for the recipes guys.
 
Yes, I do a Chocolate Mole Porter with a combination of my own chile powder (ancho, pasillo, dry chipotles, cayenne, mexican chocolate, cumin and cinnamon.) Finished with cayenne in the last 5 minutes of the boil...

Revvy, have perfected this recipe yet? Would love some feedback. Also a little more detail on your "own chile powder" recipe. Thanks!
 
I kinda made a pepper beer a couple months ago. I brewed just an average porter and then off the tap i would put a couple slices of pickled jalapeno and some juice from the jar. I found i liked the pickled (like for nachos) better. It wasnt as hot, you could still drink a couple pints with just the right amount of burn at the end. I tried regular sliced jalapenos and it was too hot for me to enjoy it. This time though i am going to put the peppers in the fermenter, and sample it till its right. Do you think the oils in the peppers would kill my head retention?
 
I recently had my first taste of a chile beer at Souris River Brewing. It was called Coco Beware and was amazing. The brewer told me that he put coco, crushed red pepper, and star anise all right into the boil. It kind of reminded me of a peppermint mocha from starbucks. I was hoping to find something similar on this page, but there's not near as much as I expected to find.
 
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