Jalapeno Amber Lager

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homebrewer_99

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I made a JAL last week. I used 10 oz of jalapeno peppers (sliced and de-seeded).

I sampled the brew after recording the gravity while racking to the secondary.

While the beer tasted good there was no heat and the pepper tasted "green", like a bell pepper tastes. I don't like bell peppers.

Quick thinking lead me to slice up a medium/large pepper (the ENTIRE pepper) and boil it for 5 mins in 1.5 C water. WORD OF WARNING: DO NOT INHALE THE STEAM COMING FROM THE PAN!!!:eek: Man, that hurts the nostrils! Must have looked the way a dog reacts when you blow up his nose...snorting and shaking my head...:eek:

I ended up with 1.25 C of jalapeno pepper tea. (The tea was a pale green like the smilie color :D). I took a small amount, less than 1/2 tsp of "tea" and tasted it. Man, HOT!! Muy caliente!! And NO green flavor. Great!

Anywho, I added it to my secondary while racking.

I'll keep you informed of the progress/results.:cool:
 
Hmm.. I would love to serve up a plate of ultra hot wings, then when your friends are gasping for a cold beer to wash down the heat.... heh heh, you serve them some Jalapeno beer.

But then, I'm a meeeean, cruel bastard!
 
It was the seeding that cut the heat. I did a chili IPA with red jalapenos. I put the first pepper in a 32oz bail top with the seeds. Then, I realized I was supposed to clean out the seeds, so I did 6 more bottles without seeds. These had a pleasant pepper taste, but no heat (They tasted more like a nice anahiem than a bell pepper). That first 32oz....it was really, really hot. It burned. It burned hard. It was wonderful, but I am a hot food freak.

P.S., I want to know about how the tea worked.
 
Will keep you informed....

I have to go to El Paso next weekend. I'll be gone for 3 weeks, but since I am already in western TX I thought about taking another 10 days off and take my wife to Cali (she's never been). Go through (Vegas, maybe) Joshua Tree, LA a bit then drive up the coast to Monterrey (been there 3 times), maybe SF then Yosewmite.:D

That's one reason why I've done all these lagers, plus the garage is cold...(winter in the midwest - who would have thought the garage would get cold?)

I have a Czech Budvar (Billvar) on a primarry, another in a carboy (soon to be racked) and the Mexican Lager in a carboy all in the garage.

I also have a Peach Mead bottled, a Traditional Mead in a carboy, and 2 - 1 gal jugs of mead. One is flavored with Anise and another w/2 oz Raspberry (I tried the extract on this one). I want to do another Barkshack Ginger Mead before leaving. I would sure hate to leave it in a plastic primary for 5 weeks.
 
Something to notice about eating peppers:

It's the meat that burns on the way in, it's the seeds that burn on the way out.

Lots of heat in them little seeds.
 
Good observations Bill--everyone else too. My Mexican Blackbird is along the same lines--no heat but strong pepper flavor. I roasted the peppers and deseeded chopped them. Next time I will keep some seeds in as well as some of the meat. I like my beer now--but it needs some heat.

Thanks for the updates!
 
one thing to keep in mind: while it's typically thought that the seeds contain all the heat in a pepper, it's really the veins that contain the majority of the heat. while i've never brewed a pepper beer for personal reasons (i've never had one i liked), i'm a freak for cooking interior mexican and southwestern foods. one thing i've found with cooking is that if i want a real clean heat, with not much pepper flavor i use habanero peppers. jalapenos to me taste very green (as you mentioned) and don't pack a lot of heat. i find that a little habanero can go a long way towards producing a mean heat with little else in terms of flavor. other peppers like the pequin can produce similar results.
 
Thanks for the pepper advice, but I was finding it hard to find the jalapeno's let alone habanero's.:(

A long, long time ago I made a pepper beer and placed a pepper in each bottle. WOWWSEE! It was so hot that I was never able to finsh drinking 1 - 12 oz bottle by myself.:eek:

I know it's a little off season for the peppers, but "tis lagering season"!:D
 
ORRELSE said:
Good observations Bill--everyone else too. My Mexican Blackbird is along the same lines--no heat but strong pepper flavor. I roasted the peppers and deseeded chopped them. Next time I will keep some seeds in as well as some of the meat. I like my beer now--but it needs some heat.

You could always throw some "crushed red pepper" (you know, the stuff that's people sprinkle on pizza and is hot as hell) into the secondary. Or some Cayenne powder.
 
I made a brown ale with some chipotles last summer and all I got was the smoke...no heat, and no real 'chile' flavor. I'm going to try something different this year...perhaps chipotles mixed with fresh jalapenos.
 
I'm at work right now...so I can't.

However, I have an update.

I took a sample (like in a fruit juice glass) from the carboy last night. The color was nice and light. The body was good as was the balance. The flavor still had the green pepper odor, but the heat was evident. Like a prickly feeling all the way down then the heat came on.:D It was a slightly burning feeling (iin a good way) for about 5 minutes after I drank the sample. I am quite pleasd, but I think I want a tad more heat.:D

I'll let it alone for now since I am leaving Saturday and I will be gone for a month. I'll decide if it needs more heat then.
 

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