Spice, Herb, or Vegetable Beer Habanerillo chilli IPA

Habanerillo
American IPA
Type: Extract Date: 18/10/2013
Batch Size (fermenter): 24.00 l Brewer:
Boil Size: 24.38 l Asst Brewer:
Boil Time: 25 min Equipment: Bucket 33 L - Extract
End of Boil Volume 23.92 l Brewhouse Efficiency: 72.00 %
Final Bottling Volume: 22.49 l Est Mash Efficiency 0.0 %
Fermentation: Ale, Two Stage Taste Rating(out of 50): 30.0
Taste Notes:
Ingredients

Ingredients
Amt Name Type # %/IBU
1 lbs 1.6 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt - 30L (30.0 SRM) Grain 1 10.4 %
9 lbs 8.0 oz Light Dry Extract (8.0 SRM) Dry Extract 2 89.6 %
2.00 oz Summit [17.00 %] - Boil 20.0 min Hop 3 41.0 IBUs
1.00 oz Cascade [5.50 %] - Boil 10.0 min Hop 4 4.0 IBUs
2.00 oz Amarillo Gold [8.50 %] - Boil 5.0 min Hop 5 7.3 IBUs
1.50 oz Summit [17.00 %] - Boil 5.0 min Hop 6 10.1 IBUs
1.00 oz Cascade [5.50 %] - Boil 5.0 min Hop 7 2.2 IBUs
1.50 oz Amarillo Gold [8.50 %] - Boil 0.0 min Hop 8 0.0 IBUs
1.50 oz Cascade [5.50 %] - Boil 0.0 min Hop 9 0.0 IBUs
1.0 pkg California Ale V (White Labs #WLP051) [35.49 ml] Yeast 10 -
2.00 oz Amarillo Gold [8.50 %] - Dry Hop 5.0 Days Hop 11 0.0 IBUs
Beer Profile

Est Original Gravity: 1.066 SG Measured Original Gravity: 1.070 SG
Est Final Gravity: 1.017 SG Measured Final Gravity: 1.018 SG
Estimated Alcohol by Vol: 6.5 % Actual Alcohol by Vol: 6.9 %
Bitterness: 64.6 IBUs Calories: 673.0 kcal/l
Est Color: 9.7 SRM

Soak 4 punctured dry habanero in 20cl of vodka for 24 hours. Add the vodka in the bottling bucket. Note that my experience was to use 5cl of vodka and only one Habanero for the last 5L of the batch so vodka quantity is just an estimate here.

This was a huge success tonight, I have tried putting habaneros in the boil and it does not work very well, it looks like alcohol is needed to extract the heat of the chillies

Apatride said:

This was a huge success tonight, I have tried putting habaneros in the boil and it does not work very well, it looks like alcohol is needed to extract the heat of the chillies

Click to expand...

I agree, but I find it noticeable when spirits are mixed into beer. As an alternative, I drop my extra ingredients into a hop bag and let it sit in the fermenter post-primary to taste. The alcohol present in the beer works like the alcohol in the spirit.

How did you like this beer? You have a lot if hops; was there a balance between them and the chile, or just a pleasant burn?

This one was an experiment and I wanted to have only heat in 1/4 of the batch. This is one of the reasons why I used this method.
I also tried with chilies in the fermenter (see https://www.homebrewtalk.com/f39/urgent-kettle-heating-piece-died-441836/ ) but haven t bottled this one yet (maybe tonight).
The alcohol taste is not noticeable, we re talking about 1% of vodka and the chilli and the hops definitely cover the taste of vodka.

The non-spicy one was too citrusy for my taste (even if people liked it) and the spicy one was way more balanced.

Regarding heat, this batch was quite hot, comparable to Stone Punishment. We actually tasted both on the same night and people prefered mine.

I re-used this method on another batch but the habaneros were from another shop and the heat is barely noticeable, just a warm after taste feeling so it will be difficult to ensure the same heat all the time unless I can get very similar chillies all the time.
I tried as well with Bird Eyes but I don t like it as much
I have also some ghost chillies and I am planning to use it in a small batch soon, make sommething really hot

Nice! That's a lot of useful information. I can agree with you about the varying levels of capsaicin within peppers of the same variety. It's how I made lava beer that only a few Hispanics and I found appealing. I wanted to have a nicely balanced imperial pale ale, but two habanero peppers soaking for 7 hours in the keg had their way with it. Ironically, little heat from previous additions was the reason for the keg-peppering...

Yes, this is a complicated one: You never know how strong the chillies are and you won t know until the beer gets carbonated. Kind of a Russian roulette