Pistachio brown ale

I brewed a nut brown ale that is currently fermenting. I have a pound of shelled, roasted, unsalted pistachios that I want to add to secondary. How should I sanitize without loosing the flavor and do I need to attempt to remove oils from the nut? Also how much should I use and for how long...I want a substantial pistachio flavor profile, just looking for a recommendation.

Bump, should I post this on another discussion board?

Hard time getting a response, I see. I'll give it a shot for ya. I don't claim to be an expert on this particular subject but I did stay at a holiday in last night. I also brewed a hazelnut brown recently. From what I'm told, if you just put the nuts in secondary, the oils will kill your head retention. I ended up making my own hazelnut extract. I'm not sure if the same process would work for pistachios or not, but here's what I did:

Roast the nuts at 325 for about ten minutes. I then removed the skins by rubbing all of them with a dish towel. I finely chopped all of the nuts and put them in a mason jar and filled the jar with vodka a little above the top of the nuts. I let this mixture sit for about a month. I then strained as much of the vodka from the nuts as possible into another mason jar. Then in a small saucepan, I boiled a mixture of the crushed nuts, 1/2 cup sugar, and 1/4 cup water for a couple of minutes. I let the nuts steep in this this syrup for a few more minutes and then strained the syrup into the container with the vodka.

That was pretty much it. It took some time, but it came out smelling delicious. Then I simply added a bunch of it when I kegged the beer. I think I added about 5 or 6 TBSP, but I'm not sure if this was a good amount since I haven't tasted it yet. Anyway, I hope this is somewhat helpful. Good luck.

strongarm said:

I brewed a nut brown ale that is currently fermenting. I have a pound of shelled, roasted, unsalted pistachios that I want to add to secondary. How should I sanitize without loosing the flavor and do I need to attempt to remove oils from the nut? Also how much should I use and for how long...I want a substantial pistachio flavor profile, just looking for a recommendation.

Click to expand...

Interesting idea, but I think what you're trying to accomplish will be tough. Honestly I think the best bet is to eat pistachios with your brown ale instead of infusing their flavor into it, not trying to be a jerk. Let us know how any experiment you do turns out.

I'm not an expert on this but from my understanding the two key elements to extracting flavor and aroma from nuts are toasting of the nuts and extracting the flavors into the wort by heat.

This is why, after toasting, most breweries seem to add nuts to the mash or boil.

Since you are already in the fermentation stage, I would suggest toasting the nuts, in addition to the original toasting that you say the nuts have undergone, then finely chopping them and boiling them in a saucepan with some of your beer. I can't guarantee it will work but I think it's your best option.

Also, people say the oil will kill your head retention but everyone that has actually done it seem to report no effect on the head. Good luck and please let us know what you did and how it turned out.

I think I might seperate my batch doing half by making my own extract method and by roasting the nuts and try to remove as much oil as I can then crush and add to hop bag in secondary. I'm sure the extract method will bring out more flavor but i'll just have to experiment and see.

Update: I did the extract method and just added crushed pistachio's method. After doing this in secondary for 6 weeks I tasted before bottling. Neither of them had any signifigant pistachio flavor...I ended up blending them. The only real differenct was the extract one didn't have as much oil floating...probably because I removed the oil when I made the extract. Didn't really matter thow because I just siphoned below the oil level any way. Next time I think I will go with the powdered penut butter method.

An effective version of the extract method is to steam the nuts (or whatever) in a small saucepan, then add the nuts AND water to the fermenter. A few ounces of water won't really dillute a 5 gallon batch. This sanitizes the product and retains the flavor you're trying to extract (since it ends up in the water). The vodka/syrup thing might work, but sounds kind of complicated and time consuming compared to a quick steam. I don't know about removing the oils though. That might take some experimenting. Maybe chilling the "tea" before you toss it in the ferm will separate the oil a little?

I would definitely give them a light roast first. There are probably recipes on the web for a homemade pistachio liquor (or other nut liquor). Seriouseats.com has a lot of recipes for DIY liquors. Follow a recipe like that after roasting the nuts, and use the fragrant liquor in the secondary. That way, you're essentially extracting the character from the nut into the liquid liquor without worrying about solids or infection.

I've seen people talk about mashing in crushed peanuts for peanut butter beers...why not try the same thing with pistachios?

Quick update. The extract method I did try and when added to the beer I didn't notice any signifigant pistachio flavor. Also just adding the nuts to the secondory also proved to not provide any pistachio flavor. I think the nut is just to mild. Next time I am going to try the powdered peanutbutter method.