Spumoni stout... possible?

Hi all, I am posting this here because I posted it in extract brewing forum and I am literally the ONLY one who has viewed it so far and will be potentially brewing on Thursday. I need some feedback and am pretty excited to overstep a boundary (so far known to me) untouched. Here's the original post:


I may be a bit ambitious with this brew, but since having Saugatuck brewery's neapolitan stout, I've wanted to make one myself. However after thinking about it, I figured I'd try being completely original (Google search for a recipe yielded nothing). Anyhow, I guess I'm at a loss as to amounts of cherries and pistachios. Also, since this is going to be an experimental batch, should I go the route of a 1 gallon batch to test it out? Thanks in advance!

I personally always go small when I'm creating/testing a recipe. Whenever I've tried to clone something I couldn't find a recipe for I would find commercial examples that contained the different flavors and characteristics I wanted, look up those clone recipes and fuse them together. Sounds like it could be pretty good.

Not much interest in this one it seems. Well next Sunday is brew day and I think I'm just going to do a 1 Gallon test run. If nothing else, can someone give me a suggestion as to when to add the pistachios? Cherries I know will be secondary, but would it be best to put the pistachios in during the boil to get the oils out? Should I crush them or leave them whole?

Cherry stout would probably work pretty well. Secondary those, like you mentioned. I am not sure about the pistachios, though. I know that, in general, oils are a bad thing in beer. I might roast/toast the pistachios in the oven (if they are raw) and add them in secondary also. If you do choose to add them to the boil, I would limit the boil time to 5 minutes or less to minimize the extraction of oils. Oil will kill your head retention, and could cause issues with mouthfeel and body. I am sure other brewers here have more experience brewing with nuts, but that is one ingredient that I still have no experience with.

the oil thing SHOULD have been obvious to me, thanks for pointing it out.I'm wondering if maybe the best thing to do for that would be just get pistachio extract or even artificial flavoring... gonna try it with the real thing first though. Thanks for reminding me of the adverse effects of oil on beer.

DrummerBoySeth said:

Cherry stout would probably work pretty well. Secondary those, like you mentioned. I am not sure about the pistachios, though. I know that, in general, oils are a bad thing in beer. I might roast/toast the pistachios in the oven (if they are raw) and add them in secondary also. If you do choose to add them to the boil, I would limit the boil time to 5 minutes or less to minimize the extraction of oils. Oil will kill your head retention, and could cause issues with mouthfeel and body. I am sure other brewers here have more experience brewing with nuts, but that is one ingredient that I still have no experience with.

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Funny you mention this but there was actually an article in BYO magazine last month I think about a pistachio pale ale. But here's a guy that did pretty much the same thing as BYO:

http://www.homebrewing.com/articles/pistachio-pale-ale.php

During our experiment with this recipe we torched pistachios with a blow torch until lightly browned, partially cracked the pistachios and placed them in a grain bag. Next, we boiled 3 cups of water and steeped the pistachios for 15 mins. Finally, we froze the mixture and scraped off the fats that rose to the top and then added the remaining pistachio tea during secondary fermentation. You can use this method for a number of nuts and seeds with high fat contents.

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Smart - I was thinking about doing that, except letting it cool after boiling and just using my auto siphon to rack into my boil water without letting the top transfer to avoid oils, but it's probably more efficient/ effective to go the route of freezing. Thanks for the heads up!

how'd this turn out? I was thinking of doing a pistachio pale from byo.

RmikeVT - the beer was abysmal. The extraction of the pistachio flavor worked fine, but I was an idiot and used artificial vanilla and made other mistakes as an over-ambitious new brewer. I might revisit this one in the future and retry though.