Adding a single chile at bottling?

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dougdecinces

dougdecinces

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I have a birds eye pepper plant and it produces peppers like mad. They are about 1 cm long and hot as hell.

I have about 50-60 peppers drying in my porch right now. Since they seem the perfect size, I had the idea of brewing a beer and dropping a single dried pepper in each bottle. Has anyone tried this? What styles would work with this method? Would the final product be so hot as to render it unpalatable?
 
As most of the heat is from the seeds and veins well inside the skin, I'd be surprised if you got much of anything from just dropping a whole pepper in a bottle. But if you have a capper, experiment with a few different bottled brews by popping the tops, dropping in a whole pepper in some and a split pepper in the others, and recapping. Let 'em sit for as long as you can stand to wait then give them a try...

Cheers!
 
I did an experimental 1g batch of an APA with 2 roasted habenero chilis (roasted on the grill) split and added to the secondary. Beer stayed in the secondary for a few months (was distracted by travel for work). The resulting beer was beautiful, crystal clear, great color... but it was devastatingly hot, and I'm a big fan of spice. The first taste had a great roasty taste with a hint of chili, but the finish was a long lingering, intense burning.

If I did it again, I'd add some smoked malt to the grain bill and dial back the chilis (probably use something a little less powerful than the habeneros).

If you find something that works, post it here because it's a style I'd like to play with some more!
 
I tried this with a porter I brewed a couple months back. I cut a Jalapeno long ways and boiled it for 5 minutes. I then added directly to a 22 at bottling. It was a pleasant bite to the aftertaste that my friend and I enjoyed. I only did this to one bottle, so I am not sure if it would have been as enjoyable after a couple bottles worth, but for 10 or so ounces that I tested, I plan on trying it again.

As a side note, we also tried the Jalapeno after the beer, it was tasteless, just devoid of any flavor or heat.
 
jlachesk said:
I did an experimental 1g batch of an APA with 2 roasted habenero chilis (roasted on the grill) split and added to the secondary. Beer stayed in the secondary for a few months (was distracted by travel for work). The resulting beer was beautiful, crystal clear, great color... but it was devastatingly hot, and I'm a big fan of spice. The first taste had a great roasty taste with a hint of chili, but the finish was a long lingering, intense burning.

If I did it again, I'd add some smoked malt to the grain bill and dial back the chilis (probably use something a little less powerful than the habeneros).

If you find something that works, post it here because it's a style I'd like to play with some more!
Click to expand...

Haha man, I used 1/5 of a habenero in a gallon and the heat was strong. That must have been crazy. One way to get some smokiness and depth of flavor in there is use another pepper like an ancho, it plays nicely with habanero.
 
I have a maibock I plan on making in December. Maybe I'll try this experiment with a sixer of it during bottling. Worst case scenario is I end up making a couple batches of chili out of them.
 
I do a smoked habenero amber ale with just 1 small pepper in the primary, and a jalapeno rye... both never last very long
 
A family member got me a Rogue Brutal Bitter kit and I'm thinking I want to improvise a little on it. This year is also the first I've had my own jalapeno plant, and I want to give a jalapeno IPA a shot. It's an extract kit, standard 5-gallon batch... Any suggestions for preparation of the jalapenos? I saw roasting worked well, but what was the exact process for that? And how many should I toss in there and when? Thanks!
 
wondermoose said:
A family member got me a Rogue Brutal Bitter kit and I'm thinking I want to improvise a little on it. This year is also the first I've had my own jalapeno plant, and I want to give a jalapeno IPA a shot. It's an extract kit, standard 5-gallon batch... Any suggestions for preparation of the jalapenos? I saw roasting worked well, but what was the exact process for that? And how many should I toss in there and when? Thanks!
Click to expand...

I'm not sure how much you should use, but here's what you do to roast them:

Get a big fire going in your grill or a fire pit. You want it to be ripping hot, flames, the whole shebang.

Heat the peppers on all sides until the jalapenos are blackened and blistered.

Place these in a paper bag and close it tight. After waiting until they cool, peel the skins, split the pepper and seed them.

Note that if you have a gas stove you can also roast these on the direct flame over the stove. But last week I made a giant wood fire and roasted 40 bell peppers and 20 jalapenos and that was a blast. Probably an 8/10 on the Man Scale.
 
dougdecinces said:
I'm not sure how much you should use, but here's what you do to roast them:

Get a big fire going in your grill or a fire pit. You want it to be ripping hot, flames, the whole shebang.

Heat the peppers on all sides until the jalapenos are blackened and blistered.

Place these in a paper bag and close it tight. After waiting until they cool, peel the skins, split the pepper and seed them.

Note that if you have a gas stove you can also roast these on the direct flame over the stove. But last week I made a giant wood fire and roasted 40 bell peppers and 20 jalapenos and that was a blast. Probably an 8/10 on the Man Scale.
Click to expand...

Wouldn't seeding them remove their hotness? Jalapenos aren't THAT hot, so I want to make sure I've got enough of a kick to make it a worthwhile venture.
 
I did a chili beer years ago with malted agave extract and barley. We dropped a fresh chili in each bottle and we used jalapeños, California chilis, and chilies de arbol.
 
papawow said:
I did a chili beer years ago with malted agave extract and barley. We dropped a fresh chili in each bottle and we used jalapeños, California chilis, and chilies de arbol.
Click to expand...

Whoops

The beer was a pale ale and lightly hopped. I think we rinsed each in a mild bleach solution to take any funk off before we put them in the bottles. The heat got stronger over the first six weeks or so, then peaked. The flavor was amazing and the heat was perfect, for us. I also added a little lime juice at bottling, I think I tasted it and made that as a last minute decision. Don't call it Tequiza, but that's what it most closely resembled, only stronger, about 6%.
 
I have two ghost peppers I got from a friend. Trying to decide how much to add to a 5 gallon batch.. Any ideas?
 
I've tasted a 5 gallon batch with one habanero in it and it was a little too much. I like heat too.
 
biggc1 said:
I have two ghost peppers I got from a friend. Trying to decide how much to add to a 5 gallon batch.. Any ideas?
Click to expand...
Jolokias are VERY strong, so tread carefully there. Wear gloves when cutting them, as the oil will soak into your hands and burn for a while, not to mention the issue of anything you touch starts burning as well, if you get my drift.

How big are they? Jolokias are normally about 4 inches long, but many grown by people at home are much smaller. I grow jolokias, but use them for sauce, not beer.
 
i added a single jalepeno to several bottles of JOAM (i know, different beast, but, still...)
it was too hot for me, and i love hot.
 
I think I've decided what I'm going to do. I plan on brewing a maibock this winter. I'll take 6-10 bottles of that and experiment on them with a single thai bird chile in each bottle. I think I'll call it Thaibock.
 
usfmikeb said:
Jolokias are VERY strong, so tread carefully there. Wear gloves when cutting them, as the oil will soak into your hands and burn for a while, not to mention the issue of anything you touch starts burning as well, if you get my drift.

How big are they? Jolokias are normally about 4 inches long, but many grown by people at home are much smaller. I grow jolokias, but use them for sauce, not beer.
Click to expand...

They are about 2.5" long and a nice red color. I'll get a pic. Maybe you can verify that they are jolokias?
 
Here they are! sorry if this is a hijack

IMAG0050.jpg
 
Does anybody remember Cave Creek Chili Beer from Arizona? Is it even available anymore? It was a commercial example of a beer with a small chile pepper in every bottle-
 
ashton said:
...Ballast Point did a few batches of their standard beers infused with different peppers and had a tasting at their homebrew shop here in San Diego...[/URL]
Click to expand...

I had a chance to try a couple of these during a recent trip to San Diego. The Serrano pale ale was good, but the Habanero Scotch ale was probably the beer of the trip for us... A good whack of heat, but tons of chili flavour as well. Both the heat and the flavour played really nicely with the base beer.
 

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