GF Brewing with Chestnuts

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mattinboston

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After discovering that I had a pretty severe gluten intolerance six months ago I went into a little mini-depression on the realization this news meant that I could no longer safely consume one of the little indulgences that I enjoyed most in this world: wonderful, malty craft and home brews! In fact, when I learned my fate wrt gluten I had a nice lemon summer ale (aka a gluten bomb) in primary. Yikes..... (at least the guests will be taken care of for a while)

I spent a few weeks tasting all of the commercially-available gluten free brews I could find (Bards, Red Bridge, Greene's, St. Peter's). All of them were drinkable in my opinion (Bards and St. Peter's were my favs), but none really met what I preferred in a beer... plus I just wanted more control over the situation. I wanted the freedom that we have as homebrewers: consuming beer styles limited only to our imaginations!

So I took a dive into research mode... Gluten free brewing is obviously still in its infancy and it seemed everyone was focused on one grain: sorghum, but had the same complaints about beer made from it... that it had a bit of a funny citrus-ish aftertaste.

My first beer was purely sorghum-based and I thought it was certainly drinkable... but it had the telltale citrus-like aftertaste of sorghum and just didn't taste or seem that interesting to be honest. Over the coming few months I tried a few different types of homebrews sans gluten... all based on sorghum, but including different grains like Millet and Buckwheat. None really were even drinkable to be honest!...

Then from a google search I stumbled upon a a list of grains that also included other things like nuts and had a starch profile (and nutritional info) alongside in the same spreadsheet. I think it was used for substituting ingredients in baking, but I happened to glance at the line for chestnuts just below that of malted barley and - wallah - a similar makeup!

So I started mixing up google search terms to see if anyone (anywhere in the world) used chestnuts in beer brewing. I found chestnuts mixed in with barley in beers in france and brazil, which was encouraging, but it wasn't until I found an article by "bella online" about a little chestnut grower in the pacific northwest experimenting with chestnuts to make gluten-free beer (http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art38250.asp) that I started to really get excited. Although the article only included a base recipe to make mead, the grower's website included a rudimentary recipe for a base chestnut beer (http://www.chestnuttrails.com/pages/about-beer). Perfect.

Since reading that recipe I've made 4 beers from the chestnut chips Lee Williams sells at trail's end and 3 have far surpassed in beer-like flavor and quality any GF commercial beers I've had (one was too thin and bitter to keep ).

To date I've made an APA, IIPA, and have an American Cream Ale in primary as of this writing. I'm planning to try a lager next... and have chestnut chips on hand with variable toastings for several more batches of beer. I've used a little bit of sorghum and some corn sugar in all of my chestnut beers to increase gravity and I've put some other grains in to steep as well (namely buckwheat).

I will followup to this post in a few days with some rough recipes that I've used in the hopes that some more experienced brewers here can improve on them or work to make divergent styles. In the meantime I hope this long-winded post can help get some of you beer minds out there thinking about this new ingredient for beer making. I didn't want to lift info from Lee's website, so please go check that out (http://www.chestnuttrails.com/pages/about-beer) and come back and tell us what you think.

Chestnuts are a bit expensive...... but for me to again have beers that taste like, well, beer they're a bargain.

Cheers.
 
Nice, I knew I had seen a chestnut beer somewhere. When I saw the price of the chestnut chips, however, I was a little put off.

Are you using the same method they describe in the link you posted?
 
Nice, I knew I had seen a chestnut beer somewhere. When I saw the price of the chestnut chips, however, I was a little put off.

Are you using the same method they describe in the link you posted?

Yeah the chips are pricey unfortunately. I've been trying to find a less expensive source to no avail so far...

I'm using pretty much the same method, but I've been experimenting with the temperatures of the water steeping the chestnuts... and I was thinking of trying a "triple decoction" (sp?) mash with them... though I'm still not quite sure what that style of mashing is! I read somewhere that might be a good technique when working with nut starches, but again have yet to try it.

I'm getting pretty good conversions with a 12 hour soak starting with 150 degree water and returning to 150 degrees for an hour before starting to steep the specialty gf grains. The amylase enzyme helps I'm sure! I wish I was a scientist so I understood more of the underlying process...

I'll put my whole technique + recipe up for tweaking/suggestions in a few days when I can get back to my brew notes...
 
Hey, just stumbled onto your post while researching Chestnut beer. I too have the gluten problem (actually not eating any grains at all). I also found the trails end recipe this morning and have been searching for some type of IPA recipe using chestnuts. It sounds like you have one.If you don't mind sharing your recipes, I would greatly appreciate it. I will most likely be using honey instead of the corn suagar as called for in the trails end recipe. So, I guess I can't just use my home made all grain system as normal (more beer 1550 clone) and mash and sparge as usual? Appreciate any help you can give. Man, if I can get a chestnut IPA going, I will be stoked!!:mug:
 
Hey man... glad to have you on board. The only thing I ask is for you to post any mods to this recipe to help improve it... other than that, here goes. This is a work in progress. It's a double, or imperial IPA. It might even have too much hop, even for me, so I encourage you to scale it back or sub as needed.

5 gal recipe...

5 lbs medium roast chestnut chips
5 lbs corn sugar
2 lbs white sorghum syrup
8 oz Columbus hops
Whirlfloc tab
Safale us-05 yeast

following the trails end recipe I steeped the chestnuts for 12 hours starting with 150 degrees with 1 tblspoon amylase enzyme (I've tried other things since, but hesitate to sub those methods untried on this beer). After the 12 hours I brought it to 160 degrees for 30 mins then sparged.

I removed chips then added some water to compensate.

Bring to boil then add the corn sugar and sorghum.

Add 3 oz Columbus hop pellets

Boil 30 mins

Add 1 oz Columbus mid-hops

Boil 15 mins

Add Whirlfloc tab

Add 3 oz Columbus hops continuously for 15 mins while reducing temp to below boiling

Chill, add water and yeast (sorry I was too dumb to remember to take OG on this batch - was just playing it by feel! dumb dumb dumb)...

Dry Hop after 1 week in primary (possibly too soon) with 1 oz Columbus or Cascade (tried both)

Big big hoppy beer. Sure I made some mistakes... but I could not stop drinking this beer! I've made some other styles since, but this was still my favorite chestnut GF beer by far!
 
One more thing... I've been thinking... I've made 5 or 6 batches now with the chestnuts and all have had at least a bit of sorghum. However, I'm thinking that I'm not really sure the sorghum is adding much other than off flavors. I think my next batch will not have sorghum in it. Just thought I'd share that since you're intending to go no grains at all......

I've been toying with a chestnut/agave nectar beer to eliminate the sorghum and the corn sugar all together... Will let you know if I give that a go.

Cheers.
 
Cant wait to try it. I'm a hop head myself so I might stick with your hopping schedule for the first run and see how it goes. I'm not real big on corn sugar, so I will probably substitute honey for it. I will have to do some research to see how much honey to sub for the corn sugar. I will try it without the sorghum as well and let you know how it goes. I will probably order the nuts today and should be ready to go when they get here. Woohoo!
 
Good luck - let me know how it goes. I think you'll be pleased with the complexity and character... I was.

FWIW I just kegged a chestnut american cream ale that uses Lee's lightly roasted chestnut chips rather than the medium roasting. It tastes strikingly similar to a wheat beer, which is funny because it doesn't have anything like wheat in it!

These chestnuts are flexible. I have 5lbs of dark toasted chips that I'm thinking about making into a black lager in fact (my first chestnut lager)...

I'm starting to think you could just sub chestnut chips for malt into about any recipe, though I think the conversion is lower so the addition of some fermentables might be necessary.
 
The chestnuts arrived! I still need to tie up a few loose ends and get my recipe straight before I get started. One of my favorite recipes is "Tongue Splitter" from Northern Brewer. Here is a link:

http://legacy.northernbrewer.com/docs/kis-html/1463.html

Do you think I could just substitute chestnuts for the grain and get a good beer? I know I talked about using honey as an extra fermentable but honestly I've never done it and am unsure of the results.
 
Alright, here is my plan, feel free to critique it as I am not a rocket scientist. I plan on doing the Northern Brewer "Tongue Splitter" recipe as listed above, but will substitute 20 pounds of chestnut chips (1/2 medium roast, and 1/2 light roast) and 5 lbs of honey for the fermentables. I think that will get me close to 1.05 to 1.06 starting gravity. What do you think?
 
Alright, here is my plan, feel free to critique it as I am not a rocket scientist. I plan on doing the Northern Brewer "Tongue Splitter" recipe as listed above, but will substitute 20 pounds of chestnut chips (1/2 medium roast, and 1/2 light roast) and 5 lbs of honey for the fermentables. I think that will get me close to 1.05 to 1.06 starting gravity. What do you think?

Wow - how did you come up with the 20lbs chestnut chips & 5lbs honey for the 1.06 OG? Are you talking about a 10 gal batch instead of the 5? I'm not being critical, but in a 5-gal batch it looks to me at a glance like you're going to be making a huge alcohol content brew. It looks much higher than the recipe you posted if you manage to convert at a decent rate.

I have no experience with honey, but my understanding is that it is mostly fermentable. In a 5-gal batch it looks like you could get to 7 or 8% with just the 20lbs of chestnuts (with amylaze). Adding the honey too... well... I'll be very interested in your results!

LeeinWA - any thoughts if you're watching this thread?
 
Honey is more or less = to corn sugar. You won't taste it much at all, its highly fermentable.

I have no idea what fermentability chestnuts have, but it does look like a lot of sugar in there...for a 5gal 1.06 anyway.
 
Yes, its a ten gallon batch. I figured Lee says he gets about 4% Brix with 5 pounds of nuts in 5 gallons. I have never worked with the brix scale before, but the conversion table I checked looks to be about 1.016 - 1.02 or so for 4 on the Brix. So, ten pounds of nuts would give me the same for ten gallons. If I double it to 20 lbs for ten gallons, I get double the Brix or gravity, no? This is around 1.032- 1.04 or so. One pound of honey in a gallon of water is about 1.035 SG. 5 pounds in 5 gallons wouild be the same, so if I do a ten gallon batch with 5 pounds of honey, shouldn't I get about half that, or close to 1.017 - 1.02? I'm learning here, so let me know what you see

The 20 pounds of chips are soaking in the mash tun with the amylase. I mashed in at 150 and it seems to be holding pretty well at the moment. I won't be adding the honey until the boil, so let me know if you see something wrong here.

Thanks
 
Wow - how did you come up with the 20lbs chestnut chips & 5lbs honey for the 1.06 OG? Are you talking about a 10 gal batch instead of the 5? I'm not being critical, but in a 5-gal batch it looks to me at a glance like you're going to be making a huge alcohol content brew. It looks much higher than the recipe you posted if you manage to convert at a decent rate.

I have no experience with honey, but my understanding is that it is mostly fermentable. In a 5-gal batch it looks like you could get to 7 or 8% with just the 20lbs of chestnuts (with amylaze). Adding the honey too... well... I'll be very interested in your results!

LeeinWA - any thoughts if you're watching this thread?

LEEINWA HERE! I have found that anything over 5 pounds of chestnuts per 5 gal batch doen't do much good. I always start with about 6 1/2 gals of water and will end end up with about 5 1/2 gallons of wort after I remove chips. You've already extracted your full flavor and will have a brix of 3-5 %. I don't add corn sugar or other fermentables until the extraction of the sugars and flavors are complete from the chips alone as described below. I used to but have stopped that addition until the later time. I NEVER use sourgum. No matter what you do that flavor comes through. I grew up with a bottle of sourgum on the kitchen table to put on bisquits. That was back in the Missouri Ozarks. I still don't like that flavor. I've used honey before but not as a full compliment of fermentables. The honey flavor still comes through. Okay after 3-4 aging. I have also make several batchs using about 3 pounds of DARK roast chips for a milder dark beer. Glutens are what makes dough,dough. ie a congeled adhered mass. You can boil the chestnut chips and they won't gum up like barley if you get your sparging water too hot or too long.

Another thing I've learned when I started making a chestnut liqueur that I wanted crystal clear without expensive filtering is that chestnuts are really a fruit they have pectins. Apple juice that has a cloudy look has not been treated with pectinase. The crytal clear stuff has been treated. Bring your water with chips to boiling, let it cool back back to 160 degrees or so and add your amylase and pectinase. It's surprising how long the pot will stay warm due to the break down action. Stirring every hour or so helps extractions. When you reboil with your first hops any remaining enzymes are destroyed. They are not heat stable at that temp.
Skol
 
Well, it stayed at about 120 degrees last night in the mash tun, so it didn't lose a whole lot of heat. The color is good and it tastes sweet. I tested it with iodine and it does show the presence of sugars. It is recirculating right now and being brought back up to 150 area. I will then mash for at least another hour at this temp, before the sparge and boil. I used to fly sparge but I guess this is going to be more of a batch sparge as there is alot of water with the grains. I didn't use a grain bag. I have a false bottom at the bottom of the mash tun. It seems to be going well so far (exept for the usual pump losing its prime, stuff falling on the floor, dog running down the street...) I will take a gravity reading before I start the boil and see where I'm at. I read somewhere that if you do a 60 minute boil with the honey, you lose most of the honey flavor and get just the fermentable sugar (and the bee parts, heads, antennae, etc. lol) What do you all think?
 
Well, it stayed at about 120 degrees last night in the mash tun, so it didn't lose a whole lot of heat. The color is good and it tastes sweet. I tested it with iodine and it does show the presence of sugars. It is recirculating right now and being brought back up to 150 area. I will then mash for at least another hour at this temp, before the sparge and boil. I used to fly sparge but I guess this is going to be more of a batch sparge as there is alot of water with the grains. I didn't use a grain bag. I have a false bottom at the bottom of the mash tun. It seems to be going well so far (exept for the usual pump losing its prime, stuff falling on the floor, dog running down the street...) I will take a gravity reading before I start the boil and see where I'm at. I read somewhere that if you do a 60 minute boil with the honey, you lose most of the honey flavor and get just the fermentable sugar (and the bee parts, heads, antennae, etc. lol) What do you all think?

I think it sounds promising!... and I think you're right about the honey becoming pretty much straight fermentable after a 60 min boil. I have read that though I have never brewed with honey so I can't personally verify.

Glad you're doing a 10 gal batch with that amount of chips.
 
LEEINWA HERE! I have found that anything over 5 pounds of chestnuts per 5 gal batch doen't do much good. I always start with about 6 1/2 gals of water and will end end up with about 5 1/2 gallons of wort after I remove chips. You've already extracted your full flavor and will have a brix of 3-5 %. I don't add corn sugar or other fermentables until the extraction of the sugars and flavors are complete from the chips alone as described below. I used to but have stopped that addition until the later time. I NEVER use sourgum. No matter what you do that flavor comes through. I grew up with a bottle of sourgum on the kitchen table to put on bisquits. That was back in the Missouri Ozarks. I still don't like that flavor. I've used honey before but not as a full compliment of fermentables. The honey flavor still comes through. Okay after 3-4 aging. I have also make several batchs using about 3 pounds of DARK roast chips for a milder dark beer. Glutens are what makes dough,dough. ie a congeled adhered mass. You can boil the chestnut chips and they won't gum up like barley if you get your sparging water too hot or too long.

Another thing I've learned when I started making a chestnut liqueur that I wanted crystal clear without expensive filtering is that chestnuts are really a fruit they have pectins. Apple juice that has a cloudy look has not been treated with pectinase. The crytal clear stuff has been treated. Bring your water with chips to boiling, let it cool back back to 160 degrees or so and add your amylase and pectinase. It's surprising how long the pot will stay warm due to the break down action. Stirring every hour or so helps extractions. When you reboil with your first hops any remaining enzymes are destroyed. They are not heat stable at that temp.
Skol

Great info Lee! Thanks. I will try the pectinase next time around. I found with one of my batches that it cleared up beautifully when I took the temp down to 29-32 degrees just above the beer freezing for 3 days prior to kegging. That beer is crystal clear.
 
Its cooking time...sitting at 150 now for at least an hour. I am already surprised at how much the mash smells like barley. Its a little different, but very similar. I've never used the brix scale before, am I converting right....8 brix equals 1.032?
 
Well, it stayed at about 120 degrees last night in the mash tun, so it didn't lose a whole lot of heat. The color is good and it tastes sweet. I tested it with iodine and it does show the presence of sugars. It is recirculating right now and being brought back up to 150 area. I will then mash for at least another hour at this temp, before the sparge and boil. I used to fly sparge but I guess this is going to be more of a batch sparge as there is alot of water with the grains. I didn't use a grain bag. I have a false bottom at the bottom of the mash tun. It seems to be going well so far (exept for the usual pump losing its prime, stuff falling on the floor, dog running down the street...) I will take a gravity reading before I start the boil and see where I'm at. I read somewhere that if you do a 60 minute boil with the honey, you lose most of the honey flavor and get just the fermentable sugar (and the bee parts, heads, antennae, etc. lol) What do you all think?

Hey, those bee parts add protein! Honey itself is not all sugars. Studies done with protein electrophoresis methods reveal many protein factors that come from pollens and or bee secretions. These proteins are thought to be responsible for inhibiting microscopic stuff from growing. Remember that RAW honey can sit on the shelf for years with out spoiling. No mold. No baterial growth. Two things are required for for that growth. AVAILABLE water and nutrients. In honey any water is "bound" and not available. Boiling [pasturizing] breaks down those proteins and diluting makes the sugars available for yeasts to do their job. I didn't say that honey was a bad taste, I said it can be tasted in a mead type brew. Not that off flavored taste of sourgum.

I free mix the chips with water. After extraction I allow settling to occur. I then pump off wort with a hand wand [to keep out of the settlings] through a 400 mesh wire pre-filter to keep stray chip from fouling my diaphram pump, followed by an inline 1 micron water filter. I bottle carbonate every thing so I still need a few yeast cell to do that. 1/2 micron filters will trap yeast cells.

I've gotten so I use a refractometer. It gives a good accurate rapid reading of brix and alcohol poteniality.

I love that sweet chocolaty taste of the unfermented wort!!
 
Good stuff! Am I doing my calculations correct with the honey? I'm trying to figure out how much honey to add to raise the gravity if I need to. 1 pound honey in one gallon of water equals 1.035? So, 5 pounds in ten gallons is half that, or 1.017?
 
Its cooking time...sitting at 150 now for at least an hour. I am already surprised at how much the mash smells like barley. Its a little different, but very similar. I've never used the brix scale before, am I converting right....8 brix equals 1.032?



You use brix but you just don't realize it. If you have a triple hydrometer it's one of the scales. Also called "balling". Brix is just % sugar. SG 1.032 is about 9% suger which will give you potential alcohol ABV of about 5-6 % at end of brew. I use the refractometer because it ony takes a couple of drops of wort and you don't have to read it in a tank.
 
Good stuff! Am I doing my calculations correct with the honey? I'm trying to figure out how much honey to add to raise the gravity if I need to. 1 pound honey in one gallon of water equals 1.035? So, 5 pounds in ten gallons is half that, or 1.017?

Depends. First time around I'd add honey until you get to the SG you want and then log results in your brewing journal so you'll know in the future.
 
What can go wrong will go wrong. I just dropped my hydrometer on the concrete. Gonna have to go without it...and I'm not even drinking
 
What can go wrong will go wrong. I just dropped my hydrometer on the concrete. Gonna have to go without it...and I'm not even drinking

That's alright. You were just excited about making the best tasting GF beer around. In a couple of weeks the hydrometer will just be a memory of the past.

Good liuck


Skol
 
Thanks for the help. Fermentation has begun. The wort tastes sugary sweet with a good hop bite. Something different in the background...I think it is kind of a "roasted" flavor. Frist impressions: It is going to be a good beer! Wort is a little darker than I'm used to (propably from the medium roast chips in there). It is pretty cloudy though I am sure much of it will settle out. (The wort in the fridge is already lightening up from some settling) Before the brew session, I was suprised at how sweet the chestnuts tasted. Interesting, I didn't expect the chestnuts to swell up as much as they did. They do abosrb alot of water as you said. They were rinsed well though and tasted just like spent "grains" at the end of the day. I put some wort in a jar in the fridge so I can test the gravity next week when I get a new hydrometer. The "clean up" is done (worst part) and I can enjoy my Sunday now. What? Cut down that dead tree in the back? No rest for the weary!
 
Thanks for the help. Fermentation has begun. The wort tastes sugary sweet with a good hop bite. Something different in the background...I think it is kind of a "roasted" flavor. Frist impressions: It is going to be a good beer! Wort is a little darker than I'm used to (propably from the medium roast chips in there). It is pretty cloudy though I am sure much of it will settle out. (The wort in the fridge is already lightening up from some settling) Before the brew session, I was suprised at how sweet the chestnuts tasted. Interesting, I didn't expect the chestnuts to swell up as much as they did. They do abosrb alot of water as you said. They were rinsed well though and tasted just like spent "grains" at the end of the day. I put some wort in a jar in the fridge so I can test the gravity next week when I get a new hydrometer. The "clean up" is done (worst part) and I can enjoy my Sunday now. What? Cut down that dead tree in the back? No rest for the weary!

Congrats! Let us know how it goes. I had similar impressions of the chestnuts the first time I brewed with them. It just all seems so similar to an all-grain process using traditional grains.

Glad to have you on board the chestnut GF train. Hopefully some others can get on board too and we can flush out some really good recipes!
 
Already thinking of making a porter next time. I think the nuts and roasted flavor would work well for it. I think we can do some good stuff here!
 
You use brix but you just don't realize it. If you have a triple hydrometer it's one of the scales. Also called "balling". Brix is just % sugar. SG 1.032 is about 9% suger which will give you potential alcohol ABV of about 5-6 % at end of brew. I use the refractometer because it ony takes a couple of drops of wort and you don't have to read it in a tank.

Lee - thanks for all of the info on here about your chestnut chips.

Do you have an estimate of degrees lovibond for the color of the levels of roastings you offer?

Specifically I'm trying to create a Schwarzbier recipe, but am not sure of the color I'm going to get out of the dark roasted chips (& how much I should use for my desired color).

My instinct to get a 25-ish SRM would be to use 3lbs dark and 2lbs medium chips with 4lbs corn sugar (eg 0 deg L), but it's a shot in the dark really. I'm toying with things in promash, but it's really a guess using a mix of chocolate and black patent for color subs of the chestnuts.
 
Lee - thanks for all of the info on here about your chestnut chips.

Do you have an estimate of degrees lovibond for the color of the levels of roastings you offer?

Specifically I'm trying to create a Schwarzbier recipe, but am not sure of the color I'm going to get out of the dark roasted chips (& how much I should use for my desired color).

My instinct to get a 25-ish SRM would be to use 3lbs dark and 2lbs medium chips with 4lbs corn sugar (eg 0 deg L), but it's a shot in the dark really. I'm toying with things in promash, but it's really a guess using a mix of chocolate and black patent for color subs of the chestnuts.

I just went and out and got a bottle that I put up on 5/30/09. I used my dark roast chips with that. I have some 1" cordial glasses. It would have probably made 19-20 with the the scale using one of those, but its a little larger that the 1/2 dia. they reccomend. That's about as dark as I want to roast the chips without getting a burnt taste to them. The coffe substitute I make looks just like ground coffee. When you brew it, it looks as dark as coffee, which would probably be in the 25 range you are looking for. That's really a time comsumming roast process. It's roasted just about to the point of conbustabilty. It would be too costly to use as a color enhancer for beer. Burnt barley looks like really dark mouse turds but barley is out for GF.

One time I used some BIG coffee brewers and made a chestnut coffee to use instead of water for my wort liquid and added regular dark roast chip. I fermented that to 19.5% alcohol/19 % brix, and make a liqueur that has a nice full bodied taste with a nutty chocolate taste. One of my better creations. Deliciosos!

A chocolate concentrate with the cocoa butter removed might be the answer to your drakness. Many of the really dark brews I'v made had received the palate analysis of having a chocolate taste.

Hope this helps
 
Can someone look over this?

http://brew.dkershner.com/2010/chestnut-brown/

I basically tried to surmise through what everyone has been saying what the yield and color of the chestnuts are, and then build a sort of English Brown recipe based off of what you guys have said it tasted like (chocolate, roasty).

Does it look good?
 
I just went and out and got a bottle that I put up on 5/30/09. I used my dark roast chips with that. I have some 1" cordial glasses. It would have probably made 19-20 with the the scale using one of those, but its a little larger that the 1/2 dia. they reccomend. That's about as dark as I want to roast the chips without getting a burnt taste to them. The coffe substitute I make looks just like ground coffee. When you brew it, it looks as dark as coffee, which would probably be in the 25 range you are looking for. That's really a time comsumming roast process. It's roasted just about to the point of conbustabilty. It would be too costly to use as a color enhancer for beer. Burnt barley looks like really dark mouse turds but barley is out for GF.

One time I used some BIG coffee brewers and made a chestnut coffee to use instead of water for my wort liquid and added regular dark roast chip. I fermented that to 19.5% alcohol/19 % brix, and make a liqueur that has a nice full bodied taste with a nutty chocolate taste. One of my better creations. Deliciosos!

A chocolate concentrate with the cocoa butter removed might be the answer to your drakness. Many of the really dark brews I'v made had received the palate analysis of having a chocolate taste.

Hope this helps

Thanks Lee - that is helpful! The chips will be lighter than I expected in the end.

As an aside, I'll have to dig into my notes but I once saw a color darkening adjunct that I believe is gluten free and might work in this case. It was (is) rumored to be used by the Spoetzl brewery in Texas to make bock-like beer (that's not really in the bock style at all but is labeled as such). It's pretty refreshing though and I think they use the darkener to give it a darkish color and slight smokey flavor without adding any other characteristics to the beer. Anyway, if I can remember what it's called it might be perfect.....

Oh, and the chestnut liquor sounds terrific!!
 
A chocolate concentrate with the cocoa butter removed might be the answer to your drakness. Many of the really dark brews I'v made had received the palate analysis of having a chocolate taste.

This is the missing piece to my recipe! Any ideas on where to source this?
 
Can someone look over this?

http://brew.dkershner.com/2010/02/08/chestnut-brown/

I basically tried to surmise through what everyone has been saying what the yield and color of the chestnuts are, and then build a sort of English Brown recipe based off of what you guys have said it tasted like (chocolate, roasty).

Does it look good?

Does it look good? I assume your question was pretaining to color. Yeah! It looks great. Nice rich dark color with a roasted nutty chocolaty flavor with a slight lingering hint of citrus. [Cascades] To bad I don't drink any more but I do a lot of mouth wash and spitting. Even my wife likes it and she's not a beer drinker.
 
Does it look good? I assume your question was pretaining to color. Yeah! It looks great. Nice rich dark color with a roasted nutty chocolaty flavor with a slight lingering hint of citrus. [Cascades] To bad I don't drink any more but I do a lot of mouth wash and spitting. Even my wife likes it and she's not a beer drinker.

Had to run to a conference call...wrote that question without thinking.

What I meant was, does the color and ABV look accurate for what is in it?

Also, I would like to add some chocolate flavor, where do you suggest I could get the cocoa butter free chocolate concentrate?
 
Fat free cocoa? I used this in my double chocolate stout (porter)

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Had to run to a conference call...wrote that question without thinking.

What I meant was, does the color and ABV look accurate for what is in it?

Also, I would like to add some chocolate flavor, where do you suggest I could get the cocoa butter free chocolate concentrate?


I make light, medium and dark chestnut ales only. The ABV is usually about 7 % and that is determined by the amount of corn sugar I add. Looks good to me. I'm not a master brewer by any means. I never brewed any beer from my collage days until I was 65. Back incollage it was in a plastic garbage can and it was scoped with a ladle and not bottled. The object back then was a good cheap drunk after tests. My whole objective of brewing in this era of my life was to show people it COULD be done with chestnuts. I give all my beer away to my beer snob friends.

I'm sure some brew or wine supply houses would have a chocolate extract minus the butter that they sell under the additive section. I'll check one of my sorces and if I find anything I'll get back to you.

Hope this helps.
 
Had to run to a conference call...wrote that question without thinking.

What I meant was, does the color and ABV look accurate for what is in it?

Also, I would like to add some chocolate flavor, where do you suggest I could get the cocoa butter free chocolate concentrate?

OK. Northern Brewer has pure cholcolate extract for flavoring beer.
 
Had to run to a conference call...wrote that question without thinking.

What I meant was, does the color and ABV look accurate for what is in it?

Also, I would like to add some chocolate flavor, where do you suggest I could get the cocoa butter free chocolate concentrate?


By the way, I ment to mention that if you use the dark roasted chips, you might like the taste so well that you won't have to use any other flavorings.
 
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