Spice, Herb, or Vegetable Beer Habanero IPA

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Ok, I've been following this thread and brewed up my own killer IPA recipe, and happily used your peppering schedule.

Problem was, I ended up only getting 1 pepper for the 5 day rest. After slicing and dicing, I only had 8.5grams. So I let it sit for 5 days, then kegged, as I'm on a tight schedule for a meeting and event. Kegging was Friday.

I'm carbed and set now, but am only getting a subtle warmth. I just diced up 20 grams more and added (with weighted bag) to the keg for some keg peppering. I'm hoping 3 days gives me the heat I'm after, but I am also now at fridge temps vs room temps.

I serve this Friday to a crowd. I don't want anyone "searching" for the heat, and I don't want to turn anyone off. I'm planning to just sample one daily until Friday, pull the bag if necessary.

Thoughts and comments welcome and encouraged, please.
 
I've made this 7 or 8 times and the pepper heat is tough because different crops of peppers are all different.

My advice is keep tasting it until it is a bit hotter than you want it and then pull the peppers. The heat will fade a bit over time.
 
Well that one statement is definitely true. Different crops with different heat.
We had a pre event tasting last night and my heat level went up considerably in the 9 hour soak. Perfect heat levels, but also some of the pepper flesh ( the green pepper like) flavors are there. What a major difference between crops of peppers.
I pulled them after the tasting and the plan is to taste again tomorrow night to gauge heat levels and flavor. I know I can keg-pepper again for more heat but can't take it away.
Thanks for the reply.
 
I brewed this awhile back and I did 2 dry hop additionss. I threw 10 grams (about 2) habaneros in with the second dry hop in a hop sack. Because of my schedule I pulled the second bag after 4 days (otherwise they would have soaked too long and I was worried about it being too hot), and I had forgot to throw in weight (stainless steel nuts) to sink the bag so it just floated on top. I flipped the bag over twice, but I don't think the habs got a good soak.

Anyways I kegged the beer - it is a good beer, but it has just a faint hint of "green" pepper. So tonight I decide, this beer is good but I wanted a pepper beer so grab 1 whole habanero out of my garden, cut in half seed and sprayed with star-san. I put the pepper in a boiled hop sack with 4 stainless steel nuts, and tied it to some teflon tape with the intention of tying it off and pulling the habaneros tomorrow.

I dropped in my keg, and close the bail on the keg, and it severs the teflon tape and the habanero sack drops to the bottom! What the hell!! What now? I could transfer it to another keg. Or I could try to drink it until I can't drink it!
 
If you've got another keg, you could just make a jumper line and transfer when you feel it's ready. We often do that with spiced kegs or keg hopping.

FYI. Nearly drained my keg Friday at our club event. Great reviews. Definitely doing again.
Thanks
 
Tasted this at NHC Club night at AZ's table with Yooper and Bob. Very good base beer and the habanero heat is nicely complementary to the hop presence. Even my wife said it tasted good. :D
 
Just kegged this last week. For whatever reason in my head I though the recipe said to dry hop for 5-7 days and to dry pepper for 3 days. After kegging and tasting it had a very very slight burn at the end, but not what the recipe was intending to have. I'm on a timeline for bottling several of these up for the holidays this week, so I was thinking of dry peppering in the keg for 24 hours, except with a full habanero, with seeds and all, to try and get some burn back on a limited timeline. Anybody tried this? Is one habanero with seeds and all too much, not enough, etc??
 
The problem with following a recipe like this is all peppers are different. I've done several habanero beers now and they've ranged from .3 ounces up to 3 full pepper (seeds removed).

The last one I did was an imperial chocolate stout that had 2 habaneros and 1 jalapeno (seeds removed). It's got a nice bite to it but the heat doesn't completely overshadow the nice roasty, coffee and chocolate notes.

No reason you can't do it in the keg, but be sure you have a way of easily removing the peppers. I'd also advise against using the seeds.
 
Hi all, as far as adding more heat to the beer, why not make a tincture by soaking habs in vodka and adding that in until you have the right heat? I've done that a few times with the jalapeno cream ale and it works great! It also gives you a lot more control too, instead of having to deal with differences from crop to crop.

As an added benefit, you can always toss a splash of the tincture straight into your glass when you don't have any pepper beer on hand and are craving one. ☺
 
You're still having to monitor proper heat level with a tincture, but my method saves you the time of making the tincture (which is going to be of variable heat, anyway, depending on pepper heat). :)
 
True, but a tincture allows you to add heat a bit at a time with quick feedback versus waiting to see how the extra addition in the keg does....at any rate, I am looking forward to trying this recipe and will follow the pepper schedule. I'll just keep the tincture on the side in case it's needed later!
 
Just served the 2nd batch (different grain bill) of my Habanero IPA at an event this past weekend. Folks really like it as long as you don't push the heat tooo high. I went on the medium-hot side, and then ran it thru a pineapple filled randall. Worked out well, only have a splash left in the keg.
 
How much pepper flavor do you get with habanero peppers in this recipe? I'm looking for a little flavor and low-med heat.

I just don't want to overdo it on the flavor, but get a nice warming in the back of the throat from the peppers.
 
I would make the recipe per the original, it is a fantastic beer and by far the most favorite IPA I've brewed. If you're worried the original recipe might be too hot, just cut the dry-peppering down a day or maybe two. You could always taste and rack when you feel it is right.
 
Yep, start with ~2.5g per gallon and taste it every couple of days. Add more peppers if needed, and package when the heat level is a bit higher than you want (it'll fade a bit when chilled/carbed).
 
I added .5 ounces last night. I wore latex gloves while handling the peppers. I sanitized, cut open, scooped out the middle bits, chopped up and weighed out.

And about halfway through my throat was burning and I started coughing. I had to walk out of the room to get a breath and go back in holding it.

My wife was in the other room and even though I was working as fast as I could she even got to coughing!

I had glasses on too in case a piece decided to flip upwards.

I think things went well. I added 2 ounces of hops for dry hop and purged the air in the carboy with CO2. I'll taste in a couple of days.

Still need to cold crash or add gelatin or both and get it carbing. Lots of time before the event.
 
So I majorly screwed up on this one. Everything was great up to dry hopping. Tasted amazing.

Now my screw up was i read g as oz.. or my brain broke... anyways I ended up adding in 17.3 OZ to my beer. Just realized this after bottling.

Am I going to die.
 
invalid1 said:
So I majorly screwed up on this one. Everything was great up to dry hopping. Tasted amazing.

Now my screw up was i read g as oz.. or my brain broke... anyways I ended up adding in 17.3 OZ to my beer. Just realized this after bottling.

Am I going to die.
Click to expand...

Holy crap!

*off to invest in Preparation H stock...
 
Also didn't even realize what your icon was. Graduated from Ferris in 2007
 
Last edited:
invalid1 said:
So I majorly screwed up on this one. Everything was great up to dry hopping. Tasted amazing.

Now my screw up was i read g as oz.. or my brain broke... anyways I ended up adding in 17.3 OZ to my beer. Just realized this after bottling.

Am I going to die.
Click to expand...

Please report back to let us know if you did.
 
Reporting back....
Not dead.

Habenero overpowers almost all of the hop aroma. Smells like someone sliced up a habenero and shoved it in my nose.

Flavor wise it starts with a hint of hops sneaking through, and a very large dose of the habenero vegetable flavor.

This is where the burning starts. When you swallow it is like a punch to the throat where the sting hangs around. Then your mouth starts to burn, along with your lips where the beer touched.
If you swallow fast it has a delayed hit. Goes down smooth, but then it rears it's head everywhere at once.

It's not so hot or over powering that it's un-drinkable, I have eat food hotter. I think it would pair very well with burgers or brats, or a cheese plate.
 
invalid1 said:
Reporting back....
Not dead.

Habenero overpowers almost all of the hop aroma. Smells like someone sliced up a habenero and shoved it in my nose.

Flavor wise it starts with a hint of hops sneaking through, and a very large dose of the habenero vegetable flavor.

This is where the burning starts. When you swallow it is like a punch to the throat where the sting hangs around. Then your mouth starts to burn, along with your lips where the beer touched.
If you swallow fast it has a delayed hit. Goes down smooth, but then it rears it's head everywhere at once.

It's not so hot or over powering that it's un-drinkable, I have eat food hotter. I think it would pair very well with burgers or brats, or a cheese plate.
Click to expand...

Good to hear!
 
So I made this one and have mixed results.

First, I started with 2 habs in the boil at 15 minutes.

Next, I added 4 habs to secondary fermentation.

I soaked 4 habs in vodka during secondary then poured the tincture into the bottling bucket.

My goal was a very hot IPA. I love the Habanero Sculpin where you feel the burn in the back of the throat.

What I got was a slight burn, not near the sculpin but I also got a pepper taste which I dont like. Almost a peppery veggie taste.

Let me say my friends all love it, say it is the best home brew they ever tasted.

Just wish I could get more heat, less veggie.

Also, has great head retention and lacing!
 
So I have an awesome Beechwood Smoked Brown Porter base (50% smoked beechwood grains) that I typically add a vanilla/whiskey concoction to for the holidays..... This thread got me thinking I could take the base and add habaneros to it for the summertime!..... Thoughts? Will the smoke and habaneros pair well? Can I substitute fresh habaneros with ground habanero? Conversion to ground?
 
I'd use chipotles (dried, smoked, jalapenos).

The smokiness/fruitiness of the chipotle will go better with a smoked porter than just the heat from habanero, in my opinion...
 
I'm looking to brew this beer this weekend, however, has there been any experiences in keeping the recipe exactly as is in the original post but using a different yeast, maybe something like Wyeast 3711? Thoughts? Recommendations?
 
Culln5 said:
So I have an awesome Beechwood Smoked Brown Porter base (50% smoked beechwood grains) that I typically add a vanilla/whiskey concoction to for the holidays..... This thread got me thinking I could take the base and add habaneros to it for the summertime!..... Thoughts? Will the smoke and habaneros pair well? Can I substitute fresh habaneros with ground habanero? Conversion to ground?
Click to expand...

Well I wound up brewing a test batch and coming out of the primary it smells and tastes awesome! It is 50% Beechwood smoked malt porter that I followed the OP's method to add the habaneros to the primary (3g/Gal). I get all the smokiness and a moderate pepper burn. I'm sure that by the time it's in the keg the burn will become mild and it will be exactly where I wanted it.
 
bob1852 said:
EDIT: I've made this beer many times now, and it's won many awards, including Gold Medals in both the First and Final Rounds at the 2014 National Homebrewers Competition; some minor changes to the original recipe are incorporated below....

14lbs 2-row (adjust as needed for your efficiency to hit the OG)
1.25lb crystal 20L
1lb carapils
0.5lb caravienne

Mash at 155*F for 60 minutes

1.5oz Amarillo mash hop
0.5oz Warrior @60
0.25oz Magnum @60
0.25oz Columbus @60
0.25oz Northern Brewer @60
0.25oz Crystal @30
0.25oz Centennial @30
0.25oz Simcoe @30
1.5oz Amarillo @0

2oz Simcoe (dry - 5-7 days)
4oz Amarillo (dry - 5-7 days)

WLP001 with a ~1500mL starter

Ferment for 10-14 days @ 64*F
Dry hop for 5-7 days
Dry "pepper" with ~3.0 grams* per gallon of deveined and deseeded habanero peppers for 5 days (you can dry pepper and dry hop at the same time if you want, but if you use hop bags, don't include the peppers in those; they get caught up in hop sludge and won't release as much of their heat/flavor/aroma)

This is based off the various Ballast Point Sculpin IPA clones that are out there. It's won medals at several local and national competitions.

Tasting notes:
A great beer with IPA highlights and guest star of habanero!!!
Very good pepper beer. Perfect balance of IPA and spicy habanero


:mug:

* notes on peppers: because the heat in peppers is so variable, start with ~3.0g per gallon. After ~5 days taste it. If you need more heat add more habaneros or some serranos (these add a good neutral heat with a slight touch of grassiness that works well with the hops) and sample again after a couple of days. The heat will mellow over time, so you want to bottle/keg when it's slightly hotter than you want the finished product to be.
Click to expand...
I saw this recipe in Zymurgy and the one from the magazine was slightly different. It also, when I plugged the recipe into Beersmith, it calculated it at over 150 IBU's. That seemed like a lot, so I amended it to about 80 IBUs. Just curious as to what your IBUs have come out around. Any insight would be most appreciated. Thank you and cheers.
 

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