Advice on adding nuts to beer?

I am making a beer with pecans and wanted to see if anyone out there had any experience using nuts in making beer?

Do you toast or roast then before you use them? Do you put them into the boil or primary or secondary?

So you want to dip your nuts in beer huh?

Sorry too many jokes to be had here, but I will be watching this thread because I am curiius as well.

I've used PB2 before to get a roasted nut flavor, but never actual nuts.

Do a search at brew your own magazine or zymurgy magazine, can't remember which one but a few issues ago there was a whole article on brewing with different kinds of nuts

Nightshade said:

So you want to dip your nuts in beer huh?

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Why can't I ever be the first to reply to thread titles like this!!


Seriously though. I do remember seeing a post about someone using peanuts in a beer. Could be good.
I would also search every recipe database for the word "nut" "peanut" "pecan" and other.
I'm sure on beersmith's recipe database and probably a few others you can use key words like that.
Even if the recipe isn't something that you want to do, you might see how others have used nuts with success.

My thoughts would be that you would put them in a secondary and let them sit for quite a while. Roasting would be depending on the flavor you wanted from the nuts.
That's just my thoughts and where I would start. It's not like I have done it.

Yeah, BYO did an article a few issues ago. For their pecan doppelbock recipe it calls for oven-roasting them at 350 for 5-10 minutes then crushing them and adding to the mash. I'm sure there are many different ways to get the flavor into the beer, though.

I sampled a homebrewed peanut butter cup porter from an acquaintance a while back. The aroma was dead-on Reese's Cups, but it didn't translate especially well into the flavor. It wasn't unpleasant, it just tasted like a run-of-the-mill brown porter. Unfortunately, I haven't seen him long enough since then to discuss what techniques he used.

Nightshade said:

So you want to dip your nuts in beer huh?

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You may want to wait until after you've cooled the wort or it would seriously hurt!

I have seen several recipe's that used roasted pecans that were roasted very slow in 3 stages, placed in a brown paper bag between roasting to help absorb the oil's, crushed, then added to the grain bill.

Definitely following this thread

I did a pecan porter awhile back that turned out quite nicely. Really need to get around to making it again.

I took 200g of pecan halves, and crushed them up a bit. Not too fine, just a bit of time with a rolling pin. I then threw the pecan halves on a cookie sheet lined with wax paper (don't recall what the wisdom was with the wax paper, but there was SOME reason for it), and threw them in the oven for 20 minutes@275F. I'm not sure if this time was optimal, but at the very least I think the temperature was right. After that I threw them in at the start of the mash, and they did the job from there. I would highly recommend you use them in the mash as well, as I don't think using them at a later stage will be beneficial. Yes, they were oily (incredibly so when I took them out of the oven), and yes they killed the beer's head retention, but I consider it to be a worthwhile sacrifice. Honestly I don't think there's any saving it doing this kind of thing; pecans in particular can just be so damn oily. The flavour was nicely balanced, so if you want a strong nutty flavour I'd suggest you increase the amount you throw in, and if you want it more a background note decrease it.

I'm going something similar with hazelnuts in a month or two; if this thread is still kicking I'll update it on how that went.

You can deaden the oilyness of nuts when roasting them by:

1 lining a large mixing bowl with a few layers of paper towels

2 covering bowl with lid (plate, whatever will keep the nuts from coming out)

3 then slowly toss the nuts inside (similar to when you toss wings in hot sauce)

4 pour the nuts out onto 1 layer of paper towels on a counter/cookie sheet and let sit for about 10 minutes.

I've had to do this for a few cooking recipes, and it works well. Just throw away the towels, or if you use a very large amount of nuts.. you might be able to ring out somet of the oils to use elsewhere

It works a lot better if you toss them multiple times during the roasting process, but also becomes very time consuming.

I might give this a try with the hazelnuts in the future. I have two concerns though:

1. How does this affect the flavour of the nuts?
2. Just how long would it take for this to actually be effective in preserving head retention? I mean, if people get nervous about a fraction of a drop of olive oil in a batch of beer, is this even a battle you can win?

You will still extract a good flavor from the nuts. It creates a subdued taste (I used it for sauces, and it kept the oil from separating in the final product) Which keeps the nuts from overpowering other flavors.

Far as head retention, I don't know, honestly. I imagine it will still affect it, but less oil should affect less, right?

I'm new to getting away from extract kits, so I can't offer any expertise to brewing with nuts, but It's the heat that will transfer flavors from the nuts, so based off of culinary experience, I agree you should put them in the mash and not a fermentation vessel.

Look for the Shiner Cheer clone thread under the Recipes/Ingredients forum. Within the first couple of responses, there is a description how to remove the oils from the pecans. Something with a saltwater soak and a vodka soak.

Make sure you wash them or it may end up being too salty. This goes for all kinds of nuts.

There is a recent (Oct 2012) BYO article about using nuts and seeds. Has good information about using and preparing nuts and a few recipes.
http://***********/component/resource/article/2611-brewing-gone-nuts

There's also a blog article about about "fat washing". I haven't seen this information anyhere else.
http://ryanbrews.blogspot.com/2011/10/fat-washing-using-fatty-or-oily-foods.html

Nice links, Bithead!

I have known people who used peanut butter powder and cocoa powder to make awesome peanut butter cup stouts. They were fantastic but since I usually make 25 gallon batches, I haven't made it myself. Not sure that I want 25 gallons of peanut butter cup stout after all.

Thanks for the info all! I was a little quick on the draw so it was too late to add them to the mash, but I toasted them and let them sit on a paper bag, them roasted them and let them cool. I tossed 1/2 a pound into the last 15 minutes of the boil, and a 1/2 pound into the primary.

After reading what everyones advice was I probably should have toasted them a couple of times to get the oils out and then roasted them, and then added them to the mash so they would have a good long time in contact with the heat to get the flavor out. Im hoping since i put half in the last 15 of the boil and half in the primary I will get good flavor, but I'll just have to wait and see how it turns out.

Will update when its finished!

Roadliner said:

Far as head retention, I don't know, honestly. I imagine it will still affect it, but less oil should affect less, right?

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To my understanding it's a pretty all-or-nothing situation with oils and head retention. Kinda like beer-clean glassware vs glassware with even the tiniest amount of residual soap/detergent left ofter, you're going to notice the difference pretty quickly.

Ultimately though, I still think the flavour you get from the nuts complete with their oils and the convenience of it all is probably worth the sacrifice of head retention in most situations people end up using 'em in. They usually end up in beers with pretty limited head formation in the first place, and unless you're throwing them in a beer that you absolutely must have maximum aroma release it's probably not that big of a deal. I could see taking the time to get rid of the oils for something like an IPA or some sort of Belgian beer, but for the usual brown ale or porter/stout? Dunno that it's worth the extra effort for a homebrewer.

So i just tasted the hydrometer sample from my pecan warmer yesterday. It finished at 1.010 and has a some nice warming alcohol too it. It tastes nice and malty but basically no pecan flavor

I am disappointed by the lack of pecan flavor but I am now determined to do this again and get it right. Im gunna try putting them in the mash next time and try a lighter base beer to let the pecan flavor shine through more (hopefully)

I've started experimenting by making my own extracts. First hazelnut, and now cashew and pecan.

With all three, I roasted until they started to taste like you think they should taste, then dump in a bottle with vodka and wait.

Hazelnut and cashew are pretty awesome, the vodka has soaked up a lot of flavor. Pecan is different, tasting that vodka leaves your mouth really dry, and is much more oily than the others.

I'd suggest making extracts, then adding extract at bottling time. The other reason I'd suggest not adding nuts hot side is that if the oil is actually a head killer, boiling it might mix it in with the wort. Adding nuts after cooling, you might get an oil slick on top, but you can just rack from underneath. If your going to try adding nuts to your brew, the two things that will help get flavor out is alcohol and time. Increasing either of those will help draw out alcohol soluble flavors.

TLDR. Please keep your nuts out of the beer.