Habanero beer with too much heat. Ruined?

My roommate has been using my equipment to brew a few beers, and he occasionally asks questions and gets my help. This time he made a habanero mango pale ale. He used a few pounds of fruit and 15(!) habaneros. Today was supposed to be bottling day but upon sampling the beer he discovered there was too much heat. I sampled it and I don't know what to tell him. Is there a way to try and salvage it? I thought maybe aging it a little on some oak chips, and he was wondering about a way to sweeten it.

Has anyone ever had this problem and been able to salvage the batch? I'm willing to try just about anything, I hate pouring beer out...

Well if your talking back sweeting from what i can tell its harder then it sounds to get right. How long has it been sitting? Habanero? Thats gotta be warm! Im wondering if more fruit was added if it would take some heat off. Others on forum would know and i would like to know myself.

You could keep it in a secondary fermenter long enough to brew another batch sans habanero and use that to dilute the orginal. That said, even seven habaneros would be pretty spicy in my estimation.

Might have to make a lot of secondary batches to thin that heat out. Tasted a habanero ale at at the LHBS yesterday that was three peppers in a five gallon batch, had a good bite. Can't imagine fifteen in the same volume. Could use it to marinade some kick-ass salsa....

Thanks for the input so far guys. We don't mind a little heat, but currently this has some major heat. Any other crazy ideas out there? I think he's already getting discouraged with brewing and I don't want him to give up.

I'd be willing to try unorthodox methods at this point, I mean if its undrinkable we may as well have fun with it!

Don't pour it out. At the very least you can bottle it and then open one at a time and mix with other beer as you like. Say, one bottle in a pitcher of other beer might be good.

My problem is that heat is subjective. I have an asbestos mouth, so I don't know. I've heard 1 Hab per 5 gallons is notable, I've heard 3 per 5 gallons is very mild, or I've heard 3 per 5 gallons is too much. But I've never heard of using 15 per 5 gallons, and unless you like a lot of fire, that's definitely too much.

As for yours, as others have said you could repurpose as a marinade, but I'd probably ferment another batch with the same recipe, sans peppers, and blend.

I'm planning a chili pepper smoked porter I'll split into five separate one gallon secondaries, where I'll add Jalapenos in one (I'm debating 3-5), Serranos in another (2-4), Habaneros in the third (1/2-1), Ghost Chilis in the 4th (1), and then the 5th with all four (one each). I've never done a pepper beer before, so I'm not sure what ratios to use. The goal is flavor and mild heat in the first two, strong but not overpowering heat in the third, and then pure fire in the Ghost ones. I'm not worried on the heat in the last two, since I'll likely be the only one drinking them anyway, but I'd like to avoid overpowering the first three I'd like to share with others.

Habanero mango pale ale?

Good grief. What is this, a Buffalo Wild Wings commercial?

You could try cooking the beer down to a reduction and using said reduction as a hot wing sauce or even applying some of said reduction as an addition to some of your next boiling wort.

CGVT said:

Habanero mango pale ale?

Good grief. What is this, a Buffalo Wild Wings commercial?

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Yeah, it'll be ready in two minutes

Backsweetening can help, but you need kegs to do it. Since you have to kill the yeast if you're gonna add wort or sugar to kill the heat.

You could add a non-fermentable, but they're gonna add a whole new element to the brew. Lactose and Malto-Dextrine are the most often used.

I'm afraid the amount of sugar to kill the heat is gonna be substantial and unpleasant. I think the best bet is to brew another batch of the same brew w/o the habaneros and blend them. You can experiment with the amount of dilution by adding water or a neutral beer (Keystone) and get a good guess to the dilution rate to make it pleasant. Pull off a quart and make up some dilutions and see what you may need to do.

getatme11 said:

I think he's already getting discouraged with brewing and I don't want him to give up.

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Get him Brewing Classic Styles and tell him to cool it with the crazy ingredient beers until he has at least a handful of basic batches down.

If you guys are in college or something, even if your not. they'd be an awesome prank on friends.

How did you prepare the habaneros and did you boil them?

The last citra IPA I did, I added a 1/4 of a seeded jalapeno in about 12 bottles. I got a little heat but great flavor.

I mean.... I'm not sure what he expects, If you do potentially stupid things with no research, usually you get stupid out comes. Its very rare that it will come out in your favor. A quick post on here, I'm thinking about adding 15 habaneros to my beer, and within minutes you would get an answer.

What about using something like citric acid? I know that when eating something spicy, sucking on a lemon/lime/orange/etc knocks down some of the heat. Not sure if it would have the same effect if added directly to something hot.

I love hot peppers.. My dehydrator is full of ghost and habs from my garden right now. That said I have always wanted to make a chili beer until I tasted one. It was awful. Does anyone have a good recipe they would be willing to share? I can eat habs, but the ghosts get turned into pepper jelly or ground up and a TINY bit sprinkled on food, so nothing tongue blistering.

The jalapeno ale I did a few months ago retained its pepper flavor, but lost a fair amount of heat after a couple of months in the bottle. This brew might do the same- maybe bottle at least a few of them as they are and see if it mellows over time.

WOW...
Ive done a 1 gallon chile ale with a de-seeded habenero for about 3 weeks and i thought that was alot of heat
can even imagine what this tastes like. on that note i love spicy food so i would prob use it as a marinade/injection of some sort

Ok we know chilli and chocolate go well ( infact the chilli is moderated by chocolate) and we know chocolate and alcohol go well together, so if you are at the point of ditching it then I'm going to suggest heating some up and using it to make an experimental chilli beer hot chocolate - what's the worst that can happen?

Habanero's in beer?? Blasphemy !!!.............lol

dstranger99 said:

Habanero's in beer?? Blasphemy !!!.............lol

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At least it's not bacon.

Blending is the easiest way to fix it but as somebody else said, you probably need a lot of beer to make that habanero beer drinkable.

AndrewD said:

Get him Brewing Classic Styles and tell him to cool it with the crazy ingredient beers until he has at least a handful of basic batches down.

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He made a very good dunkel about a year ago that I was helping him with every step of the way. Then he made something on his own and I said I'd only help if he asked for specific help, and it ended up with an infection. This is his third go at it and I've told him several times to visit this site or just google some stuff and find out answers before he wastes time and money. In the end he gets an idea, gets excited and has to make it ASAP.

I guess now I'm stuck helping him with damage control instead of drinking the beer this time.

I may suggest taking a few samples and trying what's already been suggested here. Thanks for the ideas and may my horror story encourage you all to be wary of peppers!

Capsaicin, the compound that puts the hot in the peppers, is alkaline, and can thus be neutralized and broken down in the presence of acids. Bug the beer with some Pediococcus and Lactobacillus, then come back in six months or so, once that delicious lactic acid tang has had a chance to develop and take out some of the heat.

OK, maybe I have no idea how/if that would work, but you did ask for off-the-wall ideas... maybe something a little more sane would be to skip the carbonation and just bottle it up flat, then add it a few bottles at a time to future batches in secondary or at bottling time.

You need a mod to change the thread title to

Habanero: Beer ruined.

And let this thread be a warning to all...

Habanero's go very well in pungent IPA's. The spicyness balances the hops extremely well. I have had several that were extremely delicious, albeit in single beer quantities.

Bear Republic Racer 5 Habanero Cask & Sculpin IPA Habanero were both top notch.

Eh, they go well with it. Not in it.

Now brautwurst, that's different story...

feinbera said:

Capsaicin, the compound that puts the hot in the peppers, is alkaline, and can thus be neutralized and broken down in the presence of acids. Bug the beer with some Pediococcus and Lactobacillus, then come back in six months or so, once that delicious lactic acid tang has had a chance to develop and take out some of the heat.

OK, maybe I have no idea how/if that would work, but you did ask for off-the-wall ideas... maybe something a little more sane would be to skip the carbonation and just bottle it up flat, then add it a few bottles at a time to future batches in secondary or at bottling time.

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If there is any degree of certainty this would do anything beneficial I'd consider doing it, but I fear this may only escalate the problem. Having a sour, spicy beer doesn't seem more appealing than spicy beer.

If I convince him to try a "Frankenstein creation" I'll post the results.

Habanero is beer is possible if done right. I recently did a chipotle habanero blonde ale that was epic. Problem is it can be easily over done. I only used one habanero and I love hot/spicy food. I think some previous posts are right, definitely don't dump it, blend or use for salsa/marinade

I know this thread is a couple weeks old, but it fits my situation...
I recently brewed a chipotle ale and used a package of chipotles I picked up at a mercado, about 8 or 9 in the pack. Split all of em, and soaked them in about a cup or 2 of vodka in a mason jar for a couple weeks, then threw all that into secondary for a couple more weeks. Uhm... a bit too hot, great flavor, but maybe one or two pints is about all I can do which surprised me as I am a big fan of heat.

I am thinking about brewing another base batch then blending before kegging it... Any other ideas and anyone know if the heat will dissipate over time?

thx

RobertRGeorge said:

Don't pour it out. At the very least you can bottle it and then open one at a time and mix with other beer as you like. Say, one bottle in a pitcher of other beer might be good.

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+1 This ^.

15 in a 5 gal batch, all I can say is Holly Habanero Batman!

Cheers

dmob29 said:

I know this thread is a couple weeks old, but it fits my situation...
I recently brewed a chipotle ale and used a package of chipotles I picked up at a mercado, about 8 or 9 in the pack. Split all of em, and soaked them in about a cup or 2 of vodka in a mason jar for a couple weeks, then threw all that into secondary for a couple more weeks. Uhm... a bit too hot, great flavor, but maybe one or two pints is about all I can do which surprised me as I am a big fan of heat.

I am thinking about brewing another base batch then blending before kegging it... Any other ideas and anyone know if the heat will dissipate over time?

thx

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Tone down on the chipotles. You can always try a recipe, if its not enough heat, then add more chiles. Starting off with 8-9 peppers doesn't give you a good baseline. Now you just have 4+ gallons of hot ass beer. Start small and work your way up

raptorkeeper89 said:

Tone down on the chipotles. You can always try a recipe, if its not enough heat, then add more chiles. Starting off with 8-9 peppers doesn't give you a good baseline. Now you just have 4+ gallons of hot ass beer. Start small and work your way up

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I totally get that for the next one. This was a recipe from a friend and either I missed it or he didn't say how much to use... so I used the whole package!

Learning has occurred.

chalmer9 said:

Shocking. A habanero beer that's too hot. People just try too hard. Tell him to make normal freaking beer and that probably won't happen.

What's next, a thread complaining that their ground beef beer tastes too much like a hamburger? ...smh....

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Nice, you chastise someone for trying "too hard" in a hobby where experimentation is a good part of the allure in my opinion. Not to mention several large craft breweries have made a pretty good business at trying hard to create something new, such as Stone, Rogue and Boston Beer Co to name a few.

Please enlighten all of us with your wisdom on what you refer to as a "normal freaking beer".

You've been brewing for about a year and I hope you are enjoying what you are doing. You don't have to share your thoughts on what you feel is a normal beer, but I would like to point out you have actually ventured out of the normal range (in my opinion) with a pumpkin beer that you imply you made.

You also mentioned that you "...look forward to learning more and more off these forums." but your previous post in this thread doesn't help anyone and is hypocritical based on your comment I quoted from a thread that you started.

1 more to solidify the point I'm trying to make... Brew Club Meeting

Bottom line, if you feel the need to be a ******, do it somewhere else.

Because a lemongrass wheat is right down the middle of the road....

5 habaneros made TOO much heat for some hardcore chili heads. 15 is insane.

Use it for marinade....there. Saved it.

15 Habaneros for a 5 gallon batch?! Damn. My recipe is good with one medium sized Habanero or 2 small habaneros. I can't even imagine 15. I hate to say it, but it's most likely ruined.

I agree with the people saying to make a salsa or a marinade out of it. Could get some good flavors.

I have read before that for chili you can cut the heat by adding peanut butter, brown sugar, or cocoa powder. Don't know that any of those could be of use in a beer, but just thinking out loud hoping it inspires other thoughts.