Chile Beer Help

I'm planning on brewing a chile beer this weekend for SWMBO for Cinco de Mayo. I found a recipe that calls for 1 pound of roasted green chiles. I'm looking more for a nice chile flavor and not so much heat that you can't drink it. The recipe is very vague on how to handle the chiles besides roasting them. I'm planning on sanitizing them in a small pot of boiling water and then adding chiles and water to my fermenter. Would you recommend cutting up the peppers or leaving them whole? I had thought about putting them in a grain bag to minimize any seeds and pieces. Any help would be appreciated.

Depends on how many you have and how hot you want it.

If you just want a pepper flavor then remove the seeds and veins.

Want more heat leave in the veins.

I have a Serrano pepper conditioing and only used 8 peppers. I'm sure it's nowhere near a pound.

Even better, take your 1 lb and cut it all up and boil in 1/2 gal water. That'll leave you with a HOT A$$ liquid that'll burn the nose hairs. Add it to the primary until it's hot enough then add yeast.

Ive tried to make the same chili beer twice now. If you arent looking for heat, I would do as HB_99 says and remove the seeds. Either way I would cut them up.

The last time I did this recipe, I used Anneheim and Serrano. I cant drink them. I use them for cooking.

Use peppers that you like the taste of, and use them sparingly. I like the idea of making a tea, but I think I would add it to secondary or even at bottling.

Good luck, and post your recipe and how it turns out.

- magno

Normally I would agree to add it to the secondary, but there are a lot of pepper "oils" that somehow need to be mixed in.

I added at bottling time once and overnight I had strings of contamination floating insode the bottle. I dumped the batch.