Splitting up a batch for Ghost Chile Pepper Beer

So, I brewed a Fat Tire Clone a couple weeks ago. Had a nice primary ferment, down to gravity in a week. I decided I wanted to try to use some of the Ghost Chili peppers my neighbor gave me, since I can't even fathom putting them in any food that I would want touching my tongue!

What I did was rack off a growler full of the beer (64 oz), and added a single ghost chili pepper. I just racked the rest of the beer into a secondary carboy. Figured if I ended up not liking the pepper beer, I would still have 4 1/2 gallons of nice amber ale.

Its only been 5 days since adding the pepper. I tried it tonight and it was wayyy to hot for my tastes. So what I did was rack it to a bottling bucket, and then rack about another 1/2 gallon of the non-peppered beer into the bucket as well. Bottled that all up in 12 (12 oz) bottles, and added the little corn sugar tabs (4 per bottle). I took a taste of the last bit sitting in the bucket and it tasted pretty damned good if I do say so myself! I cant wait to see how it tastes when cold and carbed up! I think I may just leave the rest of the beer in secondary until then so if it is really good, I'll just add another 2 ghost chilis to it to create an entire batch!

Anyone else ever have any good (or bad) experiences with pepper beers?

i know after a year, the serrano peppers i used "melted". good beer, though

it cant be much worse than this bacon beer i had once. although it was good with eggs. :rockin:

If you are using actual ghost peppers aka bhut jolokia peppers, i dare say that it will be near undrinkably hot by the time you get to it. I had a hard time downing a red habanero beer i made last year. The level of heat in those is insane. I've eaten the ghost pepper and it's very good, but...the heat is...unbearable. You really need a high tolerance for capsaicin. Honestly, one pod is probably too hot for 10gallons let alone 1.

If you don't like the outcome, i'll gladly trade you some homebrews of my own for the stuff.

fineexampl said:

I've eaten the ghost pepper and it's very good,

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You are a god, dude.

I was thinking about growing a ghost pepper plant next year. I love the orange habaneros. I make a killer salsa with habs, garlic, lime juice, vinegar and salt. Is the bhut jolokia significantly hotter? I don't want to burn my buds so that I can't even taste the thing.

Sorry for straying here...

Since most folks say that pepper "heat" fades with aging, maybe you could make something REALLY crazy... say, a Barleywine or Russian Imperial Stout with enough malt and hops to balance out the heat, then age it for a long time and see what happens?

Basically, brew a batch of RIS or BW, then dump your growler of hot stuff into it after a week or so. Let it age in the fermenter for a few months, then bottle it and let it age for a few more months.

I imagine it will be a VERY interesting beer after enough time has passed. You could also add just TONS of malto-dextrine to a spicy-hot beer to balance it out.

grilljockey said:

You are a god, dude.

I was thinking about growing a ghost pepper plant next year. I love the orange habaneros. I make a killer salsa with habs, garlic, lime juice, vinegar and salt. Is the bhut jolokia significantly hotter? I don't want to burn my buds so that I can't even taste the thing.

Sorry for straying here...

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Orange habaneros are 150,000-325,000 scoville units ghost chillies are over a million scoville units =. I would love to see the one poster eat one.. I have three of them sitting on my desk right now for some brave soul at work that thinks he's a chill head.

fineexampl said:

If you are using actual ghost peppers aka bhut jolokia peppers, i dare say that it will be near undrinkably hot by the time you get to it. I had a hard time downing a red habanero beer i made last year. The level of heat in those is insane. I've eaten the ghost pepper and it's very good, but...the heat is...unbearable. You really need a high tolerance for capsaicin. Honestly, one pod is probably too hot for 10gallons let alone 1.

If you don't like the outcome, i'll gladly trade you some homebrews of my own for the stuff.

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I am about 98% positive that it is a bhut jolokia pepper. My neighbor is a chili nut, and I dont think he would lie about it, plus I looked up google images and it looked exactly the same. Plus the fact that since I touched the thing about a week ago, I havent been able to rub my eyes nose or mouth. And when i did actually taste it, I wanted to stick my whole face in a bucket of ice!

I'm hoping that I took the pepper out in time, and I think I did. The taste test I did with the diluted pepper beer before bottling was hot, but not unbearable. It was pretty good in fact. Wouldnt it be safe to say that the beer will not get hotter since there is no longer a pepper in contact with it?

Even if it is really hot, I am probably going to just give this to my uncle. He's the one who first got me into the idea of a pepper beer. But I appreciate the offer!

I love the flavor of peppers but I have not yet made any beer with one. I would like to try one first but I might just make a batch for grins and giggles.

kpr121 said:

I am about 98% positive that it is a bhut jolokia pepper. My neighbor is a chili nut, and I dont think he would lie about it, plus I looked up google images and it looked exactly the same. Plus the fact that since I touched the thing about a week ago, I havent been able to rub my eyes nose or mouth. And when i did actually taste it, I wanted to stick my whole face in a bucket of ice!

I'm hoping that I took the pepper out in time, and I think I did. The taste test I did with the diluted pepper beer before bottling was hot, but not unbearable. It was pretty good in fact. Wouldnt it be safe to say that the beer will not get hotter since there is no longer a pepper in contact with it?

Even if it is really hot, I am probably going to just give this to my uncle. He's the one who first got me into the idea of a pepper beer. But I appreciate the offer!

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Yeah, I doubt that it will get any hotter, and may lesson if you let it age for a long time. Though this style probably doesn't need any aging. Most pepper beers I've had have been conditioned/aged on the peppers, with some even including a pepper in each bottle.

grilljockey said:

You are a god, dude.

I was thinking about growing a ghost pepper plant next year. I love the orange habaneros. I make a killer salsa with habs, garlic, lime juice, vinegar and salt. Is the bhut jolokia significantly hotter? I don't want to burn my buds so that I can't even taste the thing.

Sorry for straying here...

Click to expand...

As was said, they rate well above 1,000,000 in scovilles. Hotter than pepper spray actually. If habs are torture for you, ghosties will destroy you. When i ate mine (homegrown) i was out of comission for about an hour and downed a quart of frozen yogurt and nearly a gallon of water. That did nothing for the endorphin high and dizziness though. Last years crop made me fall over in the kitchen while making them into hot sauce. So..yes. There's a huge difference.

kpr121 said:

I am about 98% positive that it is a bhut jolokia pepper. My neighbor is a chili nut, and I dont think he would lie about it, plus I looked up google images and it looked exactly the same. Plus the fact that since I touched the thing about a week ago, I havent been able to rub my eyes nose or mouth. And when i did actually taste it, I wanted to stick my whole face in a bucket of ice!

I'm hoping that I took the pepper out in time, and I think I did. The taste test I did with the diluted pepper beer before bottling was hot, but not unbearable. It was pretty good in fact. Wouldnt it be safe to say that the beer will not get hotter since there is no longer a pepper in contact with it?

Even if it is really hot, I am probably going to just give this to my uncle. He's the one who first got me into the idea of a pepper beer. But I appreciate the offer!

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I'm sure if he's a chilehead it's legit. Only retailers will try and fake the names of peppers, not the people eating them.

As to taking it out in time, only time will tell. Capsaicin is not water soluble, but it IS soluble in alcohol. You've piqued my interest in a chile beer again though. I have a good lot of chocolate habaneros i should use in a stout. Too bad i'm brewing a wit next (i actually use cayenne in my wit recipe).

You need to follow this up the next time you have a more formal tasting.

Headline from an Australian article about ghost chiles: "When you eat it, it's like dying"

Welp... its been a few weeks and I decided to pop a bottle and give this beer a try. Left in the fridge for 2 days before opening ---- OUCH! It is a bit too much for my tastes. The first few sips are really tasty, but anything after that is just HOTT! I'm hoping that some more time conditioning will cool these bad boys down, but I have my reservations. If they dont, I'll just have to give them all the neighbor who I swear puts chili's in his fruit loops.

I'm so glad I found this thread. I hope it isn't necro-bumping, but it fits exactly the question I have ( and the thread isn't that old...).

i have a friend who likes to eat hot things. He had a party once where the main event was him eating a couple of bhut jolokia peppers. He had tears in his eyes. It was great.

Anyways, I have tasted some of his strange hot pepper recipes (Ever tried a spicy chocolate sauce?) and want to brew up a batch, and toss in a few of his peppers in part of it.

What style of beer do you think would achieve my goal of melting his head and making him hurt?

unionrdr said:

Maybe a porter with 3-4 cut ghost chilies in it. And some hot chili powder. Maybe some fresh cracked black pepper? Maybe even a lil cocoa & spices? Just a little on the chili powder & cracked pepper. That ought to fry his eyeballs in their own juices. Turn his cheeks to molten cellophane. Crack the enamel on his teeth,while his ears stat smokin. lolz

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Eyeball frying and tooth cracking is exactly what I going for!:rockin:

Perhaps a touch of cinnamon to open the pores on the tongue?

I also guess I should soak the pepper in vodka or something too, to kill all the bad bugs it may have on it. Or should the hot juice in the pepper make it sanitized?

StittsvilleJames said:

Eyeball frying and tooth cracking is exactly what I going for!:rockin:

Perhaps a touch of cinnamon to open the pores on the tongue?

I also guess I should soak the pepper in vodka or something too, to kill all the bad bugs it may have on it. Or should the hot juice in the pepper make it sanitized?

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Cinnamon to open up the pours on the tongue? More like prepare the taste buds for the coming onslaught! You're a sick man! Me like! But,IMO,all those skovel units should make'em safe to take the plunge. I say,do iiit! Do it now! hahahehehoho...

unionrdr said:

Cinnamon to open up the pours on the tongue? More like prepare the taste buds for the coming onslaught! You're a sick man! Me like! But,IMO,all those skovel units should make'em safe to take the plunge. I say,do iiit! Do it now! hahahehehoho...

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The heat probably would kill any bugs, but soaking in vodka is not a bad idea. Just in case.

KPR121, how did you prepare the chili before adding, just cut it up, or ground it up?

Thanks,
Martin