Brewing 2.5 Gal Jalapeno Pale Ale - Need help!

Hey everyone,

I'm excited to get some more brew sessions under my belt, so I'm going to be picking up some ingredients for a regular pale ale after work. I'm going to split the 5 gallon batch into two, 2.5 gallon batches. One will be done without modifications to the recipe and the other I'm going to try and do a jalapeno addition.

I live in Charlotte, NC and Birdsong Brewing Company did a fantastic Jalapeno Ale using an infuser. Apparently for an entire batch they used only two peppers. Since I'm planning on either a) adding the peppers at flameout or b) racking over them into secondary, I was wondering how many I should use. I've looked around and asked people but I always get different answers. Most agree than I need to slice and clean them out, but I've heard people suggest a lot and some suggest just using a couple.

If I were to add to flameout and to secondary, how many should I use for a 2.5 gallon batch? What about if I just added to secondary? In the end my goal is to make a beer with lots of jalapeno flavor but not a lot of heat, if that helps.

Thanks in advance!
Mark

If you want lots of jalapeno flavor, I'd add at flameout or even boil for a little while. Any reason you aren't boiling them longer?

If you don't get enough flavor from your flameout addition, rack onto more and just keep sampling every couple of days. You could also make an extract by soaking some peppers in vodka and then dumping that in.

To keep heat out, make sure you really eliminate all the stem, pith, and seeds.

The one batch I did was a 2.5 gallon batch of Chipotle Stout. I added two whole chipotle peppers to the secondary for a week. It ended up being WAY to spicy...I was hoping for more of the smoke flavor. I would recommend removing the seeds if you don't want the heat. I stuck the bottles in my closet for 6 months now and the heat is finally starting to fade, maybe a few more months until it's drinkable.

For only 2.5 gallons you'd probably only need a couple. If you want more flavor than heat be sure to not only seed them, but get as much of the pulpy membrane as possible there's a good bit of heat in that as well.

Also get a few peppers and try a bit of each and pick the ones with the least heat. Not all peppers are the same including the same variety. Peppers that get less water while growing have more heat. I've come across jalapenos just as hot a varieties that in generally exceed them.

For a variation you could also try pablanos. Then you may only need one. Also there's not much residual heat (if any, I eat a lot of spicy food so...) the pepper beyond the seeds and membrane.

If you use a pablano you may need to add it just a bit before flameout. They might not have a texture much different than other peppers, but they take a surprising amount of time to get just right when cooking with them.

i have brooklyn brew shops book and they have 2 jalapeno saison recipes, one mild one spicey, both of them use 1 jalapeno per gallon and call for it to be seeded and chopped however the spicy version also calls for 1 pound of candi sugar and 1 2/3 cups of agave nectar during the boil and they say the added sugar and thus increased alcohol content brings out additional spicyness from the jalapeno so it seems to key to making it not too too spicy is to watch the sugar content.