Looking for advice for Habanero/Serrano IPA

I want to brew a habanero or serrano IPA, but I have not been able to find much info from HBT users on when they add habanero and how much.

I have not decided on a final IPA recipe, but I plan to brew an american style, 6 gallon batch and use WLP 001 yeast.

Any advice on when to add the habanero, how many and how to prepare prior to adding would be helpful.

Thanks everyone.

It depends what level of heat you are going for. I did a habanero stout a while back. I put 1/5 of a habanero in each bottle. Over time the beer got VERY hot.

You can treat peppers like hops. You can put them in the boil or in the secondary. If you take either of these approachs you will get consistent heat across all your bottles. The way I did it some of the bottles where hotter than others. If you go with putting the chilies in the secondary you can sample the brew ever so often and take it off the chilies once it's hot enough.

I have not used habaneros but I have used scotch bonnets which are closely related, I add them whole to the boil with 15 minutes left, and transfer to the primary. 4-5 will give you noticeable flavor/heat, double that would probably make it undrinkable for folks with low tolerance for heat.